IMPORTANT: Out-of-cycle release scheduled for February 26, 2026

Hi,

The PostgreSQL Release Team decided to issue an out-of-cycle release for 
February 26, 2026[1] due to several regressions introduced in the 
February 12, 2026 update release[2]. More info:

https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/out-of-cycle-release-scheduled-for-february-26-2026-3241/

Here's a high-level description of the regressions:

* substring() function raises an error "invalid byte sequence for 
encoding" on non-ASCII text values if the source of that value is a 
database column[4]
* A standby may halt and return an error "could not access status of 
transaction"[5]

There's a wiki page tracking the regressions and fixes[3]:

https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/2026-02_Regression_Fixes

Please follow all standard guidelines for commits ahead of the release.

Thanks!

Jonathan

[1] 
https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/out-of-cycle-release-scheduled-for-february-26-2026-3241/
[2] 
https://www.postgresql.org/about/news/postgresql-182-178-1612-1516-and-1421-released-3235/
[3] https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/2026-02_Regression_Fixes
[4] https://postgr.es/m/19406-9867fddddd724fca@postgresql.org
[5] 
https://postgr.es/m/CACV2tSw3VYS7d27ftO_cs%2BaF3M54%2BJwWBbqSGLcKoG9cvyb6EA%40mail.gmail.com