Everything you need To Know About Magento 2.4.6 Release

The new year comes with new tech upgrades. Four months after the introduction of the Magento 2.4.5 version, Adobe Commerce & Magento Open Source is releasing the (new) 2.4.6 version on 14 March 2023. The pre-release is set to go live on 28 February 2023.

The new update comes with many, almost too many (precisely over 300) changes. And this extensive suite of changes includes upgrades, general fixes, and features. But don’t worry, you don’t have to go through all of the 300+ updates on your own. We will deal with that for you in a quick, easy, and straightforward manner.

Keep reading to know everything about Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source 2.4.6.

Adobe Commerce and Magento Open Source

Let’s clear the basics first! It all started in August 2018, when Adobe acquired the mega-popular eCommerce platform; Magento Commerce and consequently changed its name to Adobe Commerce(from Magento Commerce), sparing us the confusion. 

The other important date is March 2019, the release of the Adobe Commerce Cloud, more commonly known as Adobe Commerce, a highly improved, sophisticated, and paid version of Magento Commerce for enterprises. They did not, however, scrape the free version, which is now known as Magento Open Source.

Now that the terms are all clear, it is time to move on to the updates.

What’s New?

As stated above, the March update comes with several features, fixes, and upgrades. Each only improves the quality of the exceptional E-commerce platform. So, mark your calendars. 

Additionally, keep the pre-release on your radar based on our expert opinion. It will assist you in keeping your store up to date. It will make integration of the new update easier.

The Magento 2.4.6 version provides multiple security, performance, platform, scalability, and accessibility enhancements. Along with B2B, GraphQL, Page Builder, and PWA Studio improvements.

We can summarise the new updates, below infographic for handy knowledge.

Let’s discuss these new updates in more detail:

Highlights

1. Security Enhancements

The release boasts eight security and platform fixes. These enhancements reduce the possibility of customer information getting stolen or administrator sessions getting breached.

Other security enhancements include: 

• If unforeseen issues occur during the checkout process, reCAPTCHA will no longer crash or fail.
• Activities are inspected across grid views, mass actions, and exports to address gaps in admin logs.

2. Platform Enhancements

The Magento Commerce 2.4.6 beta2 update introduces support for PHP 8.2 in addition to PHP 8.1. However, PHP 7.4 is no longer supported. In addition, the update also supports

• Composer 2.2.x
• Redis 7.0.x. 
• OpenSearch 2. x. (on both cloud & premise)
• ElasticSearch 8. x
• MariaDB 10.6 (LTS version)

The outdated dependencies have been removed, and the Java libraries have been updated. The Symfony dependencies have also been updated to the new LTS version.

For this update, Adobe has also removed PHP 7.4 compatibility, jquery- migrate, and Zend framework from the commerce codebase. Other upgrades include:

 

Upgraded From	Upgraded To
web-token/jwt-framework	v3.0.5
allure-framework/allure-phpunit	v2.x.
Chart-js library	v3.9.1
DHL Schema v6.2	v10.0

 

3. Performance & Scalability Enhancements

You will notice improved customer segment operations such as:

• Improved performance of operations involving more than 100 customer segments
• The Real-time Check If Customer is Matched by Segment can be disabled. It reduces the processing time.
• The new configuration setting will now limit the number of displayed products. The new limit is set to 20,000. It will improve product grid performance.
• The new update will also improve the import performances by 100,000 records per minute.
• The update also boasts an improvement in high throughput order processing performance. It will get done through load balancing among different nodes.

4. Accessibility Enhancements

The primary goal of this version was to establish a perceivable, operable, intelligible, and robust storefront experience on Venia (PWA) by Magento. Some of the enhancements include:

• The Sign in button now matches the accessible name.
• Storefront now has descriptive accessible names for buttons
• Search filters of video checkboxes now have verbal descriptive names.
• All page functionality is now available for keyboard-only users. 

5. Adobe IMS Integration with Adobe Commerce

The adobe-ims, adobe-ims-api, and admin-adobe-ims modules are removed from the core code of the new version. They are now available as a completely separate meta package. Whereas the new adobe-ims-metapackage already gets bundled in the latest version.

Lastly, nothing has been changed regarding the functionality in the update.

6. B2B & GraphQL

The GraphQl API fully exposes the beautiful scope of purchase order features to B2B companies. This version includes the following GraphQL schemas:

• It covers Purchase Order Management functionality such as: create, edit, POs, etc.
• Based on the company’s rules and permissions the schema also covers order approval rules functionality such as: create, edit, delete, and add/view approval rules.  

Additionally, there are some GraphQl performance enhancements in the version as well:

1. Improved response time for queries concerning categories. Additionally, category permissions are enabled.
2. The optimization of the category list query now provides customers with large category amounts more efficiency.
3. This version includes reduced response times for bulk cart operations queries. It is done by optimizing the add product mutations. This improves query performance when adding up to 500 configurable and simple products. The mutations include:

• addProductsToCart
• addConfigurableProductsToCart
• addDownloadableProducts ToCart
• addSimpleProductsToCart
• addVirtualProductsToCart
• addWishlistItemsToCart
• updateCartItems

7. Brain Tree

The Braintree upgrades include the following:

• Braintree Pay Later Buttons/Banners for Italy and Spain
• PayLater messaging for PayPal Vault 
• LPM or Local Payment Methods webhooks were added
• ACH webhooks and Fraud protection was added

8. Page Builder & PWA Studio

Page Builder v.17.3 and PWA Studio v.13.0.x are compatible with Adobe Commerce 2.4.6.

 

Fixed Issues

Out of the 300 changes, many of them were about correcting past issues. The fixed issues are spread vastly across the many areas of the platform. Some of the most notable fixes range among:

• Better installation, deployment & upgrade conditions
• Improved keyword accessibility and the screen reader now provides the right image descriptions for the order history page.
• This release fixes a bunch of B2B bugs. Refer to B2B Release notes to know more.
• During standard or compact deployment, static content deployment does not fail.
• Updating and filtering bundle products are more seamless.
• Invoice PDFs for bundle products are now fixed.
• Product grid errors concerning bundle products that over 1000 are fixed.
• The display error in decimal volume quantities concerning bundle products is fixed.
• Flushing of the full page cache does not occur after order fulfillment.
• Similarly, the Cache does not get invalidated once you change the quantity of the already-in-stock product.
• The total concerning order refunds with shipping discounts now gets calculated correctly.
• Admin order creation does not empty the customer’s shopping carts.
• The logged-in shopper will not see the incorrect or cached prices on the product list widget.
• The Manage coupon codes workflow now includes validation logic.
• Multiple chart price rules filtration for coupon reports are now available.
• Successful execution of the catalog_index_refresh_proce cron job.
• The customer does not receive duplicate emails after the admin creates an order.
• Errors get loaded in the exception.log file.
• Bulk images can get imported to the gallery through the page builder drag-and-drop feature.

The above-mentioned points are by no means the complete list of all the fixed errors. We have just hand-picked a few of them. In order to get the comprehensive list, please refer to Beta Release Notes.

How To Install/Upgrade To Magento Commerce 2.4.6?

In conclusion, while Magento Commerce 2.4.6 addresses many critical security issues, we recommend working with a professional Magento development Company.

Because they have considerable expertise in implementing and updating Magento stores. At Viha, our team of Magento experts can store upgrade your store quickly and efficiently so you can continue growing your business. 

Contact us today to learn more about our services, or take advantage of our 8-hour free trial.