8.13 getting EOL'ed with ~1 month of notice

[DennisHermannsen]

We've deliberately remained on WHMCS 8.13 due to the numerous issues with version 9.

We've been closely monitoring the WHMCS End of Life (EOL) schedule, where the end-of-support date for version 8.13 has been listed as "TBD" for a long time.

When I checked the page today, I was genuinely shocked to discover that the status had changed: support for WHMCS 8.13 is now scheduled to end on December 1, 2026 - roughly one month from now.

I checked the page earlier this month, and the date was still listed as TBD. Furthermore, the latest available snapshot on the Internet Archive, dated September 30, 2026, confirms that the status was still TBD at that point.

Announcing the end of support for a major software version with only around one month's notice is completely unreasonable. This is particularly concerning given the significant issues that still remain with WHMCS 9, which are precisely why we've continued to run version 8.13 in the first place.

Customers need adequate notice to plan, test, and execute a major upgrade - especially when the proposed upgrade path involves a version that continues to present substantial problems. Changing the EOL status from "TBD" to a firm date so close to the deadline, without meaningful advance notice, is simply unacceptable.

 

[websavers]

I came here to mention this very same thing. Given the significant number of problematic changes in 9.x AND that 9.1 was only released 10 days ago, this is an unreasonable expectation. 

If the WHMCS devs had done a better job preparing 9.x such that there weren't endless bugs reported for months after, I can see this being more reasonable. However that's not how things panned out. 

I also would like to request that WHMCS 8.13 remain actively supported until at minimum your planned release date for WHMCS 9.2 so that your customers can feel more comfortable with the 9.x upgrade prior to ending support for 8.x. I would estimate that this would be June 2027.

[bear]

Wild guess it's related to the new forced marketplace accounts requirement, and not worth their time to backport it. 

[DennisHermannsen]

4 hours ago, bear said:

Wild guess it's related to the new forced marketplace accounts requirement

excuse me, but wat

Marketplace accounts is a requirement now even for installations not using it?

Out of all the stupid things WHMCS has done, this is probably the most stupid. Well, maybe right after voiding the lifetime licenses.

[bear]

Yes, the marketplace account is created once you agree to the EULA on the latest version, no opting out. No EULA agreement, no upgrade.

[Humanbeing]

Soon there will be an entry fee payable each time a client or admin needs to sign in.

[WHMCS Carlos]

Hi Dennis, and everyone following this thread.

The date did not come out of nowhere, so let me give you the history, and then the part we genuinely got wrong.

8.13 went GA on 7 May 2025. Our published Long Term Support policy gives a minor version Important and Critical updates for one year, and 8.13's end of life was listed on docs.whmcs.com as 31 May 2026.

We did not hold that date. Customers asked us to keep 8.13 alive, and the reason behind almost every request was 9.0 making invoice immutability and credit notes mandatory, with no way to turn them off if you run cash-basis accounting or manage credit notes in a third-party system. That was a fair objection. Everyone who asked was given the same answer: we would hold 8.13 until 9.1, because 9.1 was where the fix was going. That is what we did. 8.13 has had around 18 months of support instead of the 12 the policy sets out.

9.1 shipped on 20 October and carries that fix. Invoice immutability is now a three-state control at General Settings > Invoices:

- Full compliance: immutability enforced, billing notes generated. This is the default.
- Immutability disabled, billing notes still generated.
- Immutability disabled and billing note generation turned off entirely.

The third state puts you back on the pre-9.0 behaviour, and it applies to the API as well as the admin area.

So 1 December is us doing what we said we would do, on the release we said we would do it on, and I am holding it. I cannot run two release trains indefinitely: every fix has to be made on the oldest supported branch and carried forward, and that time comes straight out of the 9.x work this thread is really asking for.

Where we did fail you is in telling everyone. The people who asked for the extension were told the terms. Everyone else got "TBD" sitting on a page for six months and then a date appearing with no announcement in front of it. If you were not one of the people in those conversations, your reading of this is entirely reasonable, and that is on us.

So, one commitment. No more TBD. Every supported version carries a real end of life date on the documentation page, and if we change one you will hear it from us here, with the reason, rather than finding it in a page diff. The TBD is what turned a decision we made in April into a surprise in October, and that is the part I am fixing.

One practical note if you upgrade: check General Settings > Invoices first. The setting does not guess what you want.

If something else in 9.0 or 9.1 is keeping you on 8.13, message me here directly and I will look at it.

Carlos
 

 

[bear]

1 hour ago, WHMCS Carlos said:

If something else in 9.0 or 9.1 is keeping you on 8.13, message me here directly and I will look at it.

Well, not keeping me on 8.13, but yeah, that forced marketplace account notion should be removed from *all* versions. 

[Evolve Web Hosting]

@WHMCS Carlos I appreciate the extension to keep 8.13.x going because IMO it's the most stable of the actively supported versions. Being given 1 month to upgrade DURING the start of the busy Holiday season and End of Year is not easy at all.

Aside for no more bug fixes or security updates, what's the downfall to continuing to use v8.13.x ?

Where was the email to alert your users? Everyone is different and I can't imagine all of your users constantly check the Documentation or the Forums.

Edited yesterday at 04:56 PM by Evolve Web Hosting

[WHMCS Carlos]

1 hour ago, Evolve Web Hosting said:

@WHMCS Carlos I appreciate the extension to keep 8.13.x going because IMO it's the most stable of the actively supported versions. Being given 1 month to upgrade DURING the start of the busy Holiday season and End of Year is not easy at all.

Aside for no more bug fixes or security updates, what's the downfall to continuing to use v8.13.x ?

Where was the email to alert your users? Everyone is different and I can't imagine all of your users constantly check the Documentation or the Forums.

