When Firefox 148 rolled out in late February 2026, it broke something important: TinyMCE, the default editor in Joomla, started flickering and became unusable. First it appeared only in Firefox Developer Edition, but with the final version all Firefox users were affected (PR #46889). Content editors couldn't work because the edit form was flashing and the user was unable to change or save. Understandably, voices in the community and the maintenance team quickly asked: do we need an emergency release?

A process instead of pressure

This is exactly the kind of situation where teams can make bad decisions under pressure. Luckily, the CMS Release Team has a documented process for this — the Post Release Decision Process. We developed it starting in 2021, after the experience with the Joomla 4.0.0 and 4.0.1 releases, where we learned that fast decisions after a release need structure, not just gut feeling. The process includes a clear set of steps: monitoring, analysis, decision, communication. And at its core, there is a decision sheet — a simple scoring matrix that helps us evaluate the situation objectively.

What the decision sheet does

The decision sheet asks a few straightforward questions like: Is there data loss? Is there a workaround? How many sites are probably affected? Is it a security issue? Each answer gets a score. You multiply severity and occurrence, and the result tells you whether to pull the release immediately, schedule a new release in the next few days, or stick to the normal release cycle. It takes the emotion out of the decision and replaces it with a shared, transparent evaluation.

How it worked this time

On Thursday, February 26, when the pressure was building, we had a quick look at the decision sheet. Already at that point it was clear: this was probably not an emergency. We scheduled a meeting for Friday evening with the Release Managers and team leads. Together we went through the sheet. The editor was broken, yes — but there was no data loss, no security issue, and a workaround was possible. Within ten minutes, the decision was made: no emergency release. Instead, we planned to create a hotfix — an installable package with three files that users could install like a regular extension. We then split up the tasks: documentation, testing, release post, social media. Done.

Why this matters

Open source projects don't just mature through better code. They also mature through better processes. Having a documented, shared decision framework meant that we didn't waste energy on discussions about whether this was an emergency or not. We had a tool for that. And it worked. If you're involved in managing releases — in Joomla or any other project — I'd encourage you to think about your own post release process. Because the moment something breaks is the worst time to figure out how to decide.

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Links:

Release Information:
https://www.joomla.org/announcements/release-news/5943-joomla-6-0-3-and-5-4-3-bugfix-release.html

Known Issues in the Manual
https://manual.joomla.org/migrations/54-60/known-issues/6.0.3/

PR on Github
https://github.com/joomla/joomla-cms/pull/46889

Release Management:
https://internal.joomla.org/docs/production/release-management/joomla/stable#4-post-release