The Ignite Realtime community has just released Spark 2.8.0 and it can be downloaded from Ignite Realtime: Downloads.

This is a major release marking the end of support for Java 7 (which has reached the end of life state more than a year ago). Full Spark installers have already been bundled with Java 8 for some time. Online installer won't work with Java 7 starting with 2.8.0 version. We recommend updating to Java 8. Underlying Smack library has been updated to the latest version in this release. Roar plugin has received new popup control options as well.

There is a huge list of changes in this version. So this most probably has introduced new issues (though we have tried to catch and fix most of them before the release). Please report in the forums, if you find them. Again, please do not post bug reports in the comments of this blog post.

For a complete list of changes please check Spark Changelog

As usually we encourage new developers to join Spark project and provide patches. Those familiar with Smack can join the development easier, as we are now on the current version of it (4.1.8 at the moment of this release). Patches can be attached in the forums or submitted as PRs on GitHub.

Here are the contributors to this release (besides myself):

Wolf  updated Roar plugin to have separate settings for group chat and keyword matching popups, added system style popups

Alexander198961 · GitHub  added option to save room's password, added URL support to admin's broadcast dialog

??????  added Ukrainian translation

nicoben (Nico Ben) · GitHub  updated Italian translation

speedy  fixed failed login process with self-signed certificates, updated Substance skin library, fixed an issue with idle on Windows 10 lock screen

Daryl Herzmann  fixed Debian build

We owe Guus der Kinderen  a separate mention. Guus has done a huge job of updating Spark to the current Smack version, which contains a lot of bug fixes, security patches and new features. He has also fixed many other issues along the way. Such as group chat window size issues, room occupants presence management, annoying word wrapping issue with long text lines, SSO/GSSAPI problems, etc.

Important information for SSO (Single Sign On) users, if they are using SRV records: SSO (Single Sign On) configuration changes with Spark 2.8.0

UPDATE: Important information for those having login issues with 2.8.0: Login issues with Spark 2.8.0

[SIP phone] SIP plugin is not working since the Smack 4 update. We hope to have it fixed for 2.8.1.

[Voice Chat] Jingle (PC to PC) calls are not working at this point.

[Linux] Flashing plugin is not working on Linux systems.

Here are sha1 checksums for the downloads:

6fa1265e7def8800e0a4356bd1b7d8cf58bb85f8  spark_2_8_0.dmg

741c20d9141c88ecde08d60fbc11145887d32573  spark_2_8_0.exe

b76e36da81469561fdad4a227fa4ad68d792ca7b  spark_2_8_0_online.exe

e2fcdddb4e84f6f1abe9d62a39aa0c7c9e06d814  spark_2_8_0.tar.gz

a772028ba10db2084ea7e2b7b1fb408803c77a5b  spark-2.8.0.rpm

38ca0d9ab5ccd7d61be03b702a0abd5c8939ada5  spark-2.8.0.src.rpm

fba8705d54f49bceb62f19a30348482f9bbeacfb  spark_2_8_0.deb

I've just uploaded Smack 4.1.8 and 4.2.0-beta2 to Maven Central.

Smack 4.1.8 fixes a few minor issues and is expected to be the last release of the 4.1 branch. As always, Smack releases with the same major and minor version numbers are drop in replacements. Ideally you just need to change a single variable somewhere in your build system.

Smack 4.2.0-beta2 is the latest beta of Smack's current development branch. Notable additions include support for XEP-0313: Message Archive Management (MAM) and the IoT XEP series.

Please be aware that over the next few days, the IgniteRealtime community will be moved to new server environment. As a result, new IP addresses will be used for the XMPP domain, this website and the Atlassian stack (JIRA, Bamboo et al). The community forum (everything under the "community" tab of the website) is not affected by the migration.

We plan to move gradually, a few services at a time. The migration will start in the coming few days, and will continue for some days to come. You can expect some downtime, but that should be limited. Watch this space for updates!

So, why are we moving in the first place? I've addressed this previously in a thread on the community, from which I'll cross-post the more interesting bits here.

Jive Software has expressed their intention to reduce the sponsoring of the hosting of this community. What will be discontinued specifically is all of the Contegix-based hosting, which includes the servers that run the igniterealtime.org website, our Atlassian stack (Bamboo, JIRA), our XMPP domain, and related tooling. The forum functionality that you're using to read this message is based on the Jive cloud, which is different from the Contegix-based hosting. Jive Software has expressed that we're welcome to continue to make use the Jive cloud-based solution for the foreseeable future.

After Jive established the community back in 2006, they continued to put in a lot of effort to maintain and support both the people and software. On top of that, they've been incredibly generous in regards to spending money on development and hosting - looking for suitable replacement for the hosting of this community has made us more aware of exactly how generous, too! But we accept that over time, Jive's business has moved away from XMPP and Instant Messaging. Most of our contacts within the company have also moved on by now, which resulted in where we are today - pretty much distinct entities. It's no wonder that Jive re-evaluated their support. We are extremely grateful for all of the time, effort, and money that we received from them in the past. Jive is also actively working to end our cooperation well, offering support and even donation of the existing hardware, as well as plenty of notice. Kudos.

After Jive expressed their intentions, we've been actively searching for a new home for our community. We have had some great offers, more than we would have imagined (thank you!). We eventually decided to accept the generous offer from John Atherton, of Surevine Ltd, who have offered to help us by hosting our entire environment in Amazon, as well as support us during and after the migration. I am inviting Surevine to write a posting here to further introduce themselves.

As for the migration: over the past few weeks, several of us (both in the community and within Surevine) have been putting in quite some time to prepare for everything. An important part of the move is rebuilding infrastructure that was put in place over a decade ago. This has been an interesting exercise in spelunking...  We've had to make some adjustments left and right, but we feel that we're good to go. Still, we'd like to ask you to be on the lookout for missing functionality. Although we're trying to cover all bases, a lot of nuts and bolts were added over the last few years. We will have missed one or two, or we might have believed some to be non-important while they were not. Feel free to pop into the community chat or leave a message here if you think we missed something!

Thanks for your patience while we move IgniteRealtime to its new home.