Hi

The email to notify everyone is about to be sent out, it's currently with the GTM team to go out

The main downfall of keep using 8.13.x is of course security updates, we did a major security focus earlier in the year so we have launched quite a lengthy amount of updates over the past few months 

Carlos

[DennisHermannsen]

4 hours ago, WHMCS Carlos said:

8.13 went GA on 7 May 2025. Our published Long Term Support policy gives a minor version Important and Critical updates for one year, and 8.13's end of life was listed on docs.whmcs.com as 31 May 2026.

We did not hold that date. Customers asked us to keep 8.13 alive, and the reason behind almost every request was 9.0 making invoice immutability and credit notes mandatory, with no way to turn them off if you run cash-basis accounting or manage credit notes in a third-party system

I don't think that's the entire reason. Version 9.0 was forced into GA way quicker than any version and it was full of bugs. 
I appreciated WHMCS decision to extend support for version 8.13 indefintely. We tried running v9.0 on a dev installation but even without any customization, we had a lot of issues. Stuff that were outright illegal and stuff that broke invoicing for EU business. 

We don't appreciate being given only 1 month of warning - and I'm generous when I say we were given a warning. The only reason I know support for v8.13 ends in ~1 month is because I check the docs regularly. There is no way we can make sure we're running v9 in 1 month. Usually, we're pretty quick to upgrade, but the fact that v9 was originally shipped with so many issues is concerning - so we need a lot of time making sure everything is working correctly; not just customizations, but also invoicing.

[pixelweb001]

As @DennisHermannsen mentioned, I didn't even know about this until I checked the documentation for EOL updates. When I saw the updated timeline, I honestly thought it was a typo.

I would have expected at least 90 days' notice for an update of this size.

Please kindly reconsider. Thanks.

[WHMCS Carlos]

I hear you all, and on this one I'm going to take a step back and give a bit more time. 8.13 support is extended to 31 December 2026.

The docs will be updated, and the notice goes out by email to everyone early next week.

After that date our focus is fully on 9.x, so please plan your upgrades around it.

@DennisHermannsen please send me the EU invoicing issues you found, I want to make sure they're looked at.
 

[slim]

Ive just upgraded from 8.13.7 -> 9.1 on two sites.

The immutability issue still needs work - Ive filed one bug report already. However, with it off, WHMCS seems to be as solid as 8.13.7.

[websavers]

27 minutes ago, slim said:

However, with it off, WHMCS seems to be as solid as 8.13.7

That's good to hear at least 🙂

[WHMCS Carlos]

5 hours ago, slim said:

Ive just upgraded from 8.13.7 -> 9.1 on two sites.

The immutability issue still needs work - Ive filed one bug report already. However, with it off, WHMCS seems to be as solid as 8.13.7.

Thank you!, if you have a bug tracker number, please send to me, I will personally take a look at it, I am very keen to get WHMCS 100% compliant for the markets that require it.

[ffeingol]

@WHMCS Carlos I'm sorry, but this is a bit insane.  how were we possibly to know that we should ask for more time on 8.13.x?  We did like others on this thread did and kept checking the EOL page.  The sudden appearance of Dec-1 and now Dec-31 is just not really acceptable.  We may be 1% of WHMCS users, but we have year end closing processes etc. and my CFO would kill us if we updated WHMCS during that.  WHMCS has also not given us a clear path to stay on LTS.  They way the EOL page stands now we'd have to go to 9.0 (bad idea) and then that would be EOL in either 30 days or EOL at the exact same time as 8.13 goes EOL.

Contrary to WHMC's belief, updating WHMCS is not as easy as clicking a button.  We have 3rd party modules, custom written reports, hooks, provisioning and payment gateways.  That requires us to maintain a development system and fully regression test every patch, upgrade etc.  WHMCS also has a habit of breaking API calls between release/patches and then we have to code around that (please see case SIQ-586041 as an example).  As far as I know that's still broken and it's been 7 months.

Please keep support for 8.13.x at least through the end of Jan-2027 so we can get through year end.  Once more month is not going to kill WHMCS.

Thanks

[websavers]

While I'm glad to hear from @slim that with immutability off, there are no additional bugs when compared to the 8.13.x release of WHMCS, invoice immutability was a big touted feature of WHMCS 9. I think it's reasonable to say that if you haven't yet fixed one of your biggest features, then you're not ready to call it quits on your prior release.

As @ffeingol described, I'm not clear on how it makes any sense to only extend the 8.13.x EOL date over a 1 month period where a significant number of people take the last two weeks off, and the rest of the month is often year-end accounting time.  @WHMCS Carlos you either did not read anything that was stated above as to the reason for wanting a bit more time, or you just don't care, neither of which is good customer service.

Quote

I cannot run two release trains indefinitely: every fix has to be made on the oldest supported branch and carried forward, and that time comes straight out of the 9.x work this thread is really asking for.

1. Quite the hyperbole there. None of us asked for it to be indefinite - we just asked for a reasonable amount of additional time. The longest that was requested was my request for it to be until mid-2027. That's just 8 months; not indefinite. You could have countered with half that and I would have found that acceptable. Yet your response is 1/8 of that? I realize this isn't a negotiation, but if it were, nobody in their right mind would accept that.
2. I think pretty well every one of your customers would say 'oh woe is me' to your 'additional work' argument given the dramatic price price increases over the past decade.  You said you needed to increase prices to fund development, and instead of putting those development resources towards ensuring stable long-term releases, you put them towards new Marketplace connections where you make even more money. I try to avoid piling on about that, but this kind of scenario is exactly where you're rubbing salt in the wound.

Edited 6 hours ago by websavers