XOOPS Web Application System

XOOPS 2.5.11.2 - maintenance update for XOOPS 2.5.11

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 03:30:00 +0000

XOOPS 2.5.11.2

2.5.11.2 is a maintenance update for the 2.5 line, which many sites still run on older hosting. It contains no new features.

* PHP 7.4 is now the minimum version: PHP 5.6 to 7.3 are no longer supported. The installer, the module manifests and the documentation reflect this

* The bundled XMF library is updated to 1.2.33: the proxy_env header is honoured only when the direct peer is listed in the new proxy_trusted setting, documented in xoops_data/configs/xoopsconfig.dist.php. Sites that set proxy_env must add proxy_trusted; until then the peer address is used. Forwarded headers are parsed per RFC 7239, and Xmf\Database\Tables and Migrate handle CURRENT_TIMESTAMP defaults and unreadable tables correctly

* XMF's own dependencies follow: firebase/php-jwt 6.10, Kint 6.1, symfony/yaml 5.4, webmozart/assert 1.12. Smarty, HTML Purifier and the rest of the 2.5.11 set are unchanged

* No database, template or language changes

Upgrading to 2.5.11.2
Copy the new files over the web root. The upgrade wizard is not needed. Check that your server runs PHP 7.4 or later before you copy the files.

If you are still on 2.5.x, this is a good moment to plan the move to 2.7.4: the 2.5 line receives security updates only.

DOWNLOAD: https://github.com/XOOPS/XoopsCore25/releases/

XOOPS 2.7
XOOPS 2.7.4 already includes the same fixes through XMF 1.3.2. If you are planning a move to the 2.7 line, see github.com/XOOPS/XoopsCore27/releases.

Reporting issues
Please report problems at github.com/XOOPS/XoopsCore25/issues, with your PHP and MySQL versions. Security issues should be reported privately, as described in the repository's SECURITY.md, not in a public issue. Questions are welcome in the support forums.

Thank you
Thank you to the researchers who reported these issues responsibly and to everyone who reviewed and tested the fixes. And a standing thank-you to JetBrains for the complimentary PhpStorm licenses that power the core team's development.

The XOOPS Development Team

XOOPS 2.7.4 Final Released (ready for PHP 8.6.0)

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 03:30:00 +0000

XOOPS 2.7.4 Final

2.7.4 went through Beta 1, Beta 2, RC 1 and RC 2 between September and October. Final collects everything from that cycle plus the fixes made since RC 2. There are no new features since RC 2.

Two-factor authentication in the core
Every member can protect their account with a second step at login.
* Two methods: a time-based authenticator app (Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Aegis, FreeOTP, or any password manager that generates TOTP codes), or a six-digit code mailed to the member's address
* Recovery codes: ten one-time codes at enrolment, for the day the phone or the mailbox is out of reach. Members can replace them from Edit Account
* Lock-out protection: five wrong codes lock the second step for fifteen minutes and the member is notified by e-mail
* Administrators can reset a member's factor from the Users page, and an operator locked out of the site has a documented escape hatch in docs/2fa-operations.md
* Off by default: switch it to "Optional" in System Preferences and every member may enrol. Nobody is forced
* Secrets are encrypted at rest with a site key. Mailed codes are stored hashed and expire after ten minutes. Remember-me cookies are bound to the enrolled factor, so a reset invalidates them
* Every login path that cannot show a challenge (the upgrade wizard, XML-RPC, the SSL popup) refuses an account that must present its factor

Editors
* SCEditor is now a full visual editor: it edits with its complete toolbar and keeps XOOPS BBCode intact across visual and source modes. Its emoticons are registered as XOOPS smileys. It is the default editor for new installs; an upgraded site keeps its current editor settings
* Markdown support: EasyMDE stores Markdown in the existing text columns and MyTextSanitizer renders it with Parsedown in safe mode, so modules get Markdown without a schema change
* New Editors preference category in System Preferences for toolbar and editor settings
* MyTextSanitizer renders the tags SCEditor's toolbar writes: [sub], [sup], [s], [justify], [ol] and tables
* TinyMCE 7 is updated to 7.9.3

Security hardening
The cycle included a review of the core with CodeQL, Snyk, SonarCloud, Scrutinizer and manual audits. The main results:
* Form security tokens no longer depend on the browser's User-Agent: a token is a random value compared in constant time, so a browser update or a privacy extension between opening and submitting a form no longer rejects it. Protector's admin pages use the same core token
* One same-site check for every redirect: login, post-login and theme-switch return addresses refuse targets written with backslashes, encoded slashes, HTML entities or embedded line breaks
* Remember-me tokens are revoked when the password changes, and a restored session ends for a deactivated account
* Registration is validated at the save step, not only at step 1, and a comment must belong to the requesting module on edit, save and delete
* Uploads are deleted only inside the upload directory: the image manager and the smilies, rank and avatar admin pages resolve a stored file name before they delete it. The TinyMCE image manager checks category permissions on upload and delete
* Protected database dumps are written only under XOOPS_VAR_PATH, into a directory guarded by a deny-all .htaccess
* Cache ids use a random site key instead of the database credentials, and the installer renames itself and its cleanup script with random names
* LDAP and Active Directory fail closed when StartTLS was requested and failed
* Server configuration: xoops_lib/.htaccess works on Apache 2.4 without mod_access_compat, PHPMailer's unused OAuth helper is removed from the vendor tree, and reCAPTCHA v2 verifies over POST so the secret key stays out of server logs
* Confirmation pages, error lists and the SQL built by the legacy XoopsTopic and XoopsTree helpers are escaped and quoted

