Claris FileMaker Cloud Release Notes

New features and enhancements

Admin Console

• Admin Console and FileMaker Admin API include functionality to flush database pages to disk, with options to flush individual files or all files on the server.

• A confirmation dialog now appears when you click the Clear All Messages button on the Backup Message Center page. The dialog warns that the action will delete all completed tasks, including failed tasks, cannot be undone, and won't affect tasks currently in progress.

• Regular database downloads now appear in the Messages Center, allowing you to monitor the progress and status of download operations alongside backup and restoration tasks.

• Upload progress is now displayed in the Messages Center, allowing you to track the status and progress of database file uploads.

• You can now set the Removed Databases Retention Policy for up to 30 days instead of the previous maximum of 15 days. The default retention period has been increased from 7 days to 15 days to help prevent accidental data loss. The preset options are now 10, 15 (default), and 20 days, with a custom range of 1 to 30 days.

System maintenance

• Obsolete log files (ownerchange.log and gateway*.log) have been removed from the Log tab in Admin Console as they are no longer used by the system.

FileMaker Data API

• The /validateSession endpoint returns the isSessionInUse parameter in the response, providing better visibility into session status for scripting and integration with other services. The isSessionInUse returns true when the session is in use and false when the session is idle.

FileMaker WebDirect

• When data is changed for the current session, a warning dialog is displayed when users attempt to click the browser's Back or Forward buttons, closing the tab or window, reloading the page, or navigating away by clicking a link, helping prevent accidental session termination and providing a more intuitive user experience.

• Right-click shortcut menus are supported, allowing users to access common operations like copy and paste directly from the shortcut menu. Right-click shortcut menus are also supported for additional field types including drop-down lists, pop-up menus, drop-down calendars, and concealed edit boxes, with various UI and state management improvements.

OData

• Container data support in OData has been expanded with improved MIME type and file extension mapping, moving from the limited current set to FileMaker's comprehensive extension-based mapping system used throughout the platform.

• OData binary file uploads support setting custom filenames through Content-Disposition headers, allowing uploaded files to retain their original names instead of defaulting to generic names like 'Untitled.jpg'.

• OData certificate signing has been updated to use SHA256 instead of MD5 for improved security, matching the implementation used in ODBC and JDBC.

• OData supports aggregation extensions including the $apply system query option, aggregate transformations (AS), standard aggregation methods (SUM, MIN, MAX, AVERAGE, COUNTDISTINCT), and GROUPBY transformations to provide SQL-equivalent functionality.

• OData supports exporting value list items by associating fields with value lists through validation rules, with custom field annotations indicating value list associations and automatically generated tables for custom value lists.

Security

• FileMaker Cloud includes additional hardening against denial of service (DoS) and other attacks.

• FileMaker Cloud blocks connections from FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Go versions earlier than 20.3.2 for improved security.

Addressed issues

FileMaker WebDirect

• Text fields incorrectly displayed cached data from the previous record when navigating between records, showing the wrong content until the field was clicked.

• The Calendar add-on continuously flashed when a portal on the same layout displayed data from the table occurrence used by the Calendar add-on.

• The option to disable the shortcut menu for interactive container fields did not disable shortcut menus.

• When creating PDFs that contained Japanese Kanji characters, some characters were displayed in Chinese style fonts instead of the correct Japanese style fonts.

OData

• OData failed to properly handle URLs containing Get(UUIDNumber) values as primary keys, returning syntax errors when attempting to retrieve records using the @odata.id URL format.

• OData failed to properly handle table names containing non-ASCII characters, with characters before and including omega (Ω) being ignored in the table name processing.

• Starting with FileMaker Cloud 2.21.0, OData filtering operations that performed quickly in version 20.3.2 began experiencing significant timeouts, particularly with complex filter queries using multiple 'or' conditions.

Container fields

• The GetThumbnail function failed to generate thumbnails for certain HEIC image files in container fields, displaying a question mark instead of the expected thumbnail.

