--- title: "Postgres releases 18.3, 17.9, 16.13 to fix regressions" publication: "Postgres Weekly" issue: 638 published_at: "2026-03-04" canonical_url: "https://postgresweekly.com/issues/638" --- Plus we go on a zombie hunt, assess the security of our clusters, and enjoy two new Postgres 19 features. #​638 — March 4, 2026 [Web Version](https://postgresweekly.com/issues/638) Together with [![Microsoft logo\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/c_fill,g_auto,w_280,h_60/e_make_transparent/co_white,e_outline:7/om9hjsmudy5lsvba59eb.png)](https://posetteconf.com/2026/schedule/) Postgres Weekly [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/yknlytt7mywqxpnydhwc.jpg)](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-183-179-1613-1517-and-1422-released-3246/) ⚠️ [Postgres 18.3, 17.9, 16.13, 15.17, and 14.22 Released](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-183-179-1613-1517-and-1422-released-3246/) — An out-of-cycle update to fix regressions introduced by last month's security releases. **If you upgraded to 18.0, 18.1, or 18.2 already, you need to pay special attention** as a manual step is required to make the `json_strip_nulls` and `jsonb_strip_nulls` functions immutable. PostgreSQL Global Development Group [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/c_limit,w_480,h_480,q_auto/copm/819a1dfb.png)](https://posetteconf.com/2026/schedule/) [The Schedule is Out for POSETTE: An Event for Postgres!](https://posetteconf.com/2026/schedule/) — POSETTE 2026, a free & virtual developer event, is happening June 16-18. The speakers and schedule were just announced! Join experts via 4 livestreams to learn about the world's most advanced open source relational database. [Get the details](https://posetteconf.com/2026/schedule/). Microsoft sponsor [We Have `pgvector` at Home](https://theconsensus.dev/p/2026/02/22/we-have-pgvector-at-home.html) — A fun bit of spelunking here. Turning to [`pgvector`](https://github.com/pgvector/pgvector) for your vector similarity searches is a sensible, modern option, but Postgres has a built-in extension that can (sort of) do it too: `cube`. Phil also surfaces an interesting gem in the shape of `model2vec`. Phil Eaton **IN BRIEF:** - [PgJitter](https://github.com/vladich/pg_jitter) is an interesting experiment to bring different JIT backends (in addition to [Postgres's standard approach](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/jit-reason.html)) to Postgres for faster compilation of queries. [📊 Some benchmark results.](https://github.com/vladich/pg_jitter/blob/master/bench/ARM64/BENCHMARK_PG18.md) - 😅 Could you use Postgres as a real-time video conferencing server? [The folks at PlanetScale made it happen.](https://planetscale.com/blog/video-conferencing-with-postgres) A fun technical achievement. - Postgres 19's `pg_dumpall` is [gaining support for dumping in binary formats](https://www.dbi-services.com/blog/postgresql-19-pg_dumpall-in-binary-format/) with `pg_restore` also extended to handle the new options ([more here](https://git.postgresql.org/gitweb/?p=postgresql.git;a=commitdiff;h=763aaa06f03401584d07db71256fc0ab47235cce)). - 🇺🇸 [The program for Postgres Conference 2026](https://postgresconf.org/conferences/postgresconf_2026#program), taking place this April 21-23 in San Jose, is now live. - [Pgbeam](https://pgbeam.com/launch) is a new commercial Postgres proxy, targeting AWS users handling traffic across regions globally and who want significantly lower latency while doing so. [Coming to Postgres 19: `INSERT .. ON CONFLICT .. DO SELECT`](https://www.cybertec-postgresql.com/en/insert-on-conflict-do-select-a-new-feature-in-postgresql-v19/) — A preview of a quietly significant new feature to retrieve a conflicting row on an upsert rather than just ignoring or updating it. Laurenz explains why this is cleaner and safer than `MERGE` with some examples and use cases. Laurenz Albe / CYBERTEC [Mostly Dead is Slightly Alive: Killing Zombie Sessions](https://mydbanotebook.org/posts/mostly-dead-is-slightly-alive-killing-zombie-sessions/) — _I ain't afraid of no ghost!