Since RC 2
* XMF 1.3.3: proxy headers (proxy_env) are honoured only when the direct peer is listed in the new proxy_trusted setting, as addresses or CIDR ranges. Sites that set proxy_env must add proxy_trusted in xoops_data/configs/xoopsconfig.php; until then the peer address is used. Forwarded headers are parsed per RFC 7239
* image.php no longer crashes on PHP 8.3+ when an angle is requested
* LDAP and Active Directory logins on PHP 8.3+ no longer emit a deprecation, and a bare IPv6 server address is handled
* Values stored as XOBJ_DTYPE_UNICODE_ARRAY reload as the array that was stored. Values such as café or a+b lost characters before
* The |replace and |escape modifiers no longer emit PHP 8.6 deprecations, and templates can use |sprintf without a Smarty notice
* Library refresh: HTML Purifier 4.19.1, Monolog 3.12.1, Smarty 4.5.8, TCPDF 6.11.4, symfony/var-dumper and symfony/yaml 7.4.21, firebase/php-jwt 7.2.1, Punic 3.8.2, webmozart/assert 2.5.0

The full list is in docs/changelog.270.txt.

Upgrading to 2.7.4
From 2.7.4 RC 2: copy the new files over the web root. There are no database changes since RC 2, so the upgrade wizard is not required. If your site sets proxy_env, add proxy_trusted as described above.

From XOOPS 2.7.3 or a 2.7.4 beta: copy the new files over the web root and run the upgrade wizard. It creates the user_2fa table and the two-factor preference, registers the SCEditor emoticons as smileys, adds the Editors preferences and updates the System module. No mainfile.php changes are needed.
* Two-factor authentication needs the PHP sodium extension; the wizard reports whether it is available
* Every remembered device logs in once more after the upgrade
* If you copied extras/login.php elsewhere on your site, replace or remove that copy
* A site running a custom template set should re-import it

From 2.5.11 or earlier: follow the XOOPS Install and Upgrade Guide: https://xoops.gitbook.io/xoops-install-upgrade/ - run upgrade/preflight.php first; 2.7 moved to Smarty 4 and some older themes need changes.

System requirements
* PHP 8.2 to 8.5
* MySQL 5.7+ or MariaDB 10.3+
* The PHP sodium extension for two-factor authentication

XOOPS 2.6.0 Alpha 2 released

Sat, 17 Oct 2026 03:30:00 +0000

XOOPS 2.6.0 Alpha 2 released

The XOOPS Development Team has published XOOPS 2.6.0 Alpha 2, a new snapshot of the 2.6 line for developers.

First the honest part: 2.6.0 is not actively developed. The 2.6 code base was the original "rewrite" branch (Doctrine DBAL, the central Xoops instance, extensions, Bootstrap admin), and current development effort goes into XOOPS 2.7.x and the upcoming 2.8.0. Alpha 2 exists so that anyone who wants to pick 2.6 up again starts from a tree that installs, runs and passes its test suite on a current PHP, rather than from a 2017 snapshot.

Alpha 2 is for developers and for the curious. Do not run it on a live site.

DOWNLOAD
https://github.com/XOOPS/XoopsCore26/releases/

What changed since Alpha 1

Alpha 1 (February 2026) raised the minimum PHP version to 8.4 and brought the tree back to green. Alpha 2 finishes that work.

PHP 8.4 minimum, now documented everywhere
Composer already required PHP 8.4. The README, the installer's requirements check and the bug-report template still advertised PHP 7.x, so somebody could follow the docs onto a PHP that Composer then refused. All three now say 8.4. The installer check is the same red/green indicator as before and still does not block the installation.

Database: zero-row statements no longer count as failures
The Doctrine-backed Connection::safeQuery() (and query(), which calls it) returned null, the failure value, for any statement that succeeded without changing rows. Every CREATE TABLE and DROP TABLE falls in that category, as does any UPDATE or DELETE that matches nothing. Module installation, profile-field ALTER TABLE and Xmf\Database\Tables::executeQueue() all reported success as failure.
* safeQuery() now returns true for a successful statement that affected no rows. Affected-row counts above zero and SELECT results are unchanged. null still means the statement failed or was refused on a non-safe connection
* XoopsDatabaseManager::deleteTables() listed a table as dropped when the DROP had failed. It now returns the tables that were actually dropped
* The deprecated XoopsMySQLDatabase::getAffectedRows() was fatal after any write. It now returns the row count, or 0
New tests cover CREATE/INSERT/UPDATE/DELETE/SELECT, failing statements and the safe/force handling against in-memory SQLite.