• The GetThumbnail function returned a question mark instead of generating thumbnails for PDF files inserted into interactive container fields.

General

• When adding an IP address with invalid formatting (containing non-numeric characters) to the IP Address Filtering list, Admin Console became inaccessible with a 502 Bad Gateway error instead of properly rejecting the invalid input.

• When a database file was restored from a backup, the timestamp in the filename contained colons, which prevented the downloaded file from being extracted on Windows systems.

New features and enhancements

Local time zone support system-wide

• To make all time-based operations more intuitive to manage, you can now set your instance to use the local time zone instead of UTC. Enabling this option affects script schedules, backups, logs, as well as auto maintenance.

• You can switch between the local time zone and UTC at any time. However, switching requires you to restart your instance. The change affects when existing schedules are run, so you may need to adjust when they start or end, and it may affect FileMaker scripts that use the host's current date or time in calculations.

• In Admin Console on the Configuration > General Settings tab under System Time Zone, enable Use Local Time Zone for System.

Schedule maintenance

• When you sign in to Admin Console, authentication tokens for any script schedules you have full access to are now automatically refreshed. This eliminates the need to manually update each schedule when tokens expire, ensuring your schedules continue to run uninterrupted.

• For script schedules with authentication tokens created by other team managers, Admin Console now notifies you 60 days before those tokens expire, in case the other team managers don't sign in soon enough to automatically refresh their tokens. If you have full access to the schedule, you can update the token yourself—go to the schedule, click Edit, then Save (no changes necessary). Otherwise, you can ask the other team manager (specified in the notification) to sign in.

FileMaker WebDirect

• FileMaker WebDirect session timeouts can now be set to a maximum of 180 minutes instead of the previous maximum of 60 minutes.

Security improvements

• To enhance security, Node.js has been updated to version 22.14.0.

New features and enhancements

Permanently delete database files

• You can now permanently delete database files again. This feature was temporarily removed recently to make permanent deletions more explicit. Now, the only option on the Databases page is to remove a file, which moves it to the Removed Files list on the Backups page, where you can restore it later, if necessary. The option to delete a file is now available only in the Removed Files list, where you can permanently delete the file and its preserved backups.

• To remove a database:

  1. On the Databases page, click next to the database, then choose Close, if it isn't closed already.

  2. After the database is closed, click , then choose Remove.

     After you confirm, the database is moved to the Removed Files list on the Backups page. The file remains on the Removed Files list until FileMaker Cloud permanently deletes it according to the Removed Databases Retention Policy set on the Backups page > Backup Settings. However, if the file is included in any preserved backups, the file will remain on the Removed Files list to reflect that fact until you no longer preserve those backups.

• To restore a removed database:

  1. On the Backups page, click the Removed Files tab.

  2. Select the database file to restore.

  3. Click Restore Backup.

     If prompted, enter the database encryption password.

  4. Select the specific backup of the file to restore.

     The latest backup corresponds to the hosted file at the time it was removed.

  5. Click Restore.

     The restored file appears on the Databases page again with the filename <filename>_Restored_<backup_timestamp>. To rename the file, click , then Rename.

• To permanently delete a removed database:

  1. On the Backups page, click the Removed Files tab.

  2. Select the removed files that you want to delete.

     To select all removed files, click the checkbox in the table heading.

  3. Click Delete Backups.

     Warning  After you confirm in the next step, the selected files and all their preserved backups are permanently deleted. This action cannot be undone.

  4. Click Permanently Delete.

Retrieve up to 30 days of CPU usage and incoming network traffic history

• Your instance's CPU usage and the incoming network traffic (in bytes) are now available looking back up to 30 days. This historical data is available in Admin Console:

  • On the Dashboard page in the System Statistics graphs

  • On the Logs page in the Log viewer (select the gateway.log file). You can download the log file and look for entries that include "CPUUtilization" and "NetworkIn."

• On the Dashboard page, you can set the number of days ago to show and the time period represented by each data point.

Only open last opened databases on restart

• Rather than open all databases after your instance restarts, you can now choose to open only those that were open before the instance restarted.

