Important: #103748 - Reference index rebuild required

See forge#103748

Description

A series of new columns has been added to the reference index table sys_refindex. This requires a rebuild of this table. All instances must update the reference index when upgrading.

The reference index becomes more important with TYPO3 v13: Most notably, it is used within the frontend for structural performance improvements. This requires a valid index and keeping it up-to-date after deployments becomes mandatory to avoid wrong data during frontend and backend processing.

After deployment and initial rebuild, the index is kept up-to-date when changing records in the backend by the DataHandler automatically.

In general, fully updating the reference index is required when database relations defined in TCA change - typically when adding, removing or changing extensions, and after TYPO3 core updates (also patch level).

It is strongly recommended to update the reference index after deployments. Note TYPO3 v13 optimized this operation, a full update is usually much quicker than with previous versions.

The typical and recommended way to rebuild and fully update the reference index is this CLI command:

bin/typo3 referenceindex:update
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If CLI can not be used, the backend allows updating the reference index using the "DB check" module of the "typo3/cms-lowlevel" extension. With the update process taking a while, PHP web processes may time out during this operation, which makes this backend interface suitable for small sized instances only.