NodeBB v4.5.0 — dependency updates, refactors, and AP improvements

[julian@community.nodebb.org]

Today we released v4.5.0 of NodeBB, which contains a multitude of fixes, refactors, and several new AP-related features.

Dependency Updates

• connect-multiparty was replaced with multer for multi-part request body handling
• ioredis was replaced with node-redis as the former was deprecated with the latter being the recommended replacement

Chat and notification updates

• Administrators are now able to toggle the chat join and leave messages in chat rooms
• Clicking "mark all read" on the notification page now marks only those matching the filter, read

Analytics updates

• Page requests from ActivityPub now correctly increment the unique visitors metric

ActivityPub

• Top-level posts (OP) federating out now contain a summary of roughly the first 500 characters, instead of sending the entire post content
• Two-way Relay support (Litepub-style)
• Auto-categorization logic for incoming post content from remote sources
• Ability to add remote categories to the forum index

[sweetp@community.nodebb.org]

Im getting an error when trying to use search:

2025-09-03T18:50:04.315Z [4567/1274390] - error: GET /api/search?_=1756925050948
error: operator does not exist: bigint = text
    at .../NodeBB/node_modules/pg-pool/index.js:45:11
    at process.processTicksAndRejections (node:internal/process/task_queues:105:5)
    at async exports.search (.../NodeBB/node_modules/nodebb-plugin-dbsearch/lib/postgres.js:94:15)
    at async search.filterSearchQuery [as method] (.../NodeBB/node_modules/nodebb-plugin-dbsearch/lib/dbsearch.js:201:29)
    at async fireMethod (.../NodeBB/src/plugins/hooks.js:170:11)
    at async Object.fireFilterHook [as filter] (.../NodeBB/src/plugins/hooks.js:177:12)
    at async Hooks.fire (.../NodeBB/src/plugins/hooks.js:106:17)
    at async doSearch (.../NodeBB/src/search.js:66:19)
    at async Promise.all (index 1)
    at async searchInContent (.../NodeBB/src/search.js:109:19)

Im using Ubuntu 24.04, PostgreSQL 17.6, nodebb-plugin-dbsearch 6.3.1

[julian@community.nodebb.org]

sweetp did this start after the upgrade?

[sweetp@community.nodebb.org]

Julian tbh, Im not 100% sure. But I think so.
After each upgrade I usually quickly click through various parts of the UI to see if my custom theme needs any updates. And I would have noticed this after the 4.4.6 upgrade

[baris@community.nodebb.org]

sweetp I can reproduce it so I will take a look.

[baris@community.nodebb.org]

sweetp install nodebb-plugin-dbsearch@6.3.2 and run ./nodebb upgrade again, the issue should be resolved.

[sweetp@community.nodebb.org]

baris yup, that fixed it, thanks!

[twissell@community.nodebb.org]

E-Mail notifications about new chat message doesn't work after upgrading to 4.5.0 .
DB MongoDB version v7.0.23

Notifications is enabled, but not function properly after the upgrade.
Other notifications work fine, so far, so good...

[twissell@community.nodebb.org]

Ah, it was partly my bad, nevertheless chat notification seems to be slowed down a bit.
As if a queue or polling has been implemented, with a delay of 2-3 minutes.
Is queue implemented for this kind of messages for now ?

[julian@community.nodebb.org]

Twissell hmm, chat notifications have always been delayed by a minute or so. Maybe less.

It is done so that subsequent messages sent within the same rough time frame can be batched together.

This is less of an issue with notifications on site, but can be an issue when you are emailed for every single chat message.