• In Admin Console on the Configuration > General Settings tab under Startup Settings, enable Only open last opened databases.

Addressed issues

• FileMaker WebDirect: When text was pasted into a field in the latest versions of Google Chrome or Microsoft Edge, the last character of the pasted text was incorrectly deleted when you clicked somewhere outside of the field.

• For a database with a container field that was set to store data externally using secure storage and that had the With fewer folders option selected, restoring a backup of this database resulted in the container field displaying a message that the file was missing.

• The performance of certain file operations was reduced as more files were uploaded and removed. Now, the performance of restoring files and downloading backups under these circumstances is significantly improved.

Addressed issues

• Database files with filenames that included certain non-ANSI characters couldn't be opened by a FileMaker Cloud host.

Removed features

• In FileMaker Cloud Admin Console on the Databases page, the Remove Permanently option to irreversibly delete a database file has been removed.

New features and enhancements

FileMaker WebDirect

• The mobile browser pull-to-refresh option is now disabled by default.

• The OnObjectKeystroke and OnLayoutKeystroke script triggers are now partially supported in FileMaker WebDirect. They activate only for the Return, Enter, and Escape keys. For OnObjectKeystroke, only an active field object with the edit box control style is supported.

OData API

• OData now supports the $expand operation.

• OData now supports the in operator.

• OData now supports parameter aliases for key values and function parameter values. For example:

  • GET <host>/fmi/odata/v4/<database>/Purchase(@p1)?@p1='2%2F%5C'

• OData now supports nesting $select within other options. For example:

  • GET <host>/fmi/odata/v4/<database>/Categories?$expand=Products&$select=Name,Products/Name

• OData now supports Edm.<type> type casting. For example:

  • GET <host>/fmi/odata/v4/<database>/Purchase(1)/Total/Edm.Int64

  • GET <host>/fmi/odata/v4/<database>/Purchase(1)/Total/Edm.String

  • GET <host>/fmi/odata/v4/<database>/Purchase?$filter=cast(Total,Edm.String) eq '6.99'

• OData batch operations now support preferences that are inherited by sub-operations.

FileMaker Data API

• When writing data, the FileMaker Data API and the Execute FileMaker Data API script step now support overriding the Prohibit modification of value during data entry option for auto-enter data in a field. In the request, set the new options.prohibitMode key to script (ignore this auto-enter rule) or user (follow this auto-enter rule).

• When FileMaker Data API usage nears its limit, the FileMaker Cloud instance will now log the event.

Schedules

• The script schedules last status filter has been updated to include only the following possible status outcomes: Blank, Skipped, Succeeded, Failed, and Verify Failed.

Notifications

• You can now clear all notifications instead of only clearing them individually.

Hosted file limit increased

• Since version 2.21.0, the maximum number of hosted files has been increased from 125 to 256.

Updated libraries and packages

• The AWS SDK for JavaScript has been updated to version 3.

• OpenSSL has been upgraded to version 3.3.1.

Addressed issues

IP address filtering

• When upgrading FileMaker Cloud instances, IP address filtering did not work until the instance was restarted.

• For non-English locales, the invalid IP address message displayed two error strings instead of one.

New features and enhancements

IP address filtering

• To allow only clients with specific IP addresses to use your hosted apps, you can now add, edit, and delete their IP addresses in the IP address filter list in Admin Console.

• You can also update the IP filter list in bulk by uploading the addresses in a comma-separated values (CSV) file. First, download a CSV file that includes these columns: Address, Suffix, Note. Then edit the CSV file and upload it, replacing the existing entries with those in the CSV file.

• To use IP address filtering, you must also enable HTTPS Tunneling and Force HTTPS Tunneling in Admin Console. This then requires all FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Go clients to enable HTTPS tunneling as well.

• Note  When IP address filtering is enabled, FileMaker Pro can't be used to create custom apps directly on a FileMaker Cloud host even if the client's IP address is on the list. You must use FileMaker Pro to create the app locally then upload it.

