eWay Corp Earlier this year, a new update for the Magento (Adobe Commerce) eCommerce platform rolled out. Since August 9, 2022, Magento 2.4.5 has been available to the general public.
Since its launch in 2008, Magento has come a long way. With every new version released, new features are added, and improvements are made. This time there was no exception.
Rather, the Adobe team worked hard to offer more than 290 quality fixes. Moreover, they brought some enhancements to the core code.
Now let us go through some of the key pointers that this version update offers.
Magento Commerce
Magento Commerce is a robust open-source eCommerce platform that can run smoothly across various devices. With this platform, business owners, especially retailers, can build and manage sites that are responsive and even optimized for mobile devices.
Magento Commerce 2.4.5 Know About It
In the Magento 2.4 version series, Magento 2.4.5 is the latest update. Also, this update comes packed with over 290 quality fixes for the Magento Open Source and 400 quality fixes and some enhancements for Adobe Commerce.
The latest version of Magento is way better in all aspects. For instance, the latest version offers improved payment methods, accessibility, faster page load time, bug fixes, security patches, and many more things.
These updated features that one gets to see in the latest version of Magento 2.4.5 are what the Magento store owners were looking for. Hence, upgrading any online store to the latest version is going to be worth the investment.
Good News for Magento Community
There is some good news for the Magento Community. This platform is going to be much better in terms of performance and security.
So, it is time for eCommerce store owners to upgrade their Magento store to the latest Magento version and offer a wonderful experience to the users.
Now let us delve deep into some of the major highlights of Magento 2.4.5 and how it is going to help Magento users.
Magento Commerce 2.4.5 Major Highlights of This Release
1. Security Enhancements
Ensuring online security for eCommerce stores is necessary. Usually, hackers target small-to-big-size businesses that do not have many security layers on their online platforms, making it easy for the hackers to siphon funds.
It is not only important to identify the key vulnerabilities but also prevent hackers from misusing them. For instance, hackers can steal sensitive information, such as bank account details. Or they might simply take full control over the administrative sessions and close them down.
Although no such attacks related to the vulnerabilities have taken place, it is better to remain safe. For this reason, fixing the bugs and adding security patches to the software is important. Hence, the latest Magento release supports security patches.
1.1 Security Improvements Allows Protecting the Admin Section
Also, to protect the admin section, implementing some of the security or safety measures is important. They are:
- Using two-factor authentication
- Using a VPN
- Using a unique location instead of /admin.
- Strong passwords
- IP allow-listing
According to the official Adobe Commerce DevDocs, Magento 2.4.5 release contains 20 security bug fixes and platform security improvements. These new security improvements makes the platform compliant with the latest and best security practices.
1.2 Key Security Enhancement Features
Some of the security features are:
- Access Control List (ACL) resources have been added to the inventory.
- Google reCAPTCHA support has been added to Wish List Sharing, Gift Card forms, and Creating New Customer Accounts.
- Security enhancements for the Inventory Template.
- The MaliciousCode filter has received an upgrade to HTMLPurifier.
Details On Some Security Key Features
1.2.1 Adding Access Control List (ACL) resources to the inventory
Store owners will get access to creating and managing the full plan for store access permissions. Also, the admin dashboard is easy to review for the store owners.
1.2.2 Upgrade MaliciousCode filter to HTMLPurifier
A generic open-source HTML filtering solution is not at all recommended because the hackers have a stockpile of XSS vectors well-hidden in the depths of the HTML specification.
But the HTML Purifier comes with fine-grain filtering that will get rid of the malicious codes.
2. Platform Enhancements
There is some good news for the developers. For the Magento 2.4.5 release, Adobe worked on enhancing the Magento platform. A three-times increase can be seen in the order processing rate per hour.
This performance update is vital for organizations that are expanding at a quick rate and getting many orders. Also, Adobe Commerce will start supporting 3X page views per hour and 2X concurrent admin users. In short these improvements indicate a more stable and scalable eCommerce platform.
The PHP 8.1 adoption has led to performance enhancements.
Plus, Adobe Commerce no longer uses the old JavaScript libraries. The libraries has been updated to the latest version. This means outdated dependencies are no more.