Bundled XMF updated to 1.3.2
xoops_lib/Xmf is synchronised with XMF 1.3.2 while keeping the 2.6-specific integration (Doctrine connection, \Xoops::getInstance(), XoopsBaseConfig).
* Taken as-is from 1.3.2: Request, FilterInput, Random, Uuid, Assert, Jwt, Key, IPAddress, StopWords, Highlighter, Yaml, Metagen, Migrate, Session, GenericHelper, Helper
* New in 2.6: Ulid, ProxyCheck, the I18n, Security and Mail namespaces, and Database\SchemaDefinitionException
* Merged with the 2.6 backend: Tables (DEFAULT-clause escaping, definition validation, MySQL 8 DEFAULT_GENERATED), Language (path containment rooted at the 2.6 root path), Request/FilterInput (keep the 2.6-only getDateTime() and gather()), Permission (plus the new getItemIds()), Admin
* Kept as 2.6: Debug, TableLoad, Module Helper and Cache

Dependencies and CI
* The abandoned xoops/base-requires metapackage is gone; its dependency list is inlined into composer.json.dist. firebase/php-jwt moves to ^7.0 because every 6.x release carries a security advisory
* Locked library versions: Doctrine DBAL 4.4.1, Smarty 4.5.6, Monolog 3.10.0, symfony/yaml 7.4.1, PHPUnit 11.5
* CI runs again on GitHub Actions: the test configuration is generated by console.php ci-bootstrap before the suite, Qodana and SonarCloud use current linter images, and the GitHub Actions used by the workflows were updated (checkout, cache, codecov, SonarQube scan, Qodana)
* README badges and logo point at the XoopsCore26 repository
The full PHPUnit suite passes: 3492 tests, no failures.

Requirements
* PHP 8.4 or 8.5
* MySQL 5.6+ or MariaDB
* Composer, to install the libraries into xoops_lib/vendor

Installing
This is a developer checkout, not a drop-in package:
1. Clone or download the repository
2. Copy composer.json.dist to composer.json and run composer install
3. Point the web server at htdocs/ and open it in a browser to run the installer
Upgrading from any earlier XOOPS release, including 2.6.0 Alpha 1, is not supported.

Modules
Only the system modules and extensions are included. XOOPS 2.5 and 2.7 modules do not work on 2.6 without changes.

Reporting problems and contributing
* Issues: https://github.com/XOOPS/XoopsCore26/issues
* Full changelog since Alpha 1: https://github.com/XOOPS/XoopsCore26/compare/v2.6.0-alpha1...v2.6.0-alpha2

If you would like to take 2.6 further, the tree is now in a state where that is possible. Pull requests are welcome.

XOOPS Development Team

XOOPS 2.5.11.1 - security update for XOOPS 2.5.11

Fri, 09 Oct 2026 03:30:00 +0000

XOOPS 2.5.11.1 — security update for XOOPS 2.5.11

The XOOPS Development Team has released XOOPS 2.5.11.1, a security update for XOOPS 2.5.11. It changes only the input filter that XOOPS uses on request data. If your site runs XOOPS 2.5.11, please apply it.

DOWNLOAD: https://github.com/XOOPS/XoopsCore25/releases/tag/v2.5.11.1

What's fixed

XOOPS 2.5.11 bundles the XMF library, and its input filter (Xmf\FilterInput, which XoopsFilterInput builds on) now includes the fixes from XMF 1.2.32.1:

* Filtering always finishes: some input made the filter run until PHP hit its memory limit, so one request could take a page down. A value that does not settle after a fixed number of passes is now dropped.
* Stricter tag and attribute checks: some tag and attribute patterns got through the filter. Tag and attribute names are now checked strictly, event-handler attributes are matched whatever their case, link schemes are checked after HTML entities are decoded, and stripped text keeps no partial tag.

There are no database, template or language changes, and no new features. The fix keeps PHP 5.6 compatibility, so 2.5.11.1 runs on the same servers as 2.5.11.

How to update

From XOOPS 2.5.11 (recommended: the patch)
1. Download xoops-2.5.11-to-2.5.11.1-patch.zip from the release page
2. Back up your site files
3. Copy the contents of the zip's htdocs folder over your XOOPS root folder (the one that holds mainfile.php), keeping the folder paths. Two files are replaced:
class/libraries/vendor/xoops/xmf/src/FilterInput.php
include/version.php4. That's it. You don't need to run the upgrade wizard. System Admin now shows XOOPS 2.5.11.1-Stable

New install, or a version older than 2.5.11
Use the full package (the source code zip on the release page) and follow the usual install or upgrade steps.

XOOPS 2.7
XOOPS 2.7.4 RC 2 already includes the same fixes through XMF 1.3.2. If you are planning a move to the 2.7 line, see github.com/XOOPS/XoopsCore27/releases.

Reporting issues
Please report problems at github.com/XOOPS/XoopsCore25/issues, with your PHP and MySQL versions. Security issues should be reported privately, as described in the repository's SECURITY.md, not in a public issue. Questions are welcome in the support forums.

Thank you
Thank you to the researchers who reported these issues responsibly and to everyone who reviewed and tested the fixes. And a standing thank-you to JetBrains for the complimentary PhpStorm licenses that power the core team's development.

The XOOPS Development Team

XOOPS 2.7.4-RC2 Released

Tue, 06 Oct 2026 15:00:00 +0000

XOOPS 2.7.4 RC 2 — security hardening ahead of the final release

The XOOPS Development Team is pleased to announce XOOPS 2.7.4 RC 2, the second release candidate for XOOPS 2.7.4. RC 2 adds no new features. It collects the security hardening and bug fixes made since RC 1, after a review of the core with CodeQL, Snyk, SonarCloud, Scrutinizer and manual audits.