_ .. but zombie sessions are certainly annoying! This post looks at what keeps them around, how to get rid of them, plus some mitigations. Lætitia Avrot 📄 [Understanding Postgres Performance Limits for Analytics on Live Data](https://www.tigerdata.com/blog/postgres-optimization-treadmill) Matty Stratton (Tiger Data) 📄 [A Hands-On Guide to Semantic Caching with `pg_semantic_cache`](https://www.pgedge.com/blog/semantic-caching-in-postgresql-a-hands-on-guide-to-pg_semantic_cache) Muhammad Aqeel (pgEdge) 📄 [Monitoring Postgres on Windows with PgHero and Docker](https://www.dbi-services.com/blog/monitoring-postgresql-on-windows-with-pghero-and-docker/) Joan Frey 📰 Classifieds 🌟 New features being added to the MCP server for Postgres. Don’t miss out, [star the project on GitHub](https://github.com/pgEdge/pgedge-postgres-mcp) to stay up-to-date. --- 📖 Master _Visual Studio Code_, and learn [over 150 essential tips in this screenshot-packed guide](https://lazarpress.gumroad.com/l/learnvscode) from Louis Lazaris. **RELEASES AND CODE:** [![\](https://res.cloudinary.com/cpress/image/upload/w_1280,e_sharpen:60,q_auto/zrdmufmiuafpjhjsit1c.jpg)](https://github.com/hexacluster/pgdsat) [pgdsat 2.0: Database Security Assessment Tool](https://github.com/hexacluster/pgdsat) — Checks your Postgres cluster for almost a hundred security related matters (like file permissions, config settings, replication setup, etc.) including all recommendations from the [CIS compliance benchmark.](https://www.cisecurity.org/cis-benchmarks) The output is [a report like this.](https://www.darold.net/sample_pgdsat/report.html) HexaCluster Corp [pgspot 0.9.2: Spot Vulnerabilities in Postgres Extension Scripts](https://github.com/timescale/pgspot) — An analysis tool for SQL scripts that checks for vulnerabilities and best practices. Sven Klemm (Timescale) - 🔎 [pg_textsearch 0.6](https://github.com/timescale/pg_textsearch/releases/tag/v0.6.0) – BM25 relevance-ranked full-text search extension. - [pgvector 0.8.2](https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/pgvector-082-released-3245/) – Fixes a buffer overflow with parallel HNSW index builds. - [sqlx4k 1.7](https://github.com/smyrgeorge/sqlx4k) – Coroutine-first SQL toolkit with compile-time query validations for Kotlin (supporting Postgres, MySQL, and SQLite). - [pgxmock 5.0](https://github.com/pashagolub/pgxmock) – Mock library simulating `pgx` behavior for testing in Go without a real database connection. - [postgresparser v1.1.5](https://github.com/ValkDB/postgresparser) – ANTLR-based pure-Go Postgres SQL parser. - [Pigsty 4.2](https://github.com/pgsty/pigsty/releases/tag/v4.2.0) – RDS-like 'batteries-included' Postgres distribution. - [PGQueuer 0.26](https://github.com/janbjorge/pgqueuer/releases/tag/v0.26.0) – Postgres-based Python job queue library. **Got a new email?** You can [change your address here](https://postgresweekly.com/edit_subscription/*|UID|*). --- **Bored of us?** [Click here to stop getting Postgres Weekly](https://postgresweekly.com/leave/*|UID|*). --- **Got a link for us?** Reply and tell us. We can't include everything but we'll look at anything you send. _Thanks!_ --- Published by Cooper Press Ltd. Fairfield Enterprise Centre, Louth, LN11 0LS, United Kingdom Postgres, PostgreSQL and the Slonik Logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of the PostgreSQL Community Association of Canada. [Stop getting this newsletter](https://postgresweekly.com/leave/*|UID|*).