The update is also going to offer support for the latest version of DHL’s shipping integration schema.
Since flexibility is important for the eCommerce industry, Adobe has worked on increasing the support for various payment options. With this update, Apple Pay will get the required support, and customers will be able to use it on the site. While logging into the platform, admins can toggle the on and off option for Apple Pay.
2.1 Key Platform Enhancement Features
Some of the platform enhancement features are:
- Magento Open-Source upgrade to support Composer 2.2.
- The platform supports TinyMCE 5.10.2, PHPStan 1.5.7, and jQueryUI 1.13.1.
- DHL Integration Schema received an upgrade from v6.0 to v6.2. So, there will not be any change to product behavior.
- Duplicate SKU data from shared catalogs is removed.
- Magento B2B commerce catalogs are improved.
Composer dependencies will remain the same for Adobe Commerce 2.4.5 and Open Source 2.4.5. There will be around twenty composer dependencies in Commerce 2.4.5 and Open Source 2.4.5. They are:
- colinmollenhour/credis (1.13.0)
- guzzlehttp/guzzle (^7.4.2)
- laminas/laminas-captcha (updated with a constraint ^2.12)
- laminas/laminas-db (^2.15.0)
- laminas/laminas-di (^3.7.0)
- laminas/laminas-escaper (~2.10.0)
- laminas/laminas-eventmanager (^3.5.0)
- laminas/laminas-feed (^2.17.0)
- laminas/laminas-mail (^2.16.0)
- laminas/laminas-mvc (^3.3.3)
- laminas/laminas-server (^2.11.1)
- laminas/laminas-servicemanager (^3.11.0)
- laminas/laminas-validator (^2.17.0)
- league/fly (2.4.3)
- monolog/monolog (^2.5)
- phpmd/phpmd (^2.12.0)
- phpstan/phpstan (^1.5.7)
- phpunit/phpunit (~9.5.20)
- php-cs-fixer (^3.4.0)
- webonyx/graphql-php (14.11.6)
The laminas/laminas-text, laminas/laminas-session, and laminas/laminas-view dependencies has been removed from the latest version of Magento. However, the removed dependencies remain the same for both Adobe Commerce 2.4.5 and Open Source 2.4.5.
3. Accessibility Improvements
As an eCommerce site owner, you will look forward to offering your customers the best experience on your site. For this reason, the latest Magento update offers a search results summary information announcement to the screen readers. This means screen readers will be alerted as soon as a new page view loads.
It will not be wrong to say that through this latest release, the Adobe team focused on creating a great storefront experience for customers on Venia (PWA (Progressive Web Apps)). Hence, the main goal is to make the storefront experience more powerful, functional, and easy to understand.
3.1 Key Accessibility Enhancement Features
- Keyword accessibility improvement
- Keyboard contrast improvement.
- Screen readers informed of every new page load
4. Payment Upgrades in Magento 2.4.5
In the latest Magento release, the Adobe team worked hard to add Apple Pay as the new payment option. Also, some changes have been made to the PayPal and Braintree payment options. Now, let us check some of the payment enhancements made to the Magento 2.4.5 release.
4.1 Apple Pay
- Apple Pay is a new payment option in Magento 2.4.5.
- Apple Pay is now available for all merchants.
- Shoppers will not need to provide credit and debit card details.
- It is going to be available on the product details page, shopping cart, mini cart, and during checkout overflow.
4.2 PayPal
- The PayPal Pay Later option is available for Magento merchants in Spain and Italy.
- Admins can now preview the buttons for ‘PayPal Credit,’ and ‘PayPal Pay Later’ from the backend.
- Preview will reveal how the buttons will look once enabled and displayed on the storefront.
4.3 Braintree
- The KOUNT fraud protection integration has been removed from the codebase.
- Now onwards, the ‘Always Request 3DS’ option will be available for the administrators.
Magento 2.4.5 allows store owners to offer an improved payment experience to their customers. Due to the new extensions, stores can easily accommodate new and evolving payment preferences that come with various payment options.
Store owners will be able to toggle the on and off buttons for Apple Pay, location based BNPL, etc., from the admin dashboard.