Force HTTPS tunneling

• Previously, when you enabled HTTPS tunneling, tunneling was only enabled for client connections over port 443 instead of 5003 when FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Go clients also had HTTPS tunneling enabled. Now you can enable Force HTTPS Tunneling in FileMaker Cloud Admin Console to accept only secure connections over port 443.

• If this option is enabled, then all clients must enable HTTPS tunneling as well. See Changing general settings (FileMaker Pro Help) and Enable HTTPS tunneling to hosts (FileMaker Go Help).

Backups

• You can now filter backups by label and timestamp.

• Previously, backups for deleted files had .delete added to the end of the filename. Now, they have the deleted file's most recent filename; the "Deleted on" column indicates that the file had been deleted and when.

Admin Console

• To clear all notifications and backup messages instead of clearing them individually, you can now click the Clear All Messages button in the Backup Message Center in the Backups tab.

• You can now restart the server on the Configuration > General Settings tab.

Updated libraries and packages

• The following Node.js packages have been updated:

  @babel, @types, aws-sdk, body-parser, braces, busboy, bytes, cookiejar, ejs, engine.io, express, fill-range, http-errors, mochawesome, passport, qs, raw-body, socket.io, toidentifier, xml2js

• Angular has been updated to version 16.

• The deprecated swagger-tools Node.js package has been replaced with the @jeffe95/swagger-tools package.

Addressed issues

• Japanese language only: In an Admin Console notification, when the filename was long, "Status" and "Download" were wrapped for file downloads.

• In some cases, Log Viewer misformatted the displayed logs, moving the timestamp instead to the message text.

• In FileMaker WebDirect, when creating a PDF from a layout, characters formatted with the Helvetica font were not included in PDF output.

• In Admin Console, when filtering databases and backups by filename, typing a double-byte character caused the filter to return everything.

New features and enhancements

• HTTPS tunneling is now supported by FileMaker Cloud. In Admin Console > Configuration > FileMaker Clients, secure connection tunneling can now be enabled over port 443 instead of port 5003 for FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Go. Make sure to also enable the corresponding HTTPS Tunneling option in FileMaker Pro and FileMaker Go. See Enabling HTTPS tunneling in FileMaker Cloud Help.

Addressed issues

• Using a script to print FileMaker WebDirect layouts to PDF failed to render some text in the PDFs appropriately because some fonts were missing.

• The database server stopped responding when updating databases with the FileMaker Admin API update call.

• Scheduled weekly auto maintenance was not performed in some cases.

• Admin Console stopped responding when auto maintenance was scheduled and there was no timezone set for the auto maintenance start time.

New features and enhancements

• This release includes in-product notifications which allow us to share our latest news with you directly in FileMaker Cloud.

• FileMaker Cloud instances are now ARM-based which can lead to performance improvements.

• The new FileMaker Admin API GET databases/download/{db_id} endpoint allows you to download a database by database ID.

• In Admin Console, the Logs page includes the Collapse Side Bar and Expand Side Bar buttons that allow you view logs across the whole width of the page or to return to normal view.

• FileMaker WebDirect: The mobile browser pull-to-refresh option is now disabled by default.

• Custom apps uploaded to FileMaker Cloud now support artificial intelligence script steps and functions.

  See FileMaker Pro Release Notes.

Addressed issues

• Ubuntu: Saving container data as a PDF caused system memory to be used but not released.

• In some edge cases, FileMaker Cloud instances failed to restart.

• In some cases the server.pem file was either not created or not used.

• In some cases FileMaker Cloud was vulnerable to arbitrary code execution when compiling specifically crafted malicious code.

• GnuTLS errors were returned when performing the Insert from URL script step on the server.

• FileMaker WebDirect: In some cases, the CSS for a layout did not completely load, resulting in layout objects not rendering and/or functioning as expected.

• FileMaker Cloud databases stopped responding or closed unexpectedly when errors appeared in temporary database files.

• This update provides a number of important security fixes.