XOOPS 2.7.4 brings two-factor authentication into the core, makes SCEditor a full visual editor and the default for new sites, and adds Markdown support through EasyMDE. It runs on PHP 8.2 through 8.5.

Please test RC 2 on a staging copy of your site and report anything you find. Unless something serious turns up, the next release is 2.7.4 Final.

DOWNLOAD: https://github.com/XOOPS/XoopsCore27/releases

What's new since RC 1

Forms and redirects

* Form security tokens no longer depend on the browser's User-Agent: a token is now a random value compared in constant time. A browser update, a privacy extension or a "desktop site" toggle between opening and submitting a form no longer rejects it. Forms opened before the upgrade still submit
* Protector uses the core form token: its admin pages check the same token as the rest of XOOPS. XoopsGTicket is deprecated and now wraps the core token, so modules that still call it keep working
* One same-site check for redirects: login, post-login and theme-switch return addresses share one check. It refuses targets written with backslashes, encoded slashes, HTML entities or embedded line breaks, and sends them to the home page instead
* Escaped confirmation pages and error lists: xoops_confirm() escapes every field, value and label, and the object and login error lists are escaped too

Files and storage

* Uploads are deleted only inside the upload directory: the image manager and the smilies, user-rank and avatar admin pages resolve a stored file name before they delete it
* Protected database dumps: a dump is written only under XOOPS_VAR_PATH, into a directory guarded by a deny-all .htaccess and private to the PHP user
* Cache ids use a site key: the group part of theme and block cache ids is keyed with a random site key in xoops_data/data instead of the database credentials
* Random installer names: the installer renames itself and names its cleanup script with random_bytes(). Only the installing session can finish the clean-up
* Protector writes its ban files atomically and rejects an uploaded image it cannot inspect instead of staging it in uploads/

Server configuration

* xoops_lib/.htaccess works on Apache 2.4 without mod_access_compat, where the old rules returned a 500 error instead of denying access
* PHPMailer's unused OAuth helper is removed from the bundled vendor tree, and a Composer script removes it again after every vendor refresh
* reCAPTCHA v2 verifies over POST, so the secret key no longer appears in proxy or server logs
* The bundled XMF library is updated to 1.3.2, which tightens the tag and attribute filtering used for request input

Fixes

* The optional confirmation step for deleting notifications works again
* Deleting a user rank or avatar that no longer exists shows an error instead of a fatal error
* Uploading an image to a database-stored category reports a failed upload instead of stopping with a fatal error
* The TinyMCE 5 and 7 image managers no longer double-encode their target field
* Errors that were silenced with @ (cache, avatar and debug clean-up, session start-up, upgrade-script clean-up) are now handled or reported

The full list is in docs/changelog.270.txt.

Upgrading

From 2.7.4 RC 1

Copy the new files over the web root. There are no database changes since RC 1, so the upgrade wizard is not required (running it does no harm).
* A Protector admin form that was open during the upgrade must be reloaded once
* xoops_data/data must stay writable: the new cache-id key is created there on first use

From XOOPS 2.7.3 or a 2.7.4 beta

Copy the new files over the web root and run the upgrade wizard. It creates the user_2fa table and the two-factor preference, registers the SCEditor emoticons as smileys, adds the Editors preferences, and updates the System module. No mainfile.php changes are needed.
* Two-factor authentication needs the PHP sodium extension; the wizard reports whether it is available. Operations notes are in docs/2fa-operations.md
* Every remembered device logs in once more after the upgrade
* An upgraded site keeps its current editor settings; SCEditor becomes the default only on a fresh install
* If you copied extras/login.php elsewhere on your site, replace or remove that copy
* A site running a custom template set should re-import it

System requirements

* PHP 8.2 to 8.5
* MySQL 5.7+ or MariaDB 10.3+
* The PHP sodium extension for two-factor authentication

Translations

XOOPS is available in 37 community translations at github.com/XoopsLanguages. RC 2 adds two English strings for the database dump in the System module's maintenance page; docs/lang_diff.txt lists every new constant in 2.7.4. Translators, thank you: updated packs are very welcome before the final release.

Reporting issues

Please report bugs at github.com/XOOPS/XoopsCore27/issues, with your PHP and MySQL versions and the steps to reproduce. Questions are welcome in the support forums.

Thank you
Thank you to everyone who tested RC 1, reported issues, submitted pull requests (including the documentation and typo fixes from peter279k), translated strings and reviewed security findings. And a standing thank-you to JetBrains for the complimentary PhpStorm licenses that power the core team's development.

The XOOPS Development Team

XOOPS 2.7.4-RC1 Released

Sat, 26 Sep 2026 04:50:00 +0000

XOOPS 2.7.4 RC 1 — two-factor authentication and a new editor experience

The XOOPS Development Team is pleased to announce XOOPS 2.7.4 RC 1, the release candidate for XOOPS 2.7.4. This release brings two-factor authentication into the core, makes SCEditor a full visual editor and the default for new sites, adds Markdown support through EasyMDE, and continues the security hardening of the 2.7 line.

