Upgrade 16.3 to 16.4

Overview

This guide describes how to upgrade a Bloomreach Content implementation from version 16.3.x to 16.4.y.

Significant Changes in 16.4

  • AI Content Assistant (BETA): Version 16.4.0 introduces the AI Content Assistant, powered by AI Content Assistant. This feature supports content editors with tasks such as generating metadata tags, creating multilingual content and translations, and performing grammar checks. To use this feature, you must configure an AI provider. Only OpenAI is supported in 16.4.
  • Document Lifecycle Visibility: The document information dialog now displays the depublicationDate and depublishedBy properties, giving editors more insight into document status.
  • LDAP Synchronization Retry: A retry mechanism has been added to LDAP synchronization. This change addresses issues where users could be removed from the JCR if LDAP communication fails during synchronization, improving system stability and data integrity.
  • Advanced Search Permissions: Advanced Search now allows users without hippo:editor privileges to select documents for custom workflows. A new configuration option in SearchViewPlugin aligns permission checks, enabling broader workflow management.
  • SLF4J Logging Upgrade: The SLF4J logging library has been upgraded from version 1 to version 2. See the instructions below for required changes.

For a complete list of changes, review the 16.4.0 release notes.

For details on patch releases, see the 16.4.1 release notes and 16.4.2 release notes.

Upgrade Steps

1. Perform Generic Minor Upgrade Steps

Follow the generic instructions for minor upgrades before proceeding with version-specific changes.

2. Update Log4j-SLF4J Bridging Library for SLF4J 2

SLF4J has been upgraded from 1.7.36 to 2.0.17, and Log4j from 2.23.1 to 2.24.3. This requires updating the bridging JAR from log4j-slf4j-impl (version 1) to log4j-slf4j2-impl (version 2). Because this JAR is located in Tomcat's shared library, you must update both Maven profiles and distribution configuration.

Perform the following steps in your codebase:

  • Replace all instances of log4j-slf4j-impl with log4j-slf4j2-impl. This change typically applies to the Maven profiles dist and dist-with-development-data, and the assembly file shared-lib-component.xml.
  • Search for the Maven property slf4j.version and replace it with slf4j2.version. In standard projects, this property may not be present.

Important:
During deployment, ensure that the old shared/lib/log4j-slf4j-impl.jar file is removed. The recommended approach is to delete the entire shared/lib directory and allow it to be repopulated.

3. Additional Step for 16.4.2

Version 16.4.2 introduces a performance improvement for the content tree in the content perspective. This improvement uses a new flag on folders.

  • Use the provided Groovy script to add the flag to existing content folders.
  • You can disable this improvement if necessary, for example, if your project uses many restricted folders or the legacy directory datatype.

For implementation details, see Use the Folder Tree Performance Improvement.

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