5. GraphQL Performance Enhancements
Most importantly, Magento 2.4.5 release comes with a lot of performance enhancements. This is a good thing for the developers. This update offers some new features.
Key GraphQL Performance Enhancement Features:
- Fast buildup of unified storefront GraphQL schema for the administrators and developers during the deployment stage.
- Different attributes in production.
- Option to disable the session cookies for every GraphQL operation. (Users will need to use the bin/magento config:set graphql/session/disable 1 – command.)
- Ability to consume the expiration date and time of the authorization token with JSON web tokens by using the GraphQL API (Application Programming Interface).
- Quick page load speed because of the GraphQL schema rebuilding.
- Launch of session cookies in GraphQL operations by making use of class proxies as and when needed.
- Elimination of the session usage from HTTP (Hyper Text Transfer Protocol) header processors in GraphQL.
6. Google Analytics
We all know that Google Analytics is a powerful tool, and it helps business professionals and individuals to manage and track online data. Integrating with GTag has improved the tracking and integration tools of Analytics and AdWords in web applications.
The recent updates in Magento 2.4.5 can help with the site’s SEO (Search Engine Optimization). This update will improve the present Google service integration that is present within Adobe Commerce. All these improvements will help SEO experts to manage content through Google Services.
6.1 Key Features
- Option to involve Google Analytics 4 in investigating the store execution.
- Inbuilt modules for Google AdWords, Optimizer, Analytics, and Tag Manager for improving coordination within Google Products and Services.
7. Page Builder
Page Builder v.1.7.2 is completely compatible with Magento Open Source 2.4.5 and Adobe Commerce. This means users will be able to have complete control over column settings on the storefront.
7.1 Extra Features
Some other added features that will be offered by version 1.7.2 of Page Builder in this new Magento release are:
- As a part of Page Builder column layout enhancements, columns will be now exposed so that column settings can be controlled.
- Column resizing is now going to support wrapping which is usually triggered by user actions.
8. PWA Studio
The latest Magento release is compatible with PWA Studio Version 12.5.x. The PWA Studio comes packed with certain enhancements. They are:
- PWA Studio storefront can collect customer behavior data for merchants.
- Merchants can receive insight into web analytics through a subscription.
- Merchants can use the backend admin panel (Google Tag Manager) for deploying services.
- Retailers can sign up and extend their events as and when needed.
9. Inventory
Inventory enhancement is a part of the most recent Magento version. The inventory template in Magento Open Source and Adobe Commerce 2.4.5 went through some security enhancements.
10. Live Search (Update Specifically for Adobe Commerce)
Adobe Commerce 2.4.5 comes with tailored pricing and support for the B2B clientele. The Live Search feature recognizes the pricing assigned for a certain group of customers.
11. Upgrade Compatibility Tool (Specific Update for Adobe Commerce)
Other improvements brought to Adobe Commerce are:
- Method signature validation will be able to identify method signature mismatches.
- The DI configuration validation will now examine di.xml for references to removed or to deprecated non-API classes.
- UCT can recognize deprecated code and offer recommendations for every issue.
- Validating the database’s schema will reveal any inconsistency and alterations.
12. Integration with Adobe IMS
Furthermore, Adobe Commerce (AC) merchants who have an Adobe ID and look forward to a streamlined login to Adobe Business and Adobe Commerce products will be able to connect the Adobe IMS authentication workflow with the Commerce authentication.
Once the link gets enabled for the eCommerce business, every admin user will need to provide their Adobe credentials for logging in to the platform rather than their Commerce credentials.
13. Branding (AC Specific Update)
The admin of AC has undergone a modification for a better representation of Adobe’s brand strategy. In other words, the changes brought in will make an impact on the data grid color changes, navigational elements, headers, and footers.
14. Efficient API Interactions
The latest Magento release will surely fulfill the dream of all Magento front-end developers. They have the dream of making the Magento store’s UI (User Interface) faster and more responsive.
Developers will have complete access to all data capabilities from a single endpoint, which will be quick and easy to improve. The API architecture has been simplified for front-end developers.
This will allow developers to write more powerful and expressive data queries, resulting in a quicker response time.