The feature set is final. Please test this release candidate on a staging copy of your site and report anything you find before the final release.

DOWNLOAD: https://github.com/XOOPS/XoopsCore27/releases

Two-factor authentication

* Two methods: a time-based authenticator app (Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Aegis, FreeOTP, or any password manager that generates TOTP codes), or a six-digit code mailed to the member's address
* Recovery codes: ten one-time codes at enrolment, for the day the phone or the mailbox is out of reach
* Lockout: five wrong codes lock the second step for fifteen minutes, and the member is notified by e-mail
* Self-service: members enrol, disable and replace their recovery codes from Edit Account; administrators can reset a member's factor from Users, and an operator locked out of the site has a documented recovery procedure
* Off by default: switch it to "Optional" in System Preferences and every member may enrol; nobody is forced
* Protected at rest: authenticator secrets are encrypted with a site key; mailed codes are stored hashed and expire after ten minutes

Editors

* SCEditor edits visually with its full toolbar and keeps XOOPS BBCode intact across visual and source modes. Its emoticons are registered as XOOPS smileys, and new installs use it as the default editor
* System > Preferences > Editors configures SCEditor's toolbar buttons, plugins, emoticons, resizing, auto-expand, spellcheck, size and the image category for dropped images
* Markdown through EasyMDE: Markdown is stored in the existing text columns and rendered with Parsedown in safe mode; the editor preview uses the same renderer
* More BBCode: MyTextSanitizer renders the tags SCEditor writes: sub, sup, s (strikethrough), justify, hr, ol and table
* TinyMCE 7.9.3: the bundled TinyMCE 7 is updated to the current 7.x release, which carries three content-sanitisation fixes

Security hardening

* Remember-me tokens are revoked when the password changes, including a lost-password reset
* A restored session ends for a deactivated account, and group membership is read from the database on every request, so a removed group right takes effect immediately
* Registration validates the account again at the save step, not only at the first step
* Comment editing and deletion check that the comment belongs to the module handling the request
* The TinyMCE image manager checks category permissions for upload, delete and listing, as the core image manager does
* The upgrade wizard admits webmasters only
* The LDAP and Active Directory adapters stop when a requested StartTLS connection fails, instead of continuing without it
* Editor output is tightened: BBCode attributes and rendered Markdown are restored only where they belong, and SCEditor's visual view checks link schemes

Fixes
* The upgrade wizard reports a patch task that cannot complete, instead of re-queuing it silently, and no longer re-queues the 2.5.10-to-2.5.11 patch on every run
* The Modern admin theme shows its redirect notifications again, in light, dark and right-to-left layouts
* The Administration Menu link in the user block is shown only to administrators
* Several legacy classes load again on PHP 8: the tar and zip downloaders, the XML-RPC parser, and XoopsTpl::fetchFromData()
* An unknown user ID in the users admin shows a message instead of an error page, and logout works on sites with remember-me turned off

Changed since Beta 2:

* the editor work (SCEditor, the Editors preferences, Markdown),
* the upgrade wizard fix,
* the Modern theme notifications,
* the user-block fix,
* the PHP 8 legacy-class fixes,
* translatable upgrade-wizard messages are new in RC 1.
* the System module moves to 2.1.13; the upgrade wizard applies it.

Upgrading from 2.7.3

Copy the new files over the web root and run the upgrade wizard. It creates the user_2fa table and the two-factor preference, registers the SCEditor emoticons as smileys, and adds the Editors preferences. No mainfile.php changes are needed.
* Two-factor authentication needs the PHP sodium extension; the wizard reports whether it is available. Operations notes are in docs/2fa-operations.md
* Every remembered device logs in once more after the upgrade
* An upgraded site keeps its current editor settings; SCEditor becomes the default only on a fresh install. For SCEditor's MP3 button, set 'mp3' => 1 in xoops_data/configs/textsanitizer/config.php
* If you copied extras/login.php (the SSL popup login) elsewhere on your site, replace or remove that copy: updating the core does not patch it
* A site running a custom template set should re-import it

From a 2.7.4 beta: copy the new files and run the upgrade wizard again; it applies the RC 1 changes and updates the System module.

System requirements

PHP 8.2 to 8.5, MySQL 5.7+ or MariaDB 10.3+, and the PHP sodium extension for two-factor authentication.

Translations

XOOPS is available in 37 community translations at https://github.com/XoopsLanguages. XOOPS 2.7.4 adds English strings for two-factor authentication, the Editors preferences, SCEditor and the upgrade wizard; docs/lang_diff.txt lists every new constant. Translators, thank you: updated packs are very welcome before the final release.

Reporting issues

Please report bugs at https://github.com/XOOPS/XoopsCore27/issues with your PHP and MySQL versions and the steps to reproduce. Questions are welcome in the support forums.

Thank you to everyone who tested the betas, reported issues, submitted pull requests, translated strings and reviewed security findings during the 2.7.4 cycle. And a standing thank-you to JetBrains for the complimentary PhpStorm licenses that power the core team's development.

