Hey y’all, 

This week the majority of our development time was spent preparing for the Audacious Aurochs hardfork, for which the mandatory upgrade period will begin a few days from now. This process included updates to Session clients to make them play nice with some of our changes to the Onion requests protocol, Lokinet changes in preparation for liblokinet, and Oxen Core changes to prepare and conduct the hardfork as well as additional testing. 

Oxen Core

• Create new ONS pay_type for show_transfers command https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-core/pull/1446

• Dependency updates for v9 hardfork https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-core/pull/1444

• Further ONS tests https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-core/pull/1445

• Better text formatting on no storage server and Lokinet version warning message https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-core/pull/1443

• Serialise fields for participation checks https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-core/pull/1442

• Fix testnet syncing issues caused by ONS fees https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-core/pull/1441

• Add warning when restoring ed25519 key https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-core/pull/1440

• MacOS build fixes https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-core/pull/1439 

• Swarm ID fix https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-core/pull/1438

• Redo storage server pinging system https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-core/pull/1436

• Fix MacOS tests https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-core/pull/1435

• [OxenMQ] Simplify sending optional data parts https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-mq/pull/36

• [Storage] Simplify/unwrap storage server onion request responses https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-storage-server/pull/421

• Storage server code and ping reporting refactor https://github.com/oxen-io/oxen-storage-server/pull/419

Lokinet 

This week our development time was focussed primarily on stability testing, various packaging updates, and minor fixes/tweaks.  We also spend a good chunk of time researching ways to improve the user experience on macOS — we know the current experience there is far from ideal and are working on fixing it (properly, replacing our fairly fragile solution that often breaks, such as on Big Sur). In more exciting news, we have launched our rebranded Lokinet — keeping the same name but redesigning the logo, theme, and website all from scratch! This was accompanied by a new Lokinet package update (0.8.5) incorporating the new branding assets.

• GUI rebranding https://github.com/oxen-io/loki-network/pull/1596, https://github.com/oxen-io/loki-network/pull/1598, https://github.com/oxen-io/loki-network-control-panel/commits/master

• Replace the lokinet-bootstrap shell script with a compiled one (so that we can use it to properly bootstrap on Windows) https://github.com/oxen-io/loki-network/pull/1597

• Fix compilation issues on various lesser-used platforms https://github.com/oxen-io/loki-network/pull/1601

• Fix oxend block notification https://github.com/oxen-io/loki-network/pull/1602

Session

Session iOS

• Improved Service Node pool updating https://github.com/oxen-io/session-ios/pull/394

• Improved Open Group performance https://github.com/oxen-io/session-ios/pull/388

• Closed Group changes https://github.com/oxen-io/session-ios/pull/387

• Integrate changes for upcoming hardfork https://github.com/oxen-io/session-ios/pull/384 

• Fix conversation screen update bug https://github.com/oxen-io/session-ios/pull/395 

• Fix conversation screen scrolling bug https://github.com/oxen-io/session-ios/pull/391

• Fix open group message timestamp issue https://github.com/oxen-io/session-ios/pull/390 

Session Android 

• Change screen lock timeout https://github.com/oxen-io/session-android/pull/509

• Update changes for hardfork https://github.com/oxen-io/session-android/pull/503 

• Screenshot notifications https://github.com/oxen-io/session-android/pull/508

• Improvement to group creation UI https://github.com/oxen-io/session-android/pull/506

Session Desktop 

• V2 Open group support https://github.com/oxen-io/session-desktop/pull/1576

• Record voice messages as Mp3s https://github.com/oxen-io/session-desktop/pull/1575

Session Open Group server 

• Upgrade deb packaging https://github.com/nielsandriesse/session-open-group-server/pull/23

• Auto build debs https://github.com/nielsandriesse/session-open-group-server/pull/22

Thanks,  

Kee