Other Updates and Replacements in Magento 2.4.5
This latest Magento release comes with some major updates and replacements, including a change to the default Gateway URL for USPS shipping (from HTTP to HTTPS).
Other updates are:
- The Magento 2.4.5 upgrade will include the use of the Vimeo Player.js library in place of the Froogaloop module (2.16.4).
- The grunt-eslint (NPM) library has been upgraded to the latest version.
- The jQuery Storage libraries are no longer utilized in favor of julien-maurel/js-storage.
- The static code analysis tools php-cs-fixer and phpcs are completely compatible with PHP 8.x as of Magento Open source and Adobe Commerce 2.4.5.
- Support for 7.2.0 with a constraint has been added to the glob.js dependency update.
- Support to 1.14.2 with a constraint has been added to the serve-static.js dependency.
- Dependency on underscore.js (NPM) has been changed to version 1.14.2.
- Support to 0.5.34 with a constraint has been added to moment-timezone-with-data.js.
- The jquery/jquery-cookie library is now replaced by js-cookie/js-cookie.
- The libraries jarallax.js and jaralax-video.js have received an update for using the latest Vimeo REST API version.
- Customers will be able to electronically sign any customized documents, like terms and conditions or purchase agreements during Adobe Commerce checkout.
Now that you are aware of the latest features rolled into Magento and Adobe Commerce 2.4.5, it is equally important to remain informed about the system requirements.
System Requirements for Magento Commerce 2.4.5
In fact, let us go through some of the minimum system requirements for Magento Commerce 2.4.5. They are:
- Composer 2.2
- Elasticsearch 7.17
- OpenSearch 1.2
- MariaDB 10.4
- MySQL 8.0
- PHP 8.1
- RabbitMQ 3.9
- Redis 6.2
- Varnish 7.0
- Apache 2.4
- Nginx 1.18
- AWS (Amazon Web Services) Aurora (MySQL) 8.0
- AWS MQ 3.9.13
Issues Fixed in Magento 2.4.5
Magento 2.4.5 has fixed more than hundreds of issues within the core code, such as installation fixes, deployment, upgrades, accessibility, etc. that were reported in the past versions.
The issues are mentioned below:
- Adobe Stock sign-out issues have been fixed.
- Changing the Admin URL is not anymore, an exception.
- The cart total for the bundle project is properly calculated as the Product Subselect rule is applicable.
- The DOM errors related to the address search popup during checkout are now fixed.
- Single log-in is now valid for multi store views for customers with global account sharing.
- Admin Action Log report is now fixed.
- The correct pricing for configurable products will be now displayed across the product page once the quantity changes.
- The system emails work completely fine for the email addresses that contain “. -“.
- The shipping page now displays an error if an invalid email is entered.
- Logo-related issues within the storefront print order, invoice, credit memo pages are now fixed.
- The session size can now be set to 0 from the backend, but it will not log out of the admin.
- The title of the ‘Show Password’ checkbox that is displayed across various pages can now be translated by the admin.
- There is not any flicker for the images present on the pages of the products. Also, the images are displayed perfectly well.
- The unsubscribe URL is now fixed for the email newsletter.
- For orders placed by PayPal guest customers, the customer’s name is properly displayed.
- In the layered navigation, products are now filtered by color.
- The table rate shipping amount for virtual products will no longer be calculated.
- Long names within the product grid are now word-wrapped.
Remain Careful While Upgrading
In case you are a shop owner and planning to upgrade your Magento store to 2.4.5, you should be incredibly careful. Any wrong move could result in the loss of data. To avoid such accidents, it is better to take the help of Magento 2 Upgrade professionals.
The experts can help eCommerce shop owners to upgrade to the latest version while ensuring their business can take full advantage of the latest opportunities that can be gained from the updates.
Steps for Upgrading to Magento 2.4.5
If you are having plans to upgrade your Magento store to the latest version, then this blog is right for you.
Most importantly, one must complete all upgrade prerequisites in order to set the environment for the upgradation process. Firstly, the staging site should be upgraded. Only after that can a complete backup of the Magento application be carried out.
Subsequently, carry out the following steps for upgrading the Magento store to 2.4.5.
