What’s New in MySQL 8.0.29? Key Fixes, Feature Tweaks, and InnoDB Enhancements

Release Overview

MySQL 8.0.29 was officially released on April 26 2022 (GA). After four years since the initial 8.0 GA release (April 19 2018), the 8.0 series is entering the final stage of its standard lifecycle, so users still on 5.7 or 5.6 should seriously consider future database security and plan an upgrade.

Bug Fixes

This maintenance release fixes 160 defects and errors. The contributors Yuhui Wang and Bin Wang (China Mobile) are thanked for submitting two patches. The MySQL community is encouraged to continue reporting bugs and contributing fixes.

Feature Improvements

String handling: The server now uses utf8mb3 instead of utf8 for SHOW output and for populating data‑dictionary table charset names, affecting how character sets are displayed.

Time format: MySQL now recommends the standard YYYY‑MM‑DD format; non‑standard separators generate a warning. Example:

mysql> SELECT DATE "2020/02/20";
+------------------+
| DATE "2020/02/20" |
+------------------+
| 2020-02-20 |
+------------------+
1 row in set, 1 warning (0.00 sec)

mysql> SHOW WARNINGS\G
*************************** 1. row ***************************
Level:   Warning
Code:    4095
Message: Delimiter '/' in position 4 in datetime value '2020/02/20' is deprecated. Prefer the standard '-'.

Replication variables: The system variable replica_parallel_type is deprecated; MySQL now enables parallel replication by default. A new variable binlog_expire_logs_auto_purge controls automatic log cleanup. The function group_replication_set_as_primary can explicitly set a primary member, overriding automatic election.

InnoDB: Supports ALGORITHM=INSTANT for ALTER TABLE ... DROP COLUMN, allowing online column removal.

Clone: Introduces clone_delay_after_data_drop, which adds a delay after the receiver deletes data, giving it time to free space before cloning begins.

These changes constitute the core updates in MySQL 8.0.29. Users are invited to download and try the new version.