The XOOPS Development Team

ModuleTools 1.5 for XOOPS 2.8.0

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 05:30:00 +0000

ModuleTools: the shared toolbox every XOOPS 2.8.0 module now gets for free

If you have ever built a XOOPS module, you know the ritual. Copy a class/Common/ folder from the last module. Paste in the install helpers, the version checks, the admin table code, the confirmation dialog, the breadcrumb builder. Fix the namespace. Hope nothing drifted since the last copy.

With XOOPS 2.8, that ritual is over. ModuleTools ships inside XOOPS 2.8.0 Core as Xoops\ModuleTools\*, autoloaded on every request. There is nothing to install, nothing to activate, and no helper module to keep in sync. Your module just calls it.

What is in the box

ModuleTools is the successor to the mTools helper module, rebuilt as a proper library. It gathers the services modules used to carry as copied files:

* Install and update hooks. Directory checks, file checks, dependency and version guards, sample-data buttons, and an update checker that reads your GitHub releases.
* Admin pages in minutes. Object tables, tree tables, single-record views, CSV export, and a controller that handles create, edit, delete and uploads from one form definition.
* Objects and forms. A dynamic object base with SEO fields and a form builder that turns your handler's metadata into a ready XoopsThemeForm.
* Front-end helpers. Breadcrumbs, letter navigation, pagination, text truncation with intact HTML, social bookmarks, syntax highlighting, image resizing.
* Permissions. Per-item group permissions with a clean gateway, so your module never writes to the permission table by hand.
* Module lifecycle. A ModuleContext value object for paths, URLs and constants, a namespace autoloader that also understands legacy filenames, and a cloner that turns one module into the starting point for the next.

Why it matters

Less code to own. A typical converted module drops dozens of copied files. Fewer files means fewer places for a bug to hide and fewer places to patch when one is found.

Security fixes land once. When the confirmation dialog or the CSV export is hardened, every module on the site gets the fix on the next Core update. No module release required.

Modern PHP, tested. The library targets PHP 8.4, passes PHPStan at level 6, and ships a growing PHPUnit suite that includes consumer tests run against real modules inside a XOOPS tree.

No migration cliff. Existing modules keep working. ModuleTools registers lazy aliases for the stable XoopsModules\Mtools\* names, so a module written for the mTools module runs on 2.8 unchanged. When you are ready, the migration guide walks through swapping copied classes for library calls, and a Rector rule set does most of the typing.

Still there for 2.7. Sites on XOOPS 2.7.x keep the separately distributed mTools module with the same class names. Write against the API once and it runs on both.

Getting started

On XOOPS 2.8 the library is already loaded. In a module, grab your XMF helper and go:

use XmfModuleHelper;
use XoopsModuleToolsModuleModuleContext;

$helper = Helper::getHelper('mymodule');
$ctx = ModuleContext::fromHelper($helper);
$ctx->uploadPath('images');
For standalone development, composer require xoops/moduletools brings in the same package with its stubs and test suite.

The full walkthrough lives in docs/getting-started.md, and docs/migrating-a-module.md covers converting an existing module. Try it on your next module, or on the one you have been meaning to clean up, and let us know what you build.

PACKAGIST: https://packagist.org/packages/xoops/moduletools

INSTALLATION: composer require xoops/moduletools

XOOPS Plugin for PhpStorm 1.0 Alpha 3 Released

Tue, 22 Sep 2026 05:30:00 +0000

XOOPS Support Plugin for PhpStorm: Alpha 3 is here

PhpStorm finally speaks XOOPS. XOOPS Support 1.0.0 Alpha 3 teaches the IDE the conventions that used to live only in our heads: language constants, xoops_version.php, the <{ }> Smarty delimiters, the isResultSet guard, the direct-access guard. The result is fewer round trips to the browser, fewer "why is this blank" moments, and cleaner modules on the first commit.

DOWNLOAD / INSTALLATION: Install it from the JetBrains Marketplace: plugins.jetbrains.com/plugin/33478

What you get

Ctrl+B on language constants. Put the cursor on _MI_, _AM_, _MD_, _CO_ or _MB_ and jump straight to its define(), with language/english/ preferred. Find Usages works the other way round. Completion now reads every file under language/, not a fixed list, so your own catalogs are covered.

Templates that match the manifest. Two inspections keep xoops_version.php and the templates/ folder in sync. A registered template that is missing on disk is flagged, and so is a .tpl on disk that was never registered. Both come with a one-click fix: create the file, or append the manifest entry.

Ten inspections with Alt+Enter fixes. Missing defined('XOOPS_ROOT_PATH') || exit guard, fetchArray() without isResultSet(), query() used for a write, the deprecated queryF() / quoteString(), XOBJ_DTYPE_UNICODE_* (deprecated since 2.7.3), raw $_GET / $_POST / $_REQUEST, bare {if} instead of <{if}>, and include where include_once belongs. Each one explains why in its description and fixes itself with a keystroke.

A site-wide Overview. The XOOPS Support tool window scans the whole install in the background, lists every module with its template, language, preload and class counts, and turns every finding into a clickable file:line. Cancel works, and it stays idle until you press Refresh.

Core-version aware. Tell the plugin whether the project targets 2.5, 2.7 or 4.0 and the inspections adjust. The UNICODE deprecation, for example, stays quiet on a 2.5 LTS project.

What changed in Alpha 3

This release grew out of real field reports on production modules, and every fix has a test behind it.

* Findings are no longer reported twice per file.
* The isResultSet quick-fix applies cleanly in an Inspect Code batch, and an early-exit guard now covers while (list(...) = $db->fetchRow($result)).
* The direct-access guard understands namespaced files, die as well as exit, short <? tags and multiple declare statements, and inserts after namespace where PHP requires it. Entry points, admin/ scripts and 404 stubs are left alone.
* Block templates in templates/blocks/ registered by bare name, the ['template'] = '…' assignment style, and manifests with URLs in descriptions all parse correctly, so the Overview no longer shows phantom template findings.
* Commented-out define() calls stay out of completion and navigation.
* Your Core Version setting from Alpha 2 carries over.

Try it

* Install the plugin and open your XOOPS webroot in PhpStorm.
* Open View → Tool Windows → XOOPS Support and press Refresh.
* Open any module file and press Alt+Enter on a highlight.

The full walkthrough is in the tutorial that ships with the plugin. Feedback and bug reports are welcome at github.com/XOOPS/phpstorm-plugin.

XOOPS 2.7.4-Beta2 with Two-Factor Authentication (2FA)

Sun, 13 Sep 2026 05:40:00 +0000

XOOPS 2.7.4 Beta 2 — Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) comes to the core

The XOOPS Development Team is pleased to announce XOOPS 2.7.4 Beta 2. The headline feature is two-factor authentication (2FA) built into the core: every member can protect their account with a second step at login, using an authenticator app or a code sent by e-mail. This is a beta for testing; please try it on a staging copy of your site and report what you find.

DOWNLOAD: https://github.com/XOOPS/XoopsCore27/releases

Two-factor authentication

* Two methods: a time-based authenticator app (Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Aegis, FreeOTP, or any password manager that generates TOTP codes), or a six-digit code mailed to the member's address
* Ten one-time recovery codes at enrolment, for the day the phone or the mailbox is out of reach
* Five wrong codes lock the second step for fifteen minutes; the member is notified by e-mail
* Remember-me cookies are bound to the enrolled factor, so a reset invalidates them
* Members manage everything themselves from Edit Account, including disabling and replacing recovery codes
* Administrators reset a member's factor from Users, and an operator locked out of the site has a documented escape hatch
* Off by default. Switch it to "Optional" in System Preferences and every member may enrol; nobody is forced
* Secrets are encrypted at rest with a site key; mailed codes are stored hashed and expire after ten minutes

Also in this beta

* The login flow was split into reusable pieces, and every login path that cannot show a challenge (the upgrade wizard, XML-RPC, the SSL popup) refuses an account that must present its factor
* Account deletion removes the member's tokens and factor row, and no longer fails half-way
* A MySQL integration job now runs the concurrency and installed-site tests on PHP 8.2 through 8.5 on every change

Upgrading from 2.7.3

Copy the new htdocs/ files over the web root and run the upgrade wizard; it creates the user_2fa table and the new preference. Two-factor needs the PHP sodium extension, which the wizard checks for. No mainfile.php changes are needed. Operations notes: docs/2fa-operations.md in the package.

System requirements

PHP 8.2 to 8.5, MySQL 5.7+ or MariaDB 10.3+, and the sodium extension for two-factor authentication.

Thank you to everyone testing the betas. Report issues at https://github.com/XOOPS/XoopsCore27/issues

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Using two-factor authentication for the first time

Two-factor authentication (2FA) adds a second step to your login: after your password, you enter a short code that only you can produce. Someone who learns your password still cannot get in. Setting it up takes about two minutes.

Before you start

Decide how you want to receive the second step:
* Authenticator app (recommended): an app on your phone or computer shows a new six-digit code every 30 seconds, even offline. If you have none yet, install one first, for example Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator, Aegis or FreeOTP. Most password managers can do this too.
* E-mail codes: the site mails you a six-digit code each time you sign in. Easiest to start with, but anyone who can read your mailbox can pass this step.

Step 1 — open the setup page

Sign in, open Edit Account and click Two-factor authentication. You can also go straight to user.php?op=2fa_manage.

Step 2 — choose your method

Enter your current password, then click either Set up an authenticator or Use e-mail codes.

Step 3a — authenticator app

1. In your app, add an account: scan the QR code shown on the page, or choose manual entry and type the setup key printed under it.
2. The app now shows a six-digit code. Type the code it shows right now into the field and click Confirm authenticator.

Step 3b — e-mail codes

1. Check your inbox (and the spam folder) for a message from the site with a six-digit code. It is valid for ten minutes; Send me a code requests a fresh one.
2. Type the code into the field and click Confirm e-mail codes.

Step 4 — save your recovery codes

The page now shows ten recovery codes. Save them somewhere safe, separate from this account: a password manager or a printed sheet. Each code works once, and they are shown only this one time. They are your way in if your phone is lost or your mailbox is unreachable.

Signing in from now on

Enter your username and password as usual. On the next page, enter the current code from your app, or the code the site just mailed you. If you cannot produce a code, open Use a recovery code instead and enter one of your saved codes; the site e-mails you when a recovery code is used.

Good to know

* Five wrong codes lock the second step for fifteen minutes. A recovery code still works during the lock.
* "Remember me" is not available for accounts with two-factor authentication.
* To turn it off or to replace your recovery codes, return to the setup page: it asks for your password and a code.
* Lost everything, phone and recovery codes? Ask a site administrator, who can reset your two-factor authentication from the users admin. You will need to set it up again afterwards.

