Koha 24.05.08 released

The Koha community is proud to announce the release of version 24.05.08.

This is a maintenance and security release and contains many bugfixes and enhancements.

As always you can download the release from:
https://download.koha-community.org

Installation instructions can be found at:

• Koha Wiki
• OR in the INSTALL files that come in the tarball

This is my second release as the 24.05.XX release maintainer.
Thank you very much to everyone involved in this release.

Please continue reading for the details this release.

Koha 24.05.08 includes 2 enhancements, 14 bugfixes and 2 security fixes.

System requirements

You can learn about the system components (like OS and database) needed for running Koha on the community wiki.

Security bugs

• 31165 “Public note” field in course reserve should restrict HTML usage

• 37784 Patron password hash can be fetched using report dictionary

  Sponsored by Reserve Bank of New Zealand

Bugfixes

Authentication

Critical bugs fixed

• 38826 C4::Auth::check_api_auth sometimes returns $session and sometimes returns $sessionID

  This fixes authentication checking so that the $sessionID is consistently returned (sometimes it was returning the session object). (Note: $sessionID is returned on a successful login, while $session is returned when there is a cookie for an authenticated session.)

Circulation

Other bugs fixed

• 38246 If using automatic return claim resolution on checkout, each checkout will overwrite the previous resolution

Command-line Utilities

Other bugs fixed

• 38382 Need a fresh connection when CSRF has expired for connexion daemon

  This fixes the OCLC Connexion import daemon (misc/bin/connexion_import_daemon.pl) – the connection was failing after the CSRF token expired (after 8 hours). It now generates a new user agent when reauthenticating when the CSRF token for the session has expired. (This is related to the CSRF changes added in Koha 24.05 to improve form security.)

I18N/L10N

Other bugs fixed

• 38707 Patron restriction types from installer files not translatable

  This fixes installer files so that the default patron restriction types are now translatable.

Installation and upgrade (command-line installer)

Critical bugs fixed

• 38750 Installer process not terminating when nothing to do

  This fixes the installation process – instead of getting “Try again” when there is nothing left to do (after updating the database structure) and not being able to finish, you now get “Everything went okay. Update done.”

MARC Bibliographic data support

Critical bugs fixed

• 32722 UNIMARC: Remove mandatory flag from some subfields and field in default bibliographic framework

  This updates the default UNIMARC bibliographic record framework to remove the mandatory flag from some subfields and fields.

  For UNIMARC, several subfields are only mandatory if the field is actually used (MARC21 does not have this requirement).

  A change made to the default framework by bug 30373 in Koha 22.05 meant that if the mandatory subfield was empty, and the field itself was optional (not mandatory), you couldn’t save the record.

  For example, if field 410 (Series) is used (this is an optional field), then subfield $t (Title) is required. However, the way the default framework was set up (subfield $t was marked as mandatory) you couldn’t save the record – as subfield $t was mandatory, even though the 410 is optional.

  As Koha is not currently able to manage both the UNIMARC and MARC21 requirements without significant changes, a practical decision was made to configure the otherwise mandatory subfields as not mandatory.

  Important note: This only affects NEW UNIMARC installations. Existing installations should edit their default UNIMARC framework to make these changes (although, it is likely that they have already done so).

Packaging

Other bugs fixed

• 33018 Debian package tidy-up

  This removes unneeded Debian package dependencies. Previously we provided them in the Koha Debian repository, but we no longer need to as they are now available in the standard repositories.

REST API

Other bugs fixed

• 38678 GET /deleted/biblios cannot be filtered on deleted_on

SIP2

Other bugs fixed

• 38486 No block checkouts are still blocked by fines, checkouts, and blocked item types

  This fixes SIP so that it allows noblock checkouts, regardless of normal patron checkout blocks.

  Explanation: The purpose of no block checkouts in SIP is to indicate that the SIP machine has made an offline (“store and forward”) transaction. The patron already has the item. As such, the item must be checked out to the patron or the library risks losing the item due to lack of tracking. As such, no block checkouts should not be blocked under any circumstances.

Tools

Critical bugs fixed

• 31450 HTML customizations and news will not display on OPAC without a publication date

  This fixes the display of news, HTML customizations, and pages on the OPAC – a publication date is now required for all types of additional content. Previously, news items and HTML customizations were not shown if they didn’t have a publication date (this behavour was not obvious from the forms).

