Backward incompatible changes

This page lists all functionalities that are currently deprecated