Breaking changes in Neo4j 2025.01

The section covers breaking changes in Neo4j 2025.01, the first release after Neo4j 5.26 LTS. Breaking changes are only made in the release immediately following a long-term support (LTS) release. For guidelines on how to migrate from previous Neo4j versions to the latest version, Neo4j 2026.08, see the Upgrade and Migration Guide.

Clustering

Discovery service

In 2025.01, discovery service v1 is removed. Therefore, transitioning from v1 to v2 must be completed before upgrading to Neo4j 2025.01.

For more details, refer to the Operations Manual → Moving from discovery service v1 to v2.

Configuration settings

  • In 2025.01, the settings server.discovery.advertised_address and server.discovery.listen_address are removed.

    To list the discovery endpoints (e.g., for providing them to the discovery resolver), use the value from the server.cluster.advertised_address setting.

  • Two configuration settings related to the discovery service v2 are renamed. You can still use them when migrating from Neo4j 5.26 to the 2025.01 version. However, it is recommended to update your neo4j.conf file to use the new settings.

    Table 1. Renamed configuration settings
    Old name New name

    dbms.cluster.discovery.v2.endpoints

    dbms.cluster.endpoints

    dbms.kubernetes.discovery.v2.service_port_name

    dbms.kubernetes.discovery.service_port_name
Ports

Port 5000 is no longer used from 2025.01 onwards. Use port 6000 for the internal traffic.

For more details, refer to the Configuration → Ports.

Catch-up strategy plugins

connect-randomly-to-server-group and connect-randomly-within-server-group are removed and replaced by connect-randomly-to-server-tags and connect-randomly-within-server-tags respectively.

Configuration settings

Removed configuration settings

See removed configuration settings in Neo4j 2025.01.
Name Comments

db.cluster.raft.leader_transfer.priority_group Enterprise Edition

Removed without replacement. Instead use db.cluster.raft.leader_transfer.priority_tag.

db.logs.query.annotation_data_as_json_enabled Dynamic

Replaced by db.logs.query.annotation_data_format.

db.tx_state.memory_allocation

Removed without replacement.

dbms.cluster.catchup.client_inactivity_timeout Enterprise Edition

Use dbms.cluster.network.client_inactivity_timeout.

dbms.cluster.discovery.log_level Enterprise Edition

Removed without replacement.

dbms.cluster.discovery.type Enterprise Edition

Removed without replacement.

dbms.cluster.discovery.endpoints Enterprise Edition

Removed without replacement.

dbms.cluster.discovery.version Enterprise Edition

Removed without replacement.

dbms.kubernetes.service_port_name Enterprise Edition

Removed without replacement.

initial.dbms.database_allocator Enterprise Edition

Removed without replacement.

server.cluster.catchup.connect_randomly_to_server_group Enterprise Edition Dynamic

Removed without replacement.
Instead use server.cluster.catchup.connect_randomly_to_server_tags

server.discovery.advertised_address Enterprise Edition

Removed without replacement.
Instead use the value of server.cluster.advertised_address.

server.discovery.listen_address Enterprise Edition

Removed without replacement.
Instead use the value of server.cluster.listen_address.

server.groups Enterprise Edition

Replaced by initial.server.tags.

server.max_databases Enterprise Edition

Replaced by dbms.max_databases.

server.memory.off_heap.block_cache_size

Removed without replacement.

server.memory.off_heap.max_cacheable_block_size

Removed without replacement.

server.memory.off_heap.transaction_max_size

Removed without replacement.

Changes to default values of configuration settings

These changes affect only new installations or upgrades that involve replacing existing configuration files.

See changes to default values in Neo4j 2025.01.
Name Old default value New default value

db.logs.query.annotation_data_format Dynamic

CYPHER

JSON

dbms.databases.seed_from_uri_providers Enterprise Edition

S3SeedProvider,CloudSeedProvider

CloudSeedProvider

server.metrics.csv.rotation.compression Enterprise Edition

NONE

ZIP

server.panic.shutdown_on_panic Enterprise Edition

false

true

server.logs.config

conf/server-logs.xml

server-logs.xml

server.logs.user.config

conf/user-logs.xml

user-logs.xml

Changes to valid values of configuration settings

The server.logs.config and the server.logs.user.config are changed to depend on the provided path for the conf directory instead of having the conf directory encoded in the default values.

Table 2. Updated configuration settings
Name Old valid value New valid value

server.logs.config

A path. If relative, it is resolved from server.directories.neo4j_home.

A path. If relative, it is resolved from server.directories.configuration.

server.logs.user.config

A path. If relative, it is resolved from server.directories.neo4j_home.

