Mirth® Connect 3.8 is a stability-focused release, which brings several interesting new features. Its most recent version is Mirth Connect 3.8.1 released in October 2019. We have reviewed it in depth and tell you all about it in this article.
Caution: All versions of Mirth Connect 3.8 are affected by vulnerability CVE-2023-43208. To avoid security risks, please use a version equal to or later than Mirth Connect 4.4.1 and update the affected systems as soon as possible. You can download the latest versions from our Mirth Connect download page.
What’s new in Mirth Connect 3.8 #
Mirth Connect 3.8.0 includes several new features including MySQL 8 support, improved compatibility with certain FTP servers and a couple of new features for commercial extensions. Mirth Connect 3.8.1 was released on October 3, 2019. This release only includes a couple of fixes for the Interoperability Connector Suite commercial extension, which is heavily oriented towards the US healthcare environment.
Among all the new features, our favorite is the possibility of changing the background color of the Administrator, which will make it easier to distinguish the Mirth environment in which we are working. If you work with different environments and many installations, as we do, these details help prevent errors and make the job easier. It does not add new functionality, but we will be able to set our favorite background color!
In any case, we always recommend using the latest update for each version of Mirth Connect and you can always find them on our Mirth Connect download page.
More information about other versions of Mirth Connect.
MySQL® 8.0 support #
MySQL 8 is the version considered the general-purpose version as of April 2018, so in Mirth Connect 3.8.0 the connector version has been updated. The new version is MySQL Connector/J 8.0.16. Thus, MySQL 8 support is added, but the minimum supported MySQL version is increased to 5.6.
If we want to use a MySQL version earlier than 5.6, we can do it by adding the JDBC driver as a custom library.
If you want more information about all the supported databases you can check out our article about the system requirements of Mirth Connect .
More information:
File reader/writer connector allows sending custom commands when connecting to an FTP server #
This new feature of the File reader/writer connectors allows sending custom commands at login when used to connect to an FTP server. This increases compatibility with certain FTP servers.
For this purpose, a new field “Initial Commands” has been added:
- Only appears in FTP mode.
- You can add a single command or a series of commands separated by commas.
- These commands are sent upon successful connection to an FTP server.
- It also works with FTPS ( SSL Manager Extension).
- The test connection also uses the initial commands.
More information: Allow FTP file connectors to send custom commands on login.
Updating HttpComponents libraries #
This is a minor change that fixes a bug that appeared in version 4.5.3 of the httpclient library. For this purpose, the libraries at HttpComponents have been updated.
More information: Upgrade HttpComponents libraries.
Administrator background color can be changed #
We have saved for last a new feature of Mirth Connect 3.8 that is not particularly important, but can make the job a little easier and, also, more fun. From version 3.8.0 of Mirth Connect onwards , you can change the color of the Administrator.
A few years ago, in a Mirth Connect forum thread, a user complained that it was easy to confuse one Administrator with another when having multiple windows open. We are in complete agreement. Everyone can get lost, but the consequences of confusing a development environment with a production environment can be very serious. From that suggestion, this new functionality was born, which allows us to colorize the Administrator.
For this purpose, a new option has been added in the Server Settings that allows you to change the background color of the Administrator. It is possible to set a global configuration for the server, which each user can customize as desired.
Color settings are applied for each user and environment. This allows us to distinguish our different environments at a glance and with our favorite colors.
More information: Allow Administrator background color to be changed.
Commercial extensions #
In addition to the new features we have already seen, Mirth Connect 3.8.0 includes two new enhancements for its commercial extensions:
- Health Data Hub Plugin: Keep Health Data Hub Sender Settings when changing resource.
- Advanced Clustering: Improve how we handle server only properties in Advanced Clustering.
In addition, Mirth Connect 3.8.1 includes two fixes for the Interoperability Connector Suite commercial extension. This extension is especially geared towards the US healthcare environment.
Bugs resolved in Mirth Connect 3.8 #
In addition to all these improvements, Mirth Connect 3.8.0 fixes multiple bugs that affected previous versions of the integration engine. Many of them we had already seen resolved in the 3.7.1 update of Mirth Connect. In any case, we review them below:
The property database-readonly.driver does not inherit the value of database.driver when it is empty. #
This bug has been flagged as important and affects Mirth Connect versions 3.7.0 and 3.7.1. The problem occurs when using a different database driver than the default one via the database.driver property. Then, the property database-readonly.driver should inherit the value of database.driver and use the same driver, but, if database-readonly.driver is empty, the default driver is still used incorrectly.
In case we cannot upgrade to Mirth Connect 3.8 and we are affected by this bug, there is a way to avoid it by explicitly specifying the property database-readonly.driver at mirth.properties.
More information: The database-readonly.driver property doesn’t correctly inherit from database.driver when empty.
Web service sender does not comply with MTOM configuration #
This minor bug caused the Web service sender to not behave according to the configuration selected in “Use MTOM”.
More information: Web service sender should obey the MTOM setting.
Other bugs already fixed in version 3.7.1 #
The bugs listed below were already fixed in version 3.7.1, and their fixes have also been included in Mirth Connect 3.8.0.
If you want to know more details you can check our article about Mirth Connect 3.7.
- SOAP Action is not saved if the channel view is left.
The Soap Action does not save if you leave the channel view. - Deleting atransformer can reassign code.
Deleting a Transformer would re-assign. - The database Configuration Map is not immediately available at startup.
Database Configuration Map not available immediately upon startup. - The EDI/X12 message tree does not work.
EDI Message Tree not working in 3.7. - An incorrect number of enabled channels is displayed.
No of enabled channels wrong in ChannelPanel. - HTTP Sender displays a random character encoding when switching between channel destinations.
HTTP Sender displays random charset encoding when clicking between channel destinations. - An exception due to a circular reference causes the entire message not to be serialized.
Circular reflection exception causes entire Message to not be serialized. - When cloning a channel, the name is no longer pre-filled.
Cloning a channel doesn’t pre-populate the channel name to edit.
Bugs resolved in commercial extensions #
As with the new features, Connect 3.8.0 also includes some bug fixes for its commercial extensions:
- Interoperability Connector Suite:
- SSL Manager: OCSP revocation checking doesn’t handle multiple responses correctly.
- Basic Clustering: Basic Clustering deadlock.
Mirth Connect 3.8.1 also includes fixes for the Interoperability Connector Suite extension. This extension is oriented to the U.S. healthcare environment.
Conclusions #
Mirth Connect 3.8 is a version in which there is a clear intention to stabilize a development that lately had given us a scare in the form of a bug in version 3.7.0.
It includes some new features that increase compatibility with FTP servers, support MySQL 8.0 and allow us to customize the Administrator background. These are all interesting new features, but clearly the real value of this new version is the number of bugs it solves. Most of them had been resolved in the first update of Mirth 3.7, although we also found some new ones.
All in all, this release seems to lay a good foundation on which to further develop Mirth Connect, and we expect to see some great new features in the future.
You know that we always recommend waiting until the first update of each version to think about using it in production, but, of course, we invite you to try it and discover its new features in first person.
Upgrade to Mirth Connect 3.8 #
If we want to upgrade to this version of Connect, we should note that the JDBC driver for MySQL has been updated to version 8.0.16. Thus, it supports MySQL 8.x, but, on the contrary, we lose support for MySQL versions below 5.6.
This should not be a problem in most cases as they are very old versions that are considered to have reached the end of their life. However, if we have to connect to an old MySQL database, it is still possible.
To connect using Database Reader/Writer or via JavaScript, download the appropriate JDBC driver for the MySQL version, add it as a resource in Mirth Connect and link it to our channel or connector.
If we want to use an older version of MySQL as the Mirth Connect database, we must replace the JAR included with version 3.8 with the one we have downloaded. In addition, the Mirth properties file will need to be modified to use the proper driver name.
More information #
More information can be found in the documents related to the publication of the different versions:
- Mirth Connect 3.8.0:
- Mirth Connect 3.8.1:
Download Mirth Connect 3.8 #
As always, you can download Mirth Connect 3.8, its updates and previous versions from our Mirth Connect download page and from the NextGen® Healthcare website.
