bitcoin/doc/release-notes/release-notes-0.15.2.md

Bitcoin Core version 0.15.2 is now available from:

https://bitcoincore.org/bin/bitcoin-core-0.15.2/

This is a new minor version release, including various bugfixes and performance improvements, as well as updated translations.

Please report bugs using the issue tracker at GitHub:

https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/issues

To receive security and update notifications, please subscribe to:

https://bitcoincore.org/en/list/announcements/join/

How to Upgrade

If you are running an older version, shut it down. Wait until it has completely shut down (which might take a few minutes for older versions), then run the installer (on Windows) or just copy over /Applications/Bitcoin-Qt (on Mac) or bitcoind/bitcoin-qt (on Linux).

The first time you run version 0.15.0 or higher, your chainstate database will be converted to a new format, which will take anywhere from a few minutes to half an hour, depending on the speed of your machine.

The file format of fee_estimates.dat changed in version 0.15.0. Hence, a downgrade from version 0.15 or upgrade to version 0.15 will cause all fee estimates to be discarded.

Note that the block database format also changed in version 0.8.0 and there is no automatic upgrade code from before version 0.8 to version 0.15.0. Upgrading directly from 0.7.x and earlier without redownloading the blockchain is not supported. However, as usual, old wallet versions are still supported.

Downgrading warning

The chainstate database for this release is not compatible with previous releases, so if you run 0.15 and then decide to switch back to any older version, you will need to run the old release with the -reindex-chainstate option to rebuild the chainstate data structures in the old format.

If your node has pruning enabled, this will entail re-downloading and processing the entire blockchain.

Compatibility

Bitcoin Core is extensively tested on multiple operating systems using the Linux kernel, macOS 10.8+, and Windows Vista and later. Windows XP is not supported.

Bitcoin Core should also work on most other Unix-like systems but is not frequently tested on them.

Notable changes

Denial-of-Service vulnerability CVE-2018-17144

A denial-of-service vulnerability exploitable by miners has been discovered in Bitcoin Core versions 0.14.0 up to 0.16.2. It is recommended to upgrade any of the vulnerable versions to 0.15.2 or 0.16.3 as soon as possible.

0.15.2 Change log

Build system

• #11995 9bb1a16 depends: Fix Qt build with XCode 9.2(fanquake)
• #12946 93b9a61 depends: Fix Qt build with XCode 9.3(fanquake)
• #13544 9fd3e00 depends: Update Qt download url (fanquake)
• #11847 cb7ef31 Make boost::multi_index comparators const (sdaftuar)

Consensus

• #14247 4b8a3f5 Fix crash bug with duplicate inputs within a transaction (TheBlueMatt, sdaftuar)

RPC

• #11676 7af2457 contrib/init: Update openrc-run filename (Luke Dashjr)
• #11277 7026845 Fix uninitialized URI in batch RPC requests (Russell Yanofsky)

Wallet

• #11289 3f1db56 Wrap dumpwallet warning and note scripts aren't dumped (MeshCollider)
• #11289 42ea47d Add wallet backup text to import*, add* and dumpwallet RPCs (MeshCollider)
• #11590 6372a75 [Wallet] always show help-line of wallet encryption calls (Jonas Schnelli)

bitcoin-tx

• #11554 a69cc07 Sanity-check script sizes in bitcoin-tx (TheBlueMatt)

Tests

• #11277 3a6cdd4 Add test for multiwallet batch RPC calls (Russell Yanofsky)
• #11647 1c8c7f8 Add missing batch rpc calls to python coverage logs (Russell Yanofsky)
• #11277 1036c43 Add missing multiwallet rpc calls to python coverage logs (Russell Yanofsky)
• #11277 305f768 Limit AuthServiceProxyWrapper.__getattr__ wrapping (Russell Yanofsky)
• #11277 2eea279 Make AuthServiceProxy._batch method usable (Russell Yanofsky)

Credits

Thanks to everyone who directly contributed to this release:

• fanquake
• Jonas Schnelli
• Luke Dashjr
• Matt Corallo
• MeshCollider
• Russell Yanofsky
• Suhas Daftuar
• Wladimir J. van der Laan

And to those that reported security issues:

• awemany (for CVE-2018-17144, previously credited as "anonymous reporter")