The PHP 8.5.6 release candidate focuses on critical stability patches rather than new features, addressing memory leaks, JIT assertion failures, and garbage collection crashes. Key updates in the core engine fix reference counting issues, while bundled extensions like Phar, OpenSSL, and Curl receive patches for various bugs and memory leaks. Security enhancements include hardening against predictable random state generation and correcting use-after-free errors in iterator handling. Developers are encouraged to test this release candidate in their production environments to identify potential issues before the final stable version is released
PHP 8.5.6 RC1 released
The PHP 8.5.6 release candidate shifts focus from new features to critical stability patches that target memory leaks, JIT assertion failures, and garbage collection crashes. Core engine updates resolve reference counting issues while bundled extensions like Phar, OpenSSL, Curl, and SPL get fixed for null dereferences, concurrency bugs, and missing Windows compression support. Security hardening also rounds out the release by locking down predictable random state generation and fixing use-after-free errors in iterator handling. Developers should test this build against their production workloads to catch segfaults before the final stable version ships.
