Release Date:
Summary
Stack-589 delivers a focused set of improvements spanning platform reliability, search infrastructure, data curation tooling, and user experience polish. The release resolves several bugs that were causing user-facing errors and tightens a security boundary in the collaborative grid editor. A total of 11 tickets were completed across the PLFM and SWC projects.
The most significant work this cycle advances the ongoing migration of Synapse's portal search from MySQL to Amazon OpenSearch — addressing multiple defects that blocked synonym-aware search indexes from functioning correctly. Researchers relying on synonym-based queries (e.g. searching "AI" and expecting results for "artificial intelligence") will see those searches begin working as intended once the OpenSearch migration reaches production. Additional platform stability work improves how bulk search indexing handles transient errors, reducing silent data gaps in search results.
Data curators benefit from several bug fixes to the Curator grid, making copy-paste and upload workflows from Google Sheets and Excel more reliable. The Download List experience for users of the Cancer Complexity Knowledge Portal (CCKP) has also been improved with a progress indicator that better communicates when externally-hosted files are included in a download.
No breaking changes or required user actions are included in this release.
Affected Users & Systems
|
Who / What |
Impact |
|---|---|
|
All Synapse users subscribed to forum discussions |
Email notification links to discussion threads were broken (404 errors); this is now fixed. |
|
Data curators using the Curator grid |
Multiple paste and upload bugs resolved — blank cells, exported CSV re-imports, and unexpected validation errors no longer block curation workflows. |
|
CCKP portal users downloading external files |
A new progress bar clearly indicates when externally-hosted files are in the download cart and may take additional time. |
|
Portal search / OpenSearch infrastructure |
Synonym-aware search indexes can now be created and queried correctly, including multi-word synonyms (e.g. "deep learning" ↔ "DL"). Search indexing is also more resilient to transient cloud errors. |
|
Collaborative grid (shared editing sessions) |
A security fix prevents a user from submitting edits attributed to another replica/session in the same grid. |
|
Platform operators / DevOps |
Release deployment issue (S3 bucket conflict) resolved; no action required. |
Deprecated or Breaking Changes
There are no deprecated or breaking changes in this release. No migrations, required upgrades, or workflow changes are needed.
New Features
Docker Repositories in Entity Views New
When creating a new Table/View of type "Files, Folders, and Other Objects," users can now include Docker Repositories as a selectable entity type. Previously, only Files, Folders, Tables, and Datasets were available, leaving Docker-based projects without full view support.
Who benefits: Teams that manage Docker-based computational tools in Synapse and want to surface them alongside other project assets in a unified view.
Download List Progress Bar for External Files New
When downloading multiple files from the Download List, users now see a progress indicator that communicates when externally-hosted files (common in CCKP) are included and may require extra time to retrieve.
Who benefits: CCKP portal users and anyone downloading carts that include files stored outside Synapse's native storage.
Fixes & Improvements
Forum Email Notification Links Fixed
Email notifications for new forum posts and replies were generating broken URLs that returned a 404 page. The missing syn prefix in the Synapse entity ID within the link has been corrected. All forum notification links will now route correctly.
OpenSearch Synonym Index — Multiple Defects Resolved
Three interrelated defects in the search index synonym pipeline have been resolved:
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Synonym-aware search indexes can now be created successfully (previously failed outright for any non-empty synonym set).
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Bulk indexing no longer silently drops documents that contain hyphenated, CamelCase, or mixed-format tokens.
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Multi-word synonym pairs (e.g. "large language model" ↔ "LLM", "deep learning" ↔ "DL") now return correct results at query time.
Who benefits: All portal users performing keyword searches once OpenSearch is live in production.
OpenSearch Bulk Indexing Retry Resilience
When the search indexing service encountered transient cloud errors, it would loop indefinitely, re-processing the same failed batch without progress. Indexing now uses an exponential-backoff retry that targets only the documents that actually failed, preventing log flooding and ensuring indexes complete reliably.
Curator Grid — Paste & Upload Bug Fixes
Several issues affecting data entry in the Curator grid have been resolved:
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Pasting or uploading empty cells from Google Sheets or Excel no longer triggers a cryptic "null is not a valid enum" validation error.
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Re-importing data from an exported CSV back into the grid now correctly handles array columns and boolean values (
TRUE/FALSE,0/1,yes/no). -
Additional unexpected validation errors when pasting from spreadsheet tools have been resolved.
Curator Grid — Assignee Field Tooltip Clarified
The "Set Assignee" pop-up in the Curator now includes clearer guidance explaining that the Assignee field is for task organization and filtering only — it does not control project access or permissions.
Grid Security — Replica ID Validation
A security issue in the collaborative grid editor was addressed. Previously, a user could submit edits attributed to a different session replica than their own, which disrupted other users' edits or impersonate internal system components. The platform now validates that submitted patches match the user's own session, and rejects unauthorized requests.
Outdated 2023 Data Management Banner Removed
The site-wide banner referencing the 2023 NIH Data Management and Sharing Plan was removed to reduce the overhead in the UI.