XOOPS 2.7.4-Beta1 (ready for PHP 8.6)

Thu, 10 Sep 2026 04:30:00 +0000

XOOPS 2.7.4 Beta 1 — session and comment hardening

The XOOPS Development Team announces XOOPS 2.7.4 Beta 1, a security-focused update to the 2.7 line. It closes seven authorisation and session gaps found in a review of the 2.7.3 core, updates the bundled TinyMCE 7 to a release with content-sanitisation fixes, and repairs an upgrade-wizard fault that could stall a site on an old patch. XOOPS 2.7.4 runs on PHP 8.2 through 8.5.

DOWNLOAD: You can download the release from here: https://github.com/XOOPS/XoopsCore27/releases

Ready for PHP 8.6

* Complete session save-handler contract: create_sid() ahead of its PHP 9.0 requirement, new sessions survive 8.6's updateTimestamp() routing, session.use_strict_mode pinned to the 8.6 default today
* Deprecations cleared ahead of time: constructor value-returns (guarded by a repository-wide test), is_long(), curl_close(), imagedestroy()

Security hardening

- Remember-me tokens are revoked when the password changes. The token now carries a keyed fingerprint of the stored password hash. A password change through any path, a lost-password reset included, invalidates every earlier token. Sessions restored from the session store are unaffected. (#194)
- Deactivated accounts lose their sessions. A restored session ends when the account is inactive, whether it came from the session store or the remember-me cookie, and group membership is resolved from the database on every request, so a demotion applies on the next request. (#188)
- Registration is validated at the save step. The step number is supplied by the client; the save step now requires that step 1 passed in this session and re-validates the identity values it is about to insert. (#187)
- Comments belong to their module. Editing, saving and deleting a comment now require it to belong to the module whose endpoint received the request, so an administrator of one module cannot act on another module's comments. (#189, #196)
- The TinyMCE image manager checks category permissions. Upload requires write access to the selected category, delete requires write access to the image's own category, and listing requires read access, as the core image manager already required. (#186)
- The upgrade wizard is gated on webmaster membership at every entry point; two of them had accepted a module-level admin right that can be delegated. (#189)
- LDAP and Active Directory fail closed on a failed StartTLS instead of continuing to bind over the plain connection. (#189)

Editors

- TinyMCE 7 is updated from 7.9.2 to 7.9.3, which carries three content sanitisation fixes, one of them in the media plugin that the XOOPS settings enable. The bundled TinyMCE 5 stays at 5.10.9: its corresponding fix is not publicly distributed, so treat TinyMCE 5 as unpatched and prefer TinyMCE 7. (#193)

Fixes

- The upgrade wizard reports a stalled patch task instead of re-queuing it silently on every click, and shows no server paths while doing so. Sites stuck on the 2.5.11 patch with an undeletable index.html now see which files are affected. (#184)
- The users admin no longer fails with an undefined constant on an unknown user id. (#190)
- Logging out, or restoring a deactivated account, no longer fails on sites where remember-me is disabled. (#188, #195, #198)
- A registration flow that finished and then received a further request no longer fails in the step merge. (#187)

Language

- The ten front-end labels of the default system menu move from the admin language file to language/<lang>/menus/menus.php, the file the resolver tries first. Names and values are unchanged, so existing translations and seeded menu rows keep working. (#185)
- One constant is added; see docs/lang_diff.txt. (#190)

Upgrading

- No database changes. The upgrade wizard has nothing to apply for 2.7.3 to 2.7.4; replace the files and clear the cache as usual.
- Remembered logins issued before this release are rejected once: each remembered device signs in again one time and receives a token with the new claim.
- Translation packs need the moved menu labels only if they override them; the English values apply otherwise.

Upgrading from 2.7.2

XOOPS 2.7.3 includes schema changes, so after copying the new htdocs/ files over the web root, run the upgrade wizard. No mainfile.php changes are needed. Full documentation: https://xoops.github.io/xoops-docs/

System requirements

* PHP >= 8.2.0 (PHP 8.4 or 8.5 recommended, prepared for 8.6)
* MySQL >= 5.7.8 or MariaDB >= 10.5 (a supported MySQL 8.x or MariaDB LTS recommended)
* Apache 2.4+ or nginx

Translations

XOOPS 2.7.3 adds new English language constants: the SCEditor editor strings introduced in RC 1 and one logout-confirmation string added in Final — see docs/lang_diff.txt. XOOPS remains maintained in 37 community translations: https://github.com/XoopsLanguages

Thank you

Thank you to everyone who submitted pull requests, reported issues, tested the beta and RC packages, translated strings, and reviewed security findings throughout the 2.7.3 cycle.

A special thank-you to darkglobe-project and nikitakothari06 for testing the release candidates and reporting issues and bugs). Bug reports like these make XOOPS better for everyone.

We also thank JetBrains ( https://www.jetbrains.com/ ) for supporting the project with PhpStorm licenses.

Bug reports: https://github.com/XOOPS/XoopsCore27/issues
Support forums: https://xoops.org/modules/newbb/

The XOOPS Development Team