Please Stop releasing new versions of a Friday!!!

Problem reported by Bruce - 2/14/2026 at 5:29 AM

Submitted

Releasing a new version of Friday means that in Europe, we receive it on Saturday morning. This results in us having to spend another Saturday updating all our customers' SmarterMail servers. If there are any issues with today's release, such as the DOS IPS rule not working, it will require additional work on Saturday afternoon as well.

There’s a reason why the industry has "Patch Tuesday." It allows time to test the updates on Wednesday, roll them out on Tuesday, and have Friday available to fix any issues that may arise before the weekend.

I apologise for the rant, but I am frustrated with having to work another Saturday due to your poorly timed release cycles.

8 Replies

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Richard Laliberte Replied

2/14/2026 at 6:01 AM

Patch Tuesday is an absolute nightmare... releasing updates (sometimes force ty Microsoft) causes a number of head aches as the amount of trouble shooting received after some updates is horrendous. I'd rather have a release on a Friday afternoon / Saturday morning to get the weekend to properly test any issues and resolve as many problems as possible before users are back in the office on Monday mornings.

With regards to SM, unless we see "Critical" we never install on the day a new release it put out, as we don't have the extra servers right now for testing new releases. We generally wait for some community feedback, and proceed when it's ideal (usually by installing after hours or during the night).

Bruce Replied

2/14/2026 at 6:13 AM

Forget the part about Patch Tuesday; I’m using it merely as an example of a better day to schedule a new release for SmarterMail. It allows time during the week for testing and updating without needing to work on weekends.

You might have a team large enough to have people work on weekends, but if you’re a smaller provider, working seven days a week weekdays, nights, and weekends can become overwhelming.

This latest SmarterMail release includes more security fixes, and since some SmarterMail customers have been hacked within hours of a new release, I would prefer not to wait until Monday. As a result, after another 80-hour week, I find myself spending most of Saturday working as well.

rick Replied

2/14/2026 at 7:14 AM

🤣🤣🤣 Why not just wait until this coming Tuesday and make your own "Patch Tuesday". Who told you that you need to install it today?

Jay Dubb Replied

2/14/2026 at 9:06 AM

Delaying updates after they are released gives black hats time to examine the new code and find what changed-- and what the vulnerabilities are for those who haven't yet updated.

sbh Replied

2/14/2026 at 10:24 AM

@Rick: You can laugh at the person posting this all you want, but personally agree that seeing a SmarterMail email about an update now makes me jump into "got to deal with this now" mode instead of "I'll wait and see if people report issues on the community" like it used to. I think it's a perfectly reasonable reaction given everything that's happened over the last month.

kevind Replied

2/14/2026 at 10:25 AM

Friday the 13th release -- to keep Jason from hacking in and killing the server! 😉

Richard Laliberte Replied

2/14/2026 at 1:10 PM

The only time i've updated SM the day of release is if i see "IMPORTANT: Critical security fixes" and even then i evaluate the fix based on our setup, and if there is a temporary fix we can apply to stop the hack until it's confirmed the update is stable by a few others (usually within a day or 2)

sbh Replied

2/14/2026 at 1:36 PM

Less than a month ago they sent out the email for 9511 that was mostly just talking about 9504's fixes and didn't include any kind of "IMPORTANT:" warning to update immediately, then it transpired 9511 fixed the hugely critical force-reset-password issue. Regaining trust in their messaging that quickly is your prerogative, but I'm not there yet.

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