Upgrade Notes (v8.7.5)

These notes cover what changes when you upgrade an existing installation to Interspire Email Marketer v8.7.5. Most of the release requires no action — but a few features have behavior you should be aware of before and after upgrading. Read the highlighted items below first.

Before You Upgrade

1. Back up your files and database. This is always recommended, and it matters more in 8.7.5: once custom-field data is encrypted, a database rollback cannot read those values back in plaintext.
2. Check server requirements. v8.7.5 requires PHP 8.3 or 8.4 (8.4 preferred) and MySQL 8.0+/MariaDB 10.x. See Server Requirements, and run check_iem.php to confirm.
3. Plan the schema upgrade. After you replace the application files, the database schema upgrade runs automatically the first time an administrator logs in. Perform the upgrade during a quiet period.

Encrypted Custom Fields — Action May Be Required v8.7.5

Field-level encryption is a new, opt-in feature. If you do not enable it, no action is needed.

Caution

If you enable encryption on a custom field that already contains data, newly entered or edited values are encrypted immediately, but existing rows are not encrypted automatically. An administrator must run the one-time backfill tool on the server, once per field:

php tools/encrypt-customfield-backfill.php --field=ID

The tool is safe to re-run — rows already encrypted are skipped. Until it completes, exact-match search and segmentation on that field still include contacts whose values haven’t been encrypted yet, so run it promptly.

Also note, once a field is encrypted:

• Encryption cannot be disabled. Decide before saving.
• Searching supports exact matches only; segments allow only equals / does not equal.
• Exports of encrypted field values are limited to administrator accounts.
• Merge tags referencing an encrypted field are blocked from rendering in emails unless you turn on Allow in email personalization for that field.

See Encrypted Custom Fields for full details.

Statistics Will Look Different v8.7.5

Bot detection is enabled by default with sensible thresholds, so automated (non-human) opens and clicks are now filtered out of your engagement numbers.

Note

After upgrading, open and click counts may appear lower than before. This is expected — it reflects automated activity being excluded, not data being lost. Use the one-click toggle to view raw figures at any time, and administrators can tune the detection thresholds in Settings → Email Settings.

See Bot Detection Settings for the available options.

Bounce Processing

Bounce handling has been modernized onto the bundled webklex/php-imap library.

• IMAP bounce accounts no longer require the PHP IMAP extension. IMAP is now the recommended account type, and auto-detection prefers secure SSL/TLS connections.
• POP3 bounce accounts still require the ext-imap extension. If it is unavailable on your server, switch the account to IMAP.

Existing bounce accounts continue to work after the upgrade; review them only if you previously relied on ext-imap for POP3 or had trouble with SSL-only mail servers.

Email Editor (BuilderJS)

The BuilderJS drag-and-drop editor has been upgraded to its latest major version. The editor choice is permanent per item, so existing newsletters, templates, and autoresponders keep the editor they were created with and continue to open and edit normally. See BuilderJS Editor for what’s new.