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Mastodon Updated to 4.6.1
published
We have updated C.IM to Mastodon v4.6.1.
This is a bigger update than the version number suggests for us, because C.IM is moving from the 4.5 series to the 4.6 series. It includes the main Mastodon 4.6 changes, plus the fixes released in 4.6.1.
What’s New in Mastodon 4.6
Redesigned Profiles
Profiles have been redesigned with a cleaner layout and a better editing flow. You can now update more of your own profile directly from the web interface, without going through the preferences panel.
Mastodon 4.6 also adds support for alt text on profile pictures and headers, which is a useful accessibility improvement for profile pages.
Collections
Mastodon now supports Collections, a way to group and share up to 25 accounts. This is based on the Fediverse’s Featured Collections work, so it is designed for interoperability rather than being a Mastodon-only feature.
Email Subscriptions
Mastodon 4.6 introduces email subscriptions for public posts. When enabled by an administrator and then enabled by a user, visitors can subscribe to that user’s public posts by email.
We will keep an eye on this feature because it can increase outgoing email volume and operating costs.
Stronger Account and Admin Controls
This release adds several useful controls for admins and users:
- Admins can require two-factor authentication for specific roles
- Custom filters can be imported and exported
- Admins can search email blocks by domain
- Notification filtering has been improved, including filtering notifications from bots
- Account display names can now be up to 40 characters
- Media alt text can now be much longer, up to 10,000 characters
Web UI Improvements
Mastodon 4.6 includes many interface refinements, including better accessibility, support for vertical-language posts, improved keyboard shortcuts, and clearer wording in several settings pages.
It also changes the theme system to use design tokens and CSS variables. This is good for the long-term frontend direction, but it means custom themes need updates to work properly with the 4.6 series.
Fixes in 4.6.1
The 4.6.1 patch release focuses on dependency updates and fixes for the new 4.6 experience:
- Updated dependencies for security and maintenance
- Added compatibility fields for avatar and header descriptions in the existing account update API
- Fixed combobox menus and suggestion list behavior
- Fixed emoji database loading and upgrades when multiple tabs are open
- Fixed media modal navigation in right-to-left languages
- Fixed account visibility in the advanced web interface collection editor
- Fixed login errors with some LDAP configurations
- Fixed display name length validation in the web UI
- Fixed custom profile field overflow
- Fixed some remote featured collection attribution issues
Upgrade Notes
Mastodon 4.6 changes several infrastructure requirements:
- Ruby 3.3 or newer
- Node.js 22 or newer
- FFmpeg 5.1 or newer
- PostgreSQL 14 or newer
- Redis 7.0 or newer
libvipsis now required; ImageMagick support has been removed
The upgrade also requires database migrations, asset recompilation, and restarting the streaming server.
Mastodon v4.6.2 was released after this update, but it only updates FFmpeg inside the official Docker container images. We do not use those images for C.IM, so there is no application source update for us to apply here. We will skip 4.6.2 and plan to update again when Mastodon v4.6.3 is available.
For the full release notes, see:
Summary
C.IM is now on the Mastodon 4.6 series, with the 4.6.1 patch applied.
This update improves profiles, introduces collections, adds new account and admin tools, and brings a large set of fixes across the web UI, ActivityPub handling, accessibility, and backend behavior.
Source code for our instance is available at: