Technical Upgrades in Magento 2.4.4 Release

Magento 2.4.4, which is released on 8th March 2022, will help future-proof your business by incorporating cutting-edge technology and features. Built on the most recent version of PHP (8.1), it provides considerable speed improvements, extensive B2B and B2C features, and increased headless support.

As new features are provided as separate services and Magento upgrades 2.4.4 to the core codebase become lighter, you’ll need to spend less effort on platform maintenance and more time creating amazing experiences for your consumers.

Adobe Commerce has made the following modifications to guarantee that you are fully supported during the transition to 2.4.4:

PHP 8.1 Support:

With the release of Magento 2.4.4 in March, the transition from PHP 7.4 to PHP 8 is accomplished. Despite the fact that Adobe is testing Magento 2.4.4 beta versions against PHP 8.0, the new version of the e-commerce platform will support PHP 8.1.

In Magento 2.4.4, support for PHP 7.3 will be disabled. Despite the fact that stores may update to Magento 2.4.4 using PHP 7.4, Adobe states that complete functional support is only available for PHP 8.1.

PHP 8.1 is regarded as a big upgrade to this language, bringing dozens of new capabilities. Here’s an overview of the significant ones:

• Enums
• Read-only properties
• Explicit octal number notation
• First-class callable syntax, fibers
• Pure intersection types
• Never return type
• Final class constants

Preliminary performance testing on Magento with PHP 7.4 and 8.1 reveal that the latter speeds up the store significantly. The Magento speed Optimization estimates for a specific Magento configuration will change since they are affected by a variety of factors such as the server CPU, architecture (x86/ARM), hosting environment, installed extensions, Cron tasks, and so on.

OpenSearch support has been added.

Adobe has added support for yet another in-store search engine. Stores can utilize OpenSearch in addition to Elasticsearch.

If a store continues to utilize Elasticsearch, Elasticsearch 7.16.x is suggested to mitigate the Log4j vulnerability.

Users of Adobe Commerce 2.4.4 on Cloud must switch from Elasticsearch to OpenSearch.

VBEs (Vendor Bundled Extensions) are decoupled:

Prior versions of Magento came with a collection of third-party extensions and modules.

Adobe has decoupled practically all third-party modules from the Magento core set in the latest edition of its e-commerce platform. Only the Braintree extension is included in the list of vendor-bundled extensions for Adobe Commerce 2.4.4.

Extensions that have been removed from the Vendor Bundled Extension list will be accessible for optional download from the Magento Marketplace.

Software components have been updated: Inventory check on a cartload

The following software upgrades are included in the most recent Adobe Commerce 2.4.4-beta 4 release:

• All project libraries and dependencies have been updated to be PHP 8.1 compliant.
• Support for ElasticSearch 7.16.1 and OpenSearch 1.1 has been added.
• jquery-UI has been updated to 1.13.0.
• Methods that were deprecated in jQuery 3.6.x have been removed.
• jquery.tabs have been updated to the most recent version.

Backward Incompatibility :

Because third-party modules must function in a new way, backward-incompatible updates in Magento may have severe effects. Check the list of your installed extensions to see if any of them are affected by these changes.

Backward incompatible changes have been made to Magento 2.4.4, which are listed Below

• Inventory check on a cartload
• TinyMCE

Inventory check on a cartload:

A new option called Enable Inventory Check On Cart Load has been introduced to Magento 2.4.4’s Stock Options section. It controls the inventory check when a product is added to a shopping cart by default, and it has the state Enabled.

When the cart contains multiple products, the inventory check may consume a large number of server resources, therefore removing it may speed up the checkout process.

Disabling this option, however, may create issues. A consumer may, for example, receive the message Unable to place an order: The in-stock status does not apply to any source items.

TinyMCE Upgrades:

Tiny MCE, the Magento-integrated content editor, has undergone three important upgrades.

The name of tinymce4 has been changed to TinyMCE. The editor in the admin panel may become inaccessible, causing the Magento Page Builder extension to malfunction. If the shop utilizes custom TinyMCE with the tinymce4 alias in requirejs, or if the Page Builder JavaScript file was renamed anywhere other than PageBuilder’s di.xml file, this update will affect the store.

The MFTF tests for TinyMCE have been refactored. If the store employs tests that use elements (selectors) from duplicated sections and extends core tests using TinyMCE, the store will be impacted.

The MFTF tests in TinyMCE4 have been refactored. If the store utilizes or extends the TinyMCE4 MFTF tests, it may have an impact.

Important Updates of Magento 2.4.4:

In addition to migrating to PHP 8.1, Magento 2.4.4 has a large number of other upgrades, which helps to improve Magento performance. Here are some more significant platform updates:

• updated RequireJS to 2.3.6
• android/qr-code updated to the latest version
• PHP Unit 9.5
• TinyMCE 5
• Updated JavaScript libraries:
  • script.aculo.us
  • Chart.js
  • moment.js
  • moment-timezone-with-data.js
  • matchMedia.js
  • underscore.js
  • prototypeJS
• Removed JavaScript libraries:
  • es6-collections.js
  • MutationObserver.js
  • Modernizr
  • FormData.js

Assist in Fixing GraphQL Errors:

Magento 2.4.4 assists in fixing a number of GraphQL errors. The following are some of the most notable vulnerabilities that will be fixed in this version:

• GraphQL returns configurable child products, even if they’re disabled on the website. Magento 2.4.1–2.4.3 will be compatible with the MDVA-39935 patch.
• GraphQL sorting by DESC/ASC may not be effective for goods with the same relevance or price. For Magento 2.4.1 – 2.4.3-p1, the MDVA-40120 patch will be released.
• For a B2B shared catalog functionality, hiding categories with a GraphQL categories query is indeed not possible. Stores that are using Adobe before Magento 2.4.4 will need to request a patch individually.
• If the website ID varies from the store ID, GraphQL will not be able to add a customizable product to the cart. MDVA-37779 is compatible with versions 2.4.2 and 2.4.2-p1.
• When adding a shipping address to a cart with an empty phone number, a GraphQL error occurs. For Magento 2.4.0 – 2.4.3, the MDVA-39521 patch is available.
• The GraphQL query returns items that aren’t part of a shared catalog. For 2.4.2 – 2.4.2-p2, the patch MDVA-37748 is available.

To Sum Up:

• Magento 2.4.4 will provide several speed and security enhancements to online merchants. This version is already released on 8th March 2022, and now is the time to start preparing your online store for the switch.
• Maintain the efficiency and security of your Magento-based business while giving clients a fast and error-free purchasing experience by upgrading your store with Magento 2.4.4 version.
• Adobe commerce has leveled up the Magento game by introducing its Magento 2.4.5 version. To get updated about Magento 2.4.5 Version “CLICK HERE“.

If you are facing issues in switching to the most recent Magento version, then Hire Magento Developers and get a Free Trial for 8 hours from Viha Digital Commerce Ltd. For any query or help, please reach us at info@vihadigitalcommerce.com.