Potential disruptions for mobile app users

We strive to offer a trouble-free, seamless experience for xMatters users wherever and whenever we can but sometimes things happen that are outside our control. This is, unfortunately, one of those times. 

Android App Certificate Transparency

• Affects: Android
• Impact: Automatic log out and forced version upgrade

Details

On June 7, 2023 Google will be removing a URL that the xMatters Android app uses for its Certificate Transparency feature.  To ensure there is no gap or disruption in compliancy when the URL is removed, we released an update to the feature in version 3.19.1 of the Android app.

All versions of the Android mobile app from 3.19.1 and later are protected from this disruption. 

When the URL is removed, users running versions 3.19 or older will be logged out of all their accounts in the app and will need to upgrade to at least version 3.19.1 before they can log in again.

To prevent any interruptions, be sure to keep your Android app up-to-date, and upgrade to version 3.19.1 as soon as possible.

QR Code Security Upgrades

• Affects: Android and iOS
• Impact: Older versions of the xMatters apps will not be able to use the QR code login feature

Details

To help ensure that we're always using the best and most current security protocols, we're updating the encryption mode used for the mobile app QR code login process. Once the process is complete, older versions of the apps will not be able to login via a QR code (though they can still login using their username and password or SAML). 

We're confident this will affect very few users, largely because we have a high rate of adoption for the latest versions of both the Android and iOS apps (and we've also had a warning message about this issue on the QR code login page in the UI for the past couple of months). 

Again, to prevent any potential problems, be sure to keep your app up-to-date and upgrade to the latest version as soon as you get the chance. 

UPDATE June 14, 2023: The new encryption mode for QR code login has been deployed to all non-production instances. As per our deployment guidelines, we'll wait at least 30 days before applying this change to production instances. 

xMatters Mobile API

The xMatters Mobile API is a service that we introduced shortly after creating the mobile apps. The apps used the mobile API as a proxy when communicating with xMatters instead of the xMatters REST API or its legacy version. Since then, the apps and the communication methods have been improved and the mobile API is no longer used or required. No versions of the xMatters app after July of 2021 (Android app version 3.4 and iOS app version 4.8, specifically) have used the mobile API. As a result, there are very few users still on affected versions. 

The xMatters Mobile API will be officially retired and deprecated in August of 2023; any users still using versions of the apps that depend on the mobile API will be locked out of the app. In addition, versions of the app released prior to July 2021 will not prompt the user to upgrade if requests to the mobile API don't work.

The xMatters team will be reaching out directly to customers who have users that may be affected by this change, but the vast majority of mobile app users do not need to take any action. To ensure that you can prevent any loss of service, be sure to update your xMatters mobile app to the latest version before August 2023.

If you have any questions, please contact xMatters Support.