Author: Wladimir J. van der Laan 2019-05-02 08:11:03
Published on: 2019-05-02T08:11:03+00:00
Bitcoin Core version 0.18.0 is now available for download, offering new features, bug fixes, performance improvements, and updated translations. Users are advised to report bugs to the issue tracker at GitHub and subscribe to receive security and update notifications. The upgrade process requires older versions to be shut down and the installer to be run on Windows or `/Applications/Bitcoin-Qt` to be copied over on Mac, or `bitcoind`/`bitcoin-qt` to be copied over on Linux. Compatibility is supported and extensively tested on operating systems using the Linux kernel, macOS 10.10+, and Windows 7 and newer. It is not recommended to use Bitcoin Core on unsupported systems.Numerous build system changes were made, including upgrading zeromq to 4.2.5 and avoiding deprecated zeromq API functions. Various bug fixes are included in this release, such as fixing asynchronous open wallet call order and increasing timeout downloading scripts and tools. There were also several other changes made to fix shutdown order, correct units for "-dbcache" and "-prune," change the receive button to respond to keypool state changing, fix `m_assumed_blockchain_size` variable value, and more. Bitcoin Core developers have been busy with many QA and testing-related tasks recently. Issues such as appveyor clean-up, deprecation fixes in bitcoin-util-test.py, replacing usage of tostring() with tobytes(), adding appveyor ci, fetching the latest port data, warnings on spelling errors, integration of property-based testing into Bitcoin Core, fixing silent merge conflicts, speeding up `knapsack_solver_test`, using MakeUnique to construct objects owned by `unique_ptrs`, improving scripts for appveyor and Travis, and much more have all been addressed. The context also includes a list of recent updates and improvements made to the Bitcoin Core software. These updates include modifications to various scripts, the addition of tests for invalid message headers and RPC wallet errors, and the implementation of new features. There were also changes made to improve platform support, such as the use of `_wfopen` and `_wfreopen` on Windows, and the removal of some magic mining constants in functional tests. Additionally, there were updates to the travis build system, including enabling functional tests in the threadsanitizer build job and compiling once on trusty. Other changes included fixing races in `mempool_accept` and `p2p_invalid_messages`, adding missing `cs_main` locks required when accessing pcoinsdbview, pcoinsTip or pblocktree, and removing manual byte editing in `wallet_tx_clone` func test. There were also updates made to improve performance, such as always refreshing cache to be out of ibd and bumping timeout on tests that timeout on windows.Version 0.17.0 of the original cryptocurrency wallet has been released, which includes a range of improvements and bug fixes. The upgrade introduces a 'block file pruning' feature that allows users to reduce the data needed to run the software by removing old block files. It also adds support for output script descriptors, allowing users to label multi-signature wallets for more straightforward management. Other features include an update to the minimum version of Windows supported to Windows 7, improved logging of error messages, and better handling of low-level cryptography libraries. Additionally, Bitcoin Core v0.17.0 includes 135 individual contributors, making it one of the largest updates in terms of contributors.Finally, there are updates to the documentation and code of the Bitcoin Core software. These updates include clarifications to descriptors.md, RPC rawtransaction documentation, torpassword documentation, and the -rpcauth option password hashing algorithm. There are also changes made to security-check.py, developer-notes.md, files.md, and netaddress, among others. In addition, there are updates to the minimum required Qt version, improved Windows native build instructions, and a new table added to files.md. There are also various updates to the documentation, such as updates to FreeBSD build notes in doc/README.md, information about factors that affect dependency lists, and an explanation of mempool memory being added to -dbcache. Additionally, there are changes to the release process for snap package and removal of the BerkeleyDB PPA from Linux build instructions. Finally, there were a number of contributors who helped with the release.
Updated on: 2023-05-20T20:16:41.552324+00:00