A path. If relative, it is resolved from server.directories.configuration.

Java API

See the removed public API

  • com.neo4j.configuration.EnterpriseEditionSettings.initial_database_allocator

  • com.neo4j.configuration.EnterpriseEditionSettings.server_groups

  • com.neo4j.configuration.EnterpriseEditionSettings.server_max_number_of_databases

  • com.neo4j.dbms.procedures.wait.WaitResponseState

  • com.neo4j.configuration.ClusterSettings.DEFAULT_CLUSTER_STATE_DIRECTORY_NAME

  • com.neo4j.configuration.ClusterSettings.DEFAULT_DISCOVERY_PORT

  • com.neo4j.configuration.ClusterSettings.DEFAULT_RAFT_PORT

  • com.neo4j.configuration.ClusterSettings.DEFAULT_TRANSACTION_PORT

  • com.neo4j.configuration.ClusterSettings.catchup_connect_randomly_to_server_group

  • com.neo4j.configuration.ClusterSettings.raft_leader_transfer_priority_group

  • com.neo4j.configuration.ClusterBaseSettings.DEFAULT_DISCOVERY_PORT

  • com.neo4j.configuration.ClusterNetworkSettings.catchup_client_inactivity_timeout

  • com.neo4j.causalclustering.discovery.parallel.ParallelDiscoveryMode

  • com.neo4j.causalclustering.discovery.resolve.RemotesResolver.Type

  • com.neo4j.causalclustering.discovery.resolve.RemotesResolver.init(com.neo4j.causalclustering.discovery.resolve.RemotesResolver.Type, org.neo4j.graphdb.config.Configuration, org.neo4j.logging.LogProvider)

  • com.neo4j.configuration.ClusterAddressSettings.discovery_advertised_address

  • com.neo4j.configuration.DiscoverySettings.discovery_endpoints

  • com.neo4j.configuration.DiscoverySettings.discovery_listen_address

  • com.neo4j.configuration.DiscoverySettings.discovery_log_level

  • com.neo4j.configuration.DiscoverySettings.discovery_type

  • com.neo4j.configuration.DiscoverySettings.discovery_version

  • com.neo4j.configuration.KubernetesSettings.kubernetes_service_port_name

  • com.neo4j.configuration.RaftSettings.DEFAULT_CLUSTER_STATE_DIRECTORY_NAME

  • com.neo4j.configuration.RaftSettings.DEFAULT_RAFT_PORT

  • com.neo4j.dbms.seeding.SeedDownloadStreamWrapper

  • com.neo4j.dbms.seeding.SeedProvider

  • com.neo4j.dbms.seeding.SeedProviderDependencies

  • org.neo4j.configuration.GraphDatabaseSettings.TransactionStateMemoryAllocation

  • org.neo4j.configuration.GraphDatabaseSettings.log_queries_annotation_data_as_json

  • org.neo4j.configuration.GraphDatabaseSettings.tx_state_max_off_heap_memory

  • org.neo4j.configuration.GraphDatabaseSettings.tx_state_memory_allocation

  • org.neo4j.configuration.GraphDatabaseSettings.tx_state_off_heap_block_cache_size

  • org.neo4j.configuration.GraphDatabaseSettings.tx_state_off_heap_max_cacheable_block_size

The SeedProvider is removed and replaced by the DatabaseSeedProvider. For details, refer to the Java Reference → Extending Neo4j → Setting up a plugin project.

Logging

Starting from Neo4j 2025.01, the default debug.log format has been changed from Text to JSON. It is highly recommended to keep it enabled and not to alter it.
If you require the debug.log messages in a different format, create an additional Appender since the Neo4j Support team uses the default one. For more information, see Default logging configuration.

Metrics

Removed metrics

See removed metrics in Neo4j 2025.01.
Metrics class Metrics name

Raft core metrics - replaced accordingly by the Raft metrics

<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.append_index
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.commit_index
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.applied_index
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.term
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.tx_retries
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.is_leader
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.in_flight_cache.total_bytes
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.in_flight_cache.max_bytes
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.in_flight_cache.element_count
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.in_flight_cache.max_elements
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.in_flight_cache.hits
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.in_flight_cache.misses
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.raft_log_entry_prefetch_buffer.lag
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.raft_log_entry_prefetch_buffer.bytes
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.raft_log_entry_prefetch_buffer.size
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.raft_log_entry_prefetch_buffer.async_put
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.raft_log_entry_prefetch_buffer.sync_put
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.message_processing_delay
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.message_processing_timer
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.replication_new
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.replication_attempt
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.replication_fail
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.replication_maybe
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.replication_success
<prefix>.causal_clustering.core.last_leader_message

