Maintenance has concluded - patches have been applied and applicable reboots completed on our infrastructure (~2 hours), and Mastodon has been updated to (surprise!) v4.5.0-alpha.1+glitch (~45 minutes).

We also enabled some experimental features, including:
- Server-side asymmetrically fetching remote replies: This causes the server to recursively fetch replies in background tasks whenever a user opens a remote post.
- HTTP Message Signatures (RFC9421): Enables the server to verify incoming HTTP requests, paving the way for more secure authentication between servers in the future.
- Inbound Quote Toots: Enables the server to show quote toots if created by remote servers. It currently cannot create quote toots, but this feature is coming in v4.5.0.
- Mystery Feature: Something you're going to have to discover for yourself (but this toot should give you a hint).

Maintenance is well underway, with infrastructure patching completing in the next five minutes or so. Mastodon upgrade to v4.4.1+glitch is next.

Please be advised Mastodon Canada will take a brief downtime at the time specified below to upgrade to version 4.4.0+glitch.

A full run-down of the new features and patches is available here: https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2025/07/mastodon-4.4/