  Sponsored by Athens County Public Libraries

Other bugs fixed

• 38452 Inventory tool barcodes should not be case sensitive

  This fixes the inventory tool so that it ignores case sensitivity for barcodes, similar to other areas of Koha such as checking in and checking out items (for example, ABC123 and abc123 are treated the same).

• 38531 Include action_logs.diff when reverting hold
  This fixes the holds log so that the diff now includes the changes when reverting a hold. (This was missed when the diff in JSON format feature was added to Koha 24.05 by bug 25159.).

Enhancements

Architecture, internals, and plumbing

Enhancements

• 36662 ILL – t/db_dependent/Illrequest should not exist
  

  This enhancement moves the ILL test files to the correct folder structure – t/db_dependent/Koha/ILL/.

• 38483 C4::Heading::preferred_authorities is not used

  This removes an unused method ‘preferred_authorities’ (Return a list of authority records for headings that are a preferred form of the heading).

  Sponsored by Ignatianum University in Cracow

Documentation

The Koha manual is maintained in Sphinx. The home page for Koha
documentation is

• Koha Documentation
  As of the date of these release notes, the Koha manual is available in the following languages:

• Armenian (hy_ARMN) (100%)

• Chinese (Traditional) (99%)
• English (100%)
• English (USA)
• French (63%)
• German (99%)
• Greek (97%)
• Hindi (71%)

The Git repository for the Koha manual can be found at

• Koha Git Repository

Translations

Complete or near-complete translations of the OPAC and staff
interface are available in this release for the following languages:

Partial translations are available for various other languages.

The Koha team welcomes additional translations; please see

• Koha Translation Info

For information about translating Koha, and join the koha-translate
list to volunteer:

• Koha Translate List

The most up-to-date translations can be found at:

• Koha Translation

Release Team

The release team for Koha 24.05.08 is

• Release Manager: Katrin Fischer

• Release Manager assistants:

  • Tomás Cohen Arazi
  • Martin Renvoize
  • Jonathan Druart

• QA Manager: Martin Renvoize

• QA Team:

  • Victor Grousset
  • Lisette Scheer
  • Emily Lamancusa
  • David Cook
  • Jonathan Druart
  • Julian Maurice
  • Baptiste Wojtowski
  • Paul Derscheid
  • Aleisha Amohia
  • Laura Escamilla
  • Tomás Cohen Arazi
  • Kyle M Hall
  • Nick Clemens
  • Lucas Gass
  • Marcel de Rooy
  • Matt Blenkinsop
  • Pedro Amorim
  • Brendan Lawlor
  • Thomas Klausner

• Security Manager: Tomás Cohen Arazi

• Topic Experts:

  • UI Design — Owen Leonard
  • REST API — Tomás Cohen Arazi
  • Zebra — Fridolin Somers

• Bug Wranglers:

  • Michaela Sieber
  • Jacob O’Mara
  • Jake Deery

• Packaging Manager: Mason James

• Documentation Manager: Philip Orr

• Documentation Team:

  • Aude Charillon
  • David Nind
  • Caroline Cyr La Rose

• Wiki curators:

  • George Williams
  • Thomas Dukleth
  • Jonathan Druart
  • Martin Renvoize

• Release Maintainers:

  • 24.11 — Paul Derscheid
  • 24.05 — Wainui Witika-Park
  • 23.11 — Fridolin Somers
  • 22.11 — Laura Escamilla

Credits

We thank the following libraries, companies, and other institutions who are known to have sponsored
new features in Koha 24.05.08

We thank the following individuals who contributed patches to Koha 24.05.08

We thank the following libraries, companies, and other institutions who contributed
patches to Koha 24.05.08

We also especially thank the following individuals who tested patches
for Koha

We regret any omissions. If a contributor has been inadvertently missed,
please send a patch against these release notes to koha-devel@lists.koha-community.org.

Revision control notes

The Koha project uses Git for version control. The current development
version of Koha can be retrieved by checking out the main branch of:

• Koha Git Repository

The branch for this version of Koha and future bugfixes in this release
line is 24.05.x.

Bugs and feature requests

Bug reports and feature requests can be filed at the Koha bug
tracker at:

• Koha Bugzilla

He rau ringa e oti ai.
(Many hands finish the work)

Autogenerated release notes updated last on 24 Mar 2025 08:05:00.