Read Replica metrics - replaced accordingly by the Store copy metrics

<prefix>.causal_clustering.read_replica.pull_updates
<prefix>.causal_clustering.read_replica.pull_update_highest_tx_id_requested
<prefix>.causal_clustering.read_replica.pull_update_highest_tx_id_received

Discovery metrics v1 - removed without replacement. See Discovery metrics

<prefix>.cluster.discovery.replicated_data
<prefix>.cluster.discovery.cluster.members
<prefix>.cluster.discovery.cluster.unreachable
<prefix>.cluster.discovery.cluster.converged
<prefix>.cluster.discovery.restart.success_count
<prefix>.cluster.discovery.restart.failed_count

Renamed metrics

In Neo4j 2025.01, the <prefix>.store.size.total is renamed to <prefix>.store.size.full to be in line with the Prometheus naming requirements.

See the table Database store size metrics for more details.

Operating systems

In Neo4j 2025.01, the following operating systems are no longer supported:

  • macOS 11, 12

  • Amazon Linux 2022 AMI

  • Ubuntu Server 16.04, 18.04, 20.04

  • Windows Server 2016 and 2019

Procedures

See procedures removed in Neo4j 2025.01 without replacement.
Name Community Edition Enterprise Edition

dbms.cluster.moveToNextDiscoveryVersion()

dbms.cluster.showParallelDiscoveryState()

dbms.cluster.switchDiscoveryServiceVersion()

dbms.setDatabaseAllocator()

SSL framework

The CBC-based ciphers that are no longer supported from Neo4j 2025.01

  • TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384

  • TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256

  • TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256

  • TLS_DHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256

    For more details, refer to the page on SSL framework under the Security section.

SSL-related configuration setting

Starting from 2025.01, the default value of dbms.ssl.policy.*.verify_hostname is changed from false to true. See the table on the page SSL framework for more details.

Seed providers

Starting with Neo4j 2025.01, the URLConnectionSeedProvider does not support file. This is true for both Cypher 5 and Cypher 25.
It is replaced by FileSeedProvider. See Seed provider reference for more details.

Glossary

allocator

A component in the cluster that allocates databases to servers according to the topology constraints specified and an allocation strategy.

asynchronous replication

Asynchronous replication is used by secondary copies to poll for new transactions, which means they cannot be guaranteed to have received the most recent transactions. This enables efficient scale-out of read-performance.

Aura instance

A fully-managed DBMS represented by a single instance ID, that is running in the Neo4j Aura cloud.

auto-commit transaction

An automatically committed transaction that contains a single query.

Bolt protocol

Bolt is a protocol used for interaction between Neo4j instances and drivers.

bookmark

A marker the client can request from the cluster to ensure that it is able to read its own writes so that the application’s state is consistent and only databases that have a copy of the bookmark are permitted to respond.

category (Bloom)

A category is based on a node label and is defined in a Perspective as a way of visually distinguishing nodes with the same label(s).

causal consistency

All servers in a cluster agree on the order in which transactions take place. The position of a server on the causal chain can be guaranteed using a bookmark.

cluster

A Neo4j DBMS that spans multiple servers working together to increase fault tolerance and/or read scalability. Databases on a cluster may be configured to replicate across servers in the cluster thus achieving read scalability or high availability.

client application

Software that interacts with a Neo4j server.

commit

A commit is the successful completion of a transaction, which ensures durability of any changes made. For more details, visit Operations Manual → Transaction management.

composite database

Composite databases are the means to access partitioned graph data with a single Cypher query.

constraint

Constraints are sets of data modeling rules that ensure the data is consistent and reliable.

Cypher®

Neo4j’s graph query language.

data model

A data model defines how information is organized in a database. A good data model will make querying and understanding your data easier. In Neo4j, the data models have a graph structure.

database

A database is a container used by the DBMS to manage and store graph data. The physical structure of data is controlled by the database.

database vs graph

Databases are the physical containers of graph data. Graphs are the logical structure of data in Neo4j.

Database Management System

Database Management System, or DBMS, capable of managing multiple databases. A DBMS may run on a single server, or span several servers configured as a cluster.

database schema

The prescribed property existence and datatypes for nodes and relationships.

deallocate

An act of removing a database from a server or a server from a cluster without loss of data or reduced fault tolerance.

degree (of a node)

The number of relationships of a specific node; loops are counted twice.

disaster recovery

A manual intervention to restore availability of a cluster, or databases within a cluster.

driver

A software library that provides access to Neo4j from a particular programming language.

election

In the event that the Raft leader becomes unresponsive, followers automatically trigger an election and vote for a new leader.

entity

A node or a relationship.

expression (Cypher)

A component of a Cypher query which produces values. It may be used in projections, as a predicate, or when setting properties on graph elements.

fabric

Fabric is the architectural design of a unified system that provides a single access point to local or distributed graph data.

fault tolerance

A guarantee that a cluster can maintain a database’s persistence and availability in the event of one or more servers failing.

follower

A primary copy of a database acting as a follower, receives and acknowledges synchronous writes from the leader.