• A reflected cross-site scripting (XSS) attack was made possible due to returned login errors not being HTML encoded.

New features and enhancements

• In Admin Console > Configuration > General Settings, you can now change the time frame for daily automatic maintenance (Auto Maintenance Settings), allowing you to schedule maintenance when users will not be connected to the instance.

• In Admin Console > Configuration > General Settings, you can now enable weekly automatic maintenance (Auto Maintenance Settings). Enabling weekly automatic maintenance allows you to choose a day of the week to force the maintenance, during which all databases are stopped, all scripts are stopped, and all users are disconnected. Databases restart and users may reconnect after the weekly maintenance is complete. Daily automatic maintenance will continue to run on schedule.

• When restoring a database or downloading a backup, FileMaker Cloud now displays the progress.

• Performance has been improved for downloading databases and backups as archived zip files.

• In Admin Console > Backups > Backup Settings, you can now tailor backup configurations to suit your needs. This includes:

  • Deleted Databases Retention Policy: The default retention time for deleted databases has been reduced from 30 days to a maximum of 15 days, with a customizable range from 1 to 15 days. This change optimizes S3 storage usage and improves backup list loading performance.

  • Backups Retention Policy: The retention time for backups remains at 30 days, with a customizable range from 1 to 30 days. To optionally optimize S3 storage usage and improve backup list loading performance if users decide to reduce the retention policy.

  • Download Unencrypted Backups: You can now enable the download of unencrypted backups, ensuring all backups are unencrypted when downloaded. This feature facilitates runtime decryption for downloadable backups so there's no need to retrieve an EAR (encryption at rest) key. This only affects backups; downloading files from Admin Console > Databases is unchanged.

• In Admin Console > Backups, you can now perform backups on demand by clicking Back Up Now.

• In Admin Console > Backups > Backup Message Center, you can access real-time status updates on backup restoration tasks. This enhancement includes:

  • Progress Monitoring: You can monitor the progress of backup restoration tasks, which is particularly useful for downloading large backup files. This makes it easier to check when tasks are completed.

  • Task Categorization: The message center provides the following task categories that show the filename, time the task began, and status:

    • In Progress/Success: Tasks in progress or completed without errors. When download tasks are successful, you can download the backup.

    • Failed Task: Tasks that encountered errors or were interrupted, allowing you to retry failed tasks efficiently.

Addressed issues

• When using an OAuth 2.0 provider to send email, the email wasn't sent, and an error was returned saying the access token couldn't be generated. This happened when FileMaker Pro tried to send email or when FileMaker Cloud tried to send email notifications.

• When downloading logs from Admin Console, the archived logs failed to download.

• When directly downloading databases, if the storage was not mounted, the download failed to start. Now the storage mount is attempted if not already mounted.

• FileMaker script changes were not immediately available to FileMaker Data API clients until the FileMaker Data API session ended.

• FileMaker Admin API incorrectly displayed version 2.19 for FileMaker Cloud version 2.20.

New features and enhancements

• In Admin Console > Backups, you can now download backup for any backup type. In Admin Console > Backups > Deleted File, you can also now restore and show encrypted passwords for deleted files.

• Old logs are now rotated, kept for an extended period, and are accessible to download from Admin Console.

• The Admin API GET serverinfo call has been optimized to prevent repeatedly querying values that will not change.

Addressed issues

• In some extreme cases, restarting an instance of FileMaker Cloud failed to complete.

• After an upgrade FileMaker Cloud instances incorrectly restarted twice within a few minutes.

• FileMaker Pro 19.6.1 was unable to connect to FileMaker Cloud.

• Connecting to FileMaker Cloud using FileMaker Pro failed to open hosted apps due to corrupted local cache files.

• FileMaker Pro connections to FileMaker Cloud failed to reconnect when the local computer went to sleep and then was awoken from sleep.

• Database sign in was incorrectly required the second time a hosted file was connected to using FileMaker Pro if the "ForceReconnectSyncOfEverything" option was enabled on the local computer.