Step 1: Enabling Maintenance Mode
Firstly, It is important to switch to the maintenance mode. This will prevent customers/visitors from accessing the store while the upgrade is in process.
You will need to run the following command for this task. The command is:
php bin/magento maintenance:enable
Once this command is run, users will get the message – ‘Enabled maintenance mode’
Step 2: Composer Backup
Secondly, you will need to create a backup of your Magento application and its database. Once completed, the staging environment for the upgradation must be set. After that, the staging environment must be deployed in the production environment.
To create the backup of Magento application through composer, the following command must be set:
cp composer.json composer.json.bak
Step 3: Upgrade Magento Using Composer
Composer can be used to upgrade Magento 2.4.4 store to 2.4.5.
Adobe Commerce 2.4.2 started offering support for Composer 2. So, if you are trying to upgrade from versions other than 2.4.1, first you will need to upgrade to a version that is compatible with Composer 2.
But remember that you first should upgrade to Composer 1 and then upgrade to Composer 2. This is because Composer 2 offers support for versions starting from 2.4.2 and more. Plus, a support version of PHP is also needed.
To check the composer version, the following command can be used. The command is:
composer -v.
Also, to upgrade using the composer, the commerce commands that must be run are:
composer require-commerce magento/<product> <version> –no-update [–interactive-root-conflicts] [–force-root-updates] [–help]
- Product: The package to be upgraded, i.e., product community edition for the open source and Adobe product enterprise edition.
- Version: The version of Magento or Adobe to which you want to upgrade.
- -no-update: The automatic updates must be disabled.
These three things are required for the upgrade process.
Step 4: Composer Update
Fourthly, in order to update the composer, you must run the following command:
composer update
Once done, you will be required to update the database and a few other things.
Step 5: Database Schema and Data Update
To update the database schema as well as the data, run the following commands:
php bin/magento setup:upgrade
and
php bin/magento setup:di:compile
Additionally, run some other commands to ensure everything is going smoothly. The commands are:
php bin/magento setup:static-content:deploy -f
php bin/magento cache:clean
Once the database schema and data gets updated, disable the Maintenance Mode. This step is very vital without doubt.
Step 6: Disabling Maintenance Mode
Disable the Maintenance Mode, by running the following commands. They are:
php bin/magento maintenance: disable
Rm -rf vendor
Composer install
Magento Release Notes
Magento site owners will be able to find more information related to the latest release of the Magento 2.4.5 version from the official release notes. In fact the official release notes are available in the following manner:
The latest release surely offers a lot of enhancements in terms of platform, performance, payments, and so on.
Meet Magento New York 2022
On September 23, 2022, the Magento Community had its first big gathering in the United States. It was just like any other Meet Magento event that takes place all over the world. Attending such events is helpful for everyone who is a part of the Magento Community.
There have been Meet Magento Events in Mexico, the Baltics, Greece, and some other places. In fact, Adobe Commerce plans to hold such Meet Magento Events and Meetups in India very soon.
Meet Magento India 2023
Also, here is some exciting news for the Magento Community India. Meet Magento India 2023 is going to take place on 3rd February 2023 in person in Mumbai. So, Magento Community, hurry up and be a part of the Meet Magento India 2023 event. Book your seat today!
Take Professional Help
Looking to empower your Magento store? With Magento’s latest release, it is easy to give your store the desired boost that it needs. However, sticking to the outdated version of Magento will hinder you from using the new improved features of Magento.
Also, as you upgrade your store to Magento 2.4.5, you are going to enjoy the rewards of this platform. So just switch to the latest version of Magento with professional help from eWay Corp. Contact us today.
Wrapping Up
In the latest release of Adobe Commerce, there are plenty of things to look at. Apart from platform improvements, Magento enthusiasts will get to see GraphQL caching efficiency, enhanced accessibility, Live Search B2B functionality, and many more things.
Undoubtedly, in comparison to the earlier version, Magento 2.4.5 is fast and secure. Moreover, the core changes made to Magento 2.4 can help Magento users, like eCommerce business owners. It will not only improve their store’s performance, but also boost their sales. Also, shoppers will be able to enjoy a great shopping experience.