Generative AI (GenAI)

A type of artificial intelligence (AI) system that generates text, images, or other media in response to prompts.

graph

A logical representation of a set of nodes where some pairs are connected by relationships.

index

Data structure that improves read performance of a database.

knowledge graph

A specific type of graph that has an organizing principle so that a user (or a computer system) can reason about the underlying data. The organizing principle provides an additional layer of structure that adds context to support knowledge discovery.

label

Marks a node as a member of a named and indexed subset. A node may be assigned zero or more labels.

leader

A single primary copy of a database is designated as the leader. It receives all write transactions from clients and replicates writes synchronously to followers and asynchronously to secondary copies of the database.

main database

In terms of Neo4j Enterprise Studio, the database(s) containing the user’s data. Can exist in the same Neo4j deployment as the tool asset database.

motif

A description of a specific pattern within a graph.

node

A node represents an entity or discrete object in your graph data model. Nodes can be connected by relationships, hold data in properties, and are classified by labels.

operator

A symbol representing a mathematical or logical operation.

parameter

Named value provided when running a Cypher statement.

path

A sequence of nodes and the relationships connecting them, that does not contain duplicate relationships. Several paths can match a pattern.

pattern

A specific arrangement of nodes and relationships that can be matched in a graph. A pattern follows a motif.

perspective (Bloom)

A Perspective defines a certain business view or domain that can be found in the target Neo4j graph. A single Neo4j graph can be viewed through different Perspectives, each tailored for a different business purpose.

primary

A copy of the database that is able to process write transactions and is eligible to be elected as a leader. It participates in fault tolerant writes as it is part of the majority required to acknowledge and commit write transactions.

primary vs secondary

In a cluster, databases can operate in either primary or secondary mode. Primary databases are able to process write and read transactions, ensuring fault tolerance. Secondary databases are replicated asynchronously from primaries, and their main purpose is to provide read scaling within the cluster.

project (Aura)

An isolated environment in the unified Aura console that contains its own database instances, configurations, and resources. Preceded by tenant in the classic Aura console.

property

Properties are key-value pairs that are used for storing data on nodes and relationships.

query (Cypher)

A statement that retrieves or writes information to a database.

Raft group

A group of servers that are participating in hosting a particular database in primary mode.

Raft group member

A server that is participating in a Raft group. A server can be a member of one or more groups.

Raft log

A shared log between all Raft group members that is guaranteed to be consistently updated and viewed by those members. The log contains both database data and operational state of the Raft group.

Raft protocol

The networking mechanism that enables a database to replicate its data across multiple servers to give high availability for accessing the data and high durability to the data stored.

read scaling

Distributing query load by creating additional database copies hosted in secondary mode (read-only).

relationship

A relationship represents a connection between nodes in your graph data model. Relationships connect a source node to a target node, hold data in properties, and are classified by type.

secondary

An asynchronously replicated copy of the database that provides read scaling within the cluster.

seed

A seed is a database dump or a full backup used to create a database on a cluster. This is sometimes called seeding.

server

A physical machine, a virtual machine, or a container running an instance of Neo4j. Servers can be standalone or part of a cluster.

session

A causally linked sequence of transactions.

session consistency

An alternative name for Neo4j’s causal consistency.

standalone

A single server running Neo4j and not part of a cluster.

synchronous replication

Synchronous replication requires the leader primary to replicate a transaction and block the commit until a quorum of the follower primaries acknowledges that the transaction is successfully replicated. Once the transaction is replicated, the commit is allowed to proceed. This ensures data durability and consistency within the cluster.

system database

A database used by Neo4j to store system information.

tenant (Aura)

An isolated environment in the classic Aura console that contains its own database instances, configurations, and resources. Replaced by project in the unified Aura console.

tool asset database

In terms of Neo4j Enterprise Studio, the database where tools' assets are stored. This can be in the same Neo4j deployment as the main database(s) or in a separate deployment.

topology

A configuration that describes how the copies of a database should be spread across the servers in a cluster, see primary mode and secondary mode.

transaction

A transaction comprises a unit of work performed against a database. It is treated in a coherent and reliable way, independent of other transactions. Transactions comply with the ACID consistency model (atomic, consistent, isolated, and durable).