• Signing using external identity providers with upper case emails incorrectly displayed an error message instead of signing into valid accounts.

Addressed issues

• This update provides a number of important security fixes.

New features and enhancements

• In Admin Console > Backups > Hosted File and Deleted File, you can now restore backups by filename. You can choose which database to restore, then select which timestamp to restore.

Addressed issues

• In FileMaker Cloud Admin Console, downloading a FileMaker Pro file failed when the filename contained a double-byte character, such as a Japanese, Korean, or Chinese character.

• Downloading FileMaker Pro files in Admin Console stopped working after a few successful downloads.

New features and enhancements

• The Subscription tab in FileMaker Cloud Admin Console is removed. To manage your subscription, use the Subscription tab in Claris Customer Console.

Addressed issues

• The label for preserved backups inadvertently displayed Arabic characters.

New features and enhancements

Functions and scripts

• The ReadQRCode function is now available to use on FileMaker Cloud.

• The Execute FileMaker Data API script step now supports the dateformats parameter.

• Scripts run on FileMaker Cloud now support the Set Error Logging script step.

• The Save Records as PDF script step is now supported for the FileMaker Data API.

• FileMaker Cloud now stores the script events in the scriptEvent.log file instead of the Event.log file. You can view and download the scriptEvent.log file using the Logs tab in Admin Console.

Java

• Vaadin has been updated to version 8.18.0. Java has been updated to use version 17.

• Ubuntu: The Java Development Kit (JDK) 17 is now installed instead of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE).

OData

• SchemaVersion is now included in the $metadata response. The $schemaversion query option can now be used to determine whether the schema has changed, since a request for a non-current schema version will be rejected.

• OData now supports the PUT/POST/PATCH/DELETE $ref operations. It also supports aliases.

General

• New client connections are now blocked for databases in the process of being closed.

• You can now filter and sort the list of script schedules in Admin Console.

Addressed issues

FileMaker WebDirect

• Summary parts occasionally were not displayed when sorting records if there were no Body parts on the layout.

• List View objects didn't refresh when there were no records in a found set.

• In List View, the Footer part occasionally wasn't displayed during the initial layout load if a Navigation part existed.

• A cross-site scripting (XSS) vulnerability is resolved.

FileMaker Data API

• Table names were missing from responses to the FileMaker Data API layout names requests.

• The FileMaker Data API returned the incorrect foundCount and returnedCount values for portals when the initial row setting in the portal was greater than the number of records in the portal.

• The FileMaker Data API returned incorrect metadata about layouts with repeating fields.

OData

• Some OData query options returned errors if table names or field names contained Japanese characters.

• Line feeds in fields were not returned as "\n" and caused JSON parsing errors.

Performance

• Using the Set Session Identifier script step heavily to change session names caused the fmshelper process memory to increase unnecessarily.

General

• When a schedule failed, the timestamp for the Last Run value incorrectly reflected the last time the schedule completed successfully instead of the last time the schedule failed.

• Summary field content was missing when the hosted file data sources were set from the content of a global variable.

• Serial numbers were incorrectly incremented during a reverted transaction, and then serial numbers ceased to increment for normal record creation.

• Script triggers such as OnRecordCommit were not executed when called while a script transaction was running.

• Scheduled FileMaker scripts failed to run when a FileMaker scripts folder and a FileMaker script used the same name.

• Indexes created during transactions failed to include deleted records, even if the transactions were reverted.

• The GetContainerAttribute function returned a different date format than expected when performed on the server.

• Some trailing characters in fields were not exported when creating CSV files with FileMaker Cloud.

• Records failed to import from CSV files containing Shift JIS encoded data.

• The GetContainerAttribute function was unable to return photo details when calculated from the server.

• The Admin Console sign-in page didn't automatically refresh the browser after a version upgrade.

• The Hosts page in Claris Customer Console didn't change the status of the instance to Online after clicking Restart Cloud Compute Temporarily.

• Admin Console: An exception occurred when the client IP address was not accessible.