phpBB 3.0.6 released

Hello,

We are very pleased to announce the availability of the phpBB "Fast and Furrious" 3.0.6 package. This release fixes numerous bugs, introduces some major features, as well as improves stability and performance. Furthermore, the internal updater has been updated to detect and solve most conflicts, resulting in a reduction of necessary manual interaction by administrators.

Please note that we urge you to update. phpBB 3.0.6 fixes bugs being quite important for a smooth operation of your forums. With this release our support team will only give support for phpBB 3.0.6, updates to phpBB 3.0.6 and conversions to phpBB 3.0.6. Submissions to our trackers for older versions will not be accepted, please make sure you update/upgrade before you submit a bug report.

If you use a different language pack than the one provided with the download packages you may find already updated language packs for your language within our downloads section.

For a complete list of changes with attributed ticket numbers, please consult our comprehensive changelog. The list below is only a selection of the most important changes in phpBB 3.0.6.

A list of major new features implemented in phpBB 3.0.6

Better captcha options and backported 3.2 captcha plugins:

Classic and GD CAPTCHA
reCaptcha (based on API from recaptcha.net by Mike Crawford and Ben Maurer)
Q&A CAPTCHA
3D Wave (by Robert "Xore" Hetzler)

Introduced new ACM (Cache) plugins. (Please consult our support forums for help if you need to use one of the new ACM plugins)

null (to disable caching completely)
memcache
APC
XCache
eAccelerator
ATOM Feeds
Bare-bones Quick Reply editor in viewtopic
Users can report PMs to moderators which are then visible in a new MCP module
Ability to copy permissions from one forum to several other forums.
Send anonymous statistical information to phpBB on installation and update (optional)

A non-comprehensive list of minor feature additions to phpBB 3.0.6

Add language selection to the registration terms page. (Patch by leviatan21)
New groups option to excempt group leaders from group permissions (allows leading groups having NEVER permissions).
New "Newly Registered Users" group for assigning permissions to newly registered users. They will be removed from this group once they reach a defineable amount of posts.
Ability to define if the "Newly Registered Users" group will be assigned as the default group to newly registered users.
Add new option to disable avatars board-wide. (Patch by cYbercOsmOnauT and nickvergessen)
Add unapproved topic icon for moderators on forum list.
Ability to define minimum number of characters for posts/pms.
Detect if a post has been altered by someone else while editing.
Add unread posts quick search option.
Add option to disable avatar uploads from remote locations.
Ability to delete warnings and keep warnings permanently.
Ability to empty a user's outbox from the user ACP quick tools.
Ability to search ACP/MCP logs.
Parse email text files with the template engine.
Added new functionality to inactive users module:

Ability to set users per page.
Ability to sort by posts/number of reminders/last reminded date.
Show number of posts and ability to search posts.
Show number of reminders sent to user.
Show date of last reminder sent to user.
Display version check on ACP main page.
Ability to control the display of custom profile fields on viewtopic.
Fallback options for missing language files. (Patch by EXreaction)
Separate PM Reply and PM Reply to all in prosilver.
Place debug notices during captcha rendering in the error log - useful for debugging output already started errors.
Ability to define constant PHPBB_USE_BOARD_URL_PATH to use board url for images/avatars/ranks/imageset (useful for bridges and applications using phpBB).
Style authors are now able to define the default submit button used for form submission on ENTER keypress on forms using more than one submit button. Prosilver uses this for the posting page(s) and registration screen.
Ability to specify amount of time user is able to delete his last post in topic.

A non-comprehensive list of smaller changes implemented in phpBB 3.0.6

Change the data format of the default file ACM to be more secure from tampering and have better performance.
Template engine now permits variable includes to a limited extent.
Quote BBCode no longer requires the f_reply permission.
Banning/unbanning users now generates an entry in their user notes.
Smilies no longer require the f_bbcode permission.
Hide avatar when avatar-type is not allowed.
INCLUDEPHP paths are now relative to $phpbb_root_path.
"Post details" links with image in MCP.
PM history now only shows PMs of users you currently reply to.
Show quote button for own PMs in PM history.
Add pagination for icons and smilies in the ACP and smilies in the smiley popup.
Changed minimum requirement for Firebird DBMS from 2.0+ to 2.1+.
Unapproved topics can no longer be replied to.
Allow three-digit hex notation in Color BBcode.
Simplified login_box() and redirection after login. S_LOGIN_ACTION can now be used on every page.
Resize oversized topic icons.
Banned IPs are now sorted.
phpBB updater now skips sole whitespace/tab changes while computing differences. This reduces the chance of conflicts tremendously.
phpBB updater now solves common conflicts on its own. This further reduces the chance of conflicts.
Database updater now supports checking for existing/missing indexes.

A list of important bugfixes since phpBB 3.0.5

Show error in the ACP when template folder is not readable.
Correctly apply the can change vote permission again. Regression introduced in r9470.
Remove data from friend/foe table when deleting user.
Fix dynamic config update routine error if firebird is used
Fix saving custom profile fields in ACP if Oracle is used.
Make view_log() more resilient to corrupt serialized data.
Fix Oracle database backup and restore.
Update attachments table when deleting user and retaining his posts.
Correctly detect files in subfolders when viewing cached template files.
Do not throw an error when PDO is a shared module and not loaded preventing SQLite from being loaded.
Fix censoring of unicode words.
Do not remove recipients when loading private message draft.
Fix database updater and db tools to support multiple column changes/additions/removals with SQLite.
Posting smilies in view more smilies screen now works again in IE. (Patch by leviatan21)
Add ability to prune users who never logged in.
Fail gracefully if store folder is not writable during update.
Fix error with disapproval of topics having several queued posts only.
Preserve newlines in template files.
Be less strict with FTP daemons when getting directory filelists.
Fix set_custom_template for database-stored styles.
Do not send private message back to sender if sender is in the same group the private message was sent to.
Min/max characters per posts no longer affects poll options.
Do not try to create thumbnails for images we cannot open properly.
Apply locale-independent basename() to attachment filenames. New function added: utf8_basename(). (Patch by ocean=Yohsuke)
Adjust build_url() to not prepend $phpbb_root_path if path returned from redirect() is an URL. This fixes redirect issues with some installations and bridges.
Fix general error in registration, caused by an undefined $config variable in validate_referer(). (Patch by wjvriend)
Correctly extract column default value when exporting PostgreSQL tables..
Allow updater to work correctly with PHP filename extensions other than ".php".
Update search index if only post subject changed.
Prevent style switcher from blocking the tab key.
Fix email problems on servers with PHP installations not accepting RFC-compliant subject string passed to the mail()-function.
Only embed cron.php if there is no cron lock present to reduce overhead. (Patch by TerryE)
Send activation email when activating user from user settings.
Correctly display underlined links placed in last line in viewtopic. (Patch by primehalo)
Only check whether forum image exists if forum image is specified.
Fixed database updater for changes to columns having default value in MSSQL (adding/dropping constraints).

A short explanation of how to do a conversion, installation or update is included within the provided INSTALL.html file, please be sure to read it.

Minimum Requirements

phpBB3 has a few requirements which must be met before you are able to install and use it.

A webserver or web hosting account running on any major Operating System with support for PHP
A SQL database system, one of:

MySQL 3.23 or above (MySQLi supported)
PostgreSQL 7.3+
SQLite 2.8.2+
Firebird 2.1+
MS SQL Server 2000 or above (directly or via ODBC)
Oracle
PHP 4.3.3+ (>=4.3.3, >4.4.x, >5.x.x, >6.0-dev (compatible)) with support for the database you intend to use.
getimagesize() function need to be enabled
The optional presence of the following modules within PHP will provide access to additional features, but they are not required.

zlib Compression support
Remote FTP support
XML support
Imagemagick support
GD Support

The presence of each of these optional modules will be checked during the installation process.

Security

Security issues found should be reported to our security tracker in the usual way.

Available packages

If you experience problems with the automatic update (white screens, timeouts, etc.) we recommend using the "changed files only" or "patch" method for updating.

With this release, there are five packages available.

Full Package:
Contains entire phpBB3 source and english language files.
Automatic Update Package:
Update package for the automatic updater, containing the changes from previous release to this release.
Changed Files Only:
Contains only those files changed from previous versions of phpBB3. Please note this archive contains changed files for each previous release.
Patch Files:
Contains patch compatible patches from previous versions of phpBB3.
Code Changes Package:
Package contains changes to the following sections: Language changes, prosilver style changes and subsilver2 style changes.

Select whichever package is most suitable for you. As a tiny guide we recommend the following methods based on the requirements:

For a new installation you should use the Full Package
For updates of boards without modifications you can basically use the Automatic Update Package (guided update) or the Changed Files Only package (manual update).
For updates of boards with modifications you should use the Automatic Update Package. If you are confident with patch files and patching you can use the Patch Files Package.
Style Authors and Translators may use the Code Changes Package to update their styles or language packs directly.
International Support Teams may use the Patch Package in conjunction with the Code Changes to better support users having problems with conflicts or specific code sections.
If you are a hoster/provider, you may want to use the Patch Files Package to update all of your client installations.

Please ensure you read the INSTALL and README documents in docs/ before proceeding with installation, updates or conversions!.

Download Locations

You can of course find this download available on our downloads page.
Our release archive provides all packages we build. If you do not find the desired package you may want to have a look at the release archive.

Download/Documentation

phpBB Downloads
phpBB Projects page @ ohloh
phpBB3 Documentation
phpBB3 support forum
phpBB3 bug tracker
phpBB Code Forge
phpBB Code Wiki

Have fun with the release,
the phpBB Team