Magento 2.1.8 Update

Magento 2.1.8 was released on August 9 and is a larger update. It contains over 100 functional fixes and enhancements, some from the Magento community. It can be downloaded from GitHub, Composer or Magento software archive.

The highlights of the updated version are:

• Enhancements to static content deployment and generation
• Improvements to indexing of large catalogs, cache tuning and URL re-writes
• Performance optimization, less memory used by mass actions
• Faster deployments for multi-language sites

Overview of the changes

Catalog

• It’s now possible to create a custom attribute for a category that successfully uploads a custom image.
• The prices you assign to custom options no longer change unexpectedly after you save them.
• Magento now correctly displays product information after you perform an operation on more than one item.
• The currency switcher now works for widgets on the home page.
• The Category page now displays the correct total count of products.
• When you delete an image in Admin, Magento no longer deletes it on the server.
• Magento now displays the price for a product for the store view level only.
• The product image is now displayed correctly when the “product_image_white_borders” parameter isn’t enabled.
• The product attribute “category_ids” can have only Global scope.
• The Use default URL Key setting now works on the store-view level.
• Magento now displays the correct image when you switch between a configurable product’s options.
• It’s possible to set an SKU mask to empty.
• Magento now saves these changes correctly when you deselect one or more of a product’s multi-select attributes.
• Magento now correctly assigns images to duplicated products.
• You can now create a blank attribute option using the drop-down input option on products that do not require an attribute.
• Product link types are no longer hardcoded.
• Magento renders images correctly in the product description area.
• Magento preserves image transparency when resizing images.
• The value of “item_zone” on the product detail page now remains set correctly when you change products via the related/upsell products list.

Checkout

• You can complete your order after entering a new shipping address during checkout.
• Shipping method radio buttons are no longer disabled when the Checkout page is refreshed.
• Magento now highlights in any red fields that are missing shipping information when you proceed to checkout.

Configurable products

• Magento no longer removes the simple products associated with a configurable product if you click on the Save button more than once while saving the configurable product.
• Magento now matches images to products.
• Magento displays both configurable and simple products, their attribute values, and visibility values after import if SKU is an integer.
• Magento now provides swatch input for the Admin Scope, and the attribute fall back mechanism now reverts to the default option value if no values are specified for specific store view.
• Color swatches are now replaced by images on the Catalog and Product pages.

General

• Reindexing no longer fails due to mmap memory allocation issues when reindexing many (1,000,000) customers.
• Magento now successfully uploads the thumbnail images for email logos that are used in transactional emails.
• Visual Merchandiser “Match products by rule” now works correctly.
• The Print Shipping Label link now displays on the product front end.
• Magento now displays Up-sells on the Product page.
• Magento no longer sends email when the Disable email communication setting is set to yes.
• The Cart Price rule now affects coupon life as expected.
• SalesRule now applies to auto-generated coupon codes correctly.
• Static file generation is no longer affected by a race condition that affected merging CSS files.
• Magento now supports negative values in Quantity field for a product.
• Magento now uses the address template from store view level of the placed order.
• Directive values can now be escaped with quotation marks.
• Magento no longer permits a shopper to place a re-order once you’ve disabled one of items in the order.
• We’ve updated UK mobile phone number validation.
• Cart Price rules are now applied as expected to payment method conditions.
• Customers can no longer apply a coupon code twice.
• Widgets now accept UTF-8 special characters type as input parameters.
• Magento now saves a new product rule when its SKU attribute is enabled for Use for Promo Rule Conditions.
• You no longer need to delete the URL rewrite to force Magento to display links after adding pages to the CMS hierarchy.
• Magento front-end scope filters now work as expected.
• You can now remove breadcrumbs without removing the page meta title from the category view and product view pages.
• The WYSIWYG editor now performs more consistently.
• The email logo image function now works correctly.
• The login popup window now works correctly in portrait mode on an iPad.
• Wishlists now display the correct product price.
• We’ve fixed a JavaScript error on Product page that prevented Magento from updating color swatches or updating product prices as expected.
• We resolved an issue where interface constructors broke Magento compilation.
• You can now set a negative quantity for a product.
• Magento no longer caches layered navigation options with the wrong store ID.
• Magento now correctly displays user names that exceed 20 characters.
• You can now upload .apng and .ico images as fav icons as expected.
• Clicking Insert image twice on the Add Banner page works now without an issue.
• Dynamic dragging-and-dropping of rows now works as expected.
• Resolved issue with selecting widgets in TinyMCE.
• The Store Configuration page now loads templates for Change Email and for Change Email and Password forms.

Import/Export

• The update fixed an issue where product URL keys (for SKUs) were not auto-generated correctly during import.
• Magento improved the import speed of advanced pricing data.
• Magento now maintains super attribute ordering of configurable products with multiple super attributes after export or import.
• Magento now exports rows only once when product information contains HTML special characters.
• Magento now imports customer data as expected after the data passes the pre-import validation step.
• Magento now allows comma-separated X-Forwarded-For headers.

Installation and deployment

• Static content deployment (SCD) now works as expected when multiple languages are specified.
• Static content deployment now generates secure content.
• Magento now moves the “sequence_*” table to the correct database after implementing a split database.
• You can now upgrade Magento 2.0 to version 2.1.x when the “auto_increment” setting in the database is greater than 1.
• The “setup:di:compile” command works now as expected.
• Nginx now redirects to the setup page when using port 81.
• Configuration values no longer return NULL when Redis reaches the limit set in the “max_memory” setting.

Order management

• We’ve improved the performance of page loading when the order page contains many items.
• Only users with permission to view a store can view or process the orders placed on it.
• The purchase date of an order is now displayed in the default time zone of the store and is the same date that is displayed in the Order creation page.
• Magento no longer generates incorrect URLs in the site map when the Use Secure URLs in Adminsetting is set to Yes.
• Free shipping promotions no longer apply after you’ve removed the item that qualified for free shipping from your order.
• Magento now correctly identifies an order being processed when it is placed in a store configured for multiple currencies.

Payment methods

• Magento now permits you to run reference transactions in a different currency than the currency that the authorization uses.
• Magento now displays payment information when you review an order from the Magento Admin.
• PayPal Express payments no longer fail when there is adequate product inventory to cover your order.

Performance

• We’ve optimized the performance of mass actions resulting in faster response time and reduced memory usage.
• Magento improved checkout speed by removing unused Widget JS, Widget Configuration, and regions based on your stores configuration to reduce asset load on checkout pages.
• The algorithm that controls how URL rewrites on the Category Save page are processed.

Quotes

• Magento now correctly defines extension attributes for a quote billing address

Reports

• The website column in Customer Segment report now contains correct data.
• You can now export the Low Stock report as expected.

Search

• Segmentation faults no longer occur when doing a “catalogsearch_fulltext” re-index, and indexing succeeds.
• Sorting configurable products by price now works correctly.
• Out-of-stock items no longer erroneously appear in results of layered navigation if that product option is out-of-stock.
• You can render the “tax_class_id” attribute nonsearchable.

Shipping methods

• The update resolved an issue where Magento did not display applicable flat-rate USPS box methods during checkout.
• You can now apply free shipping to a specified shipping method when you create order in the Admin.

Tax

• Magento now calculates tax and order totals as expected when a discount is used for prices that include tax and catalog prices excluding tax.

Web API

• You can now use REST to successfully update customer information as expected.
• You can now use REST to add video to a product description.

More information and the official post can be found in the Magento DevDocs.

Keep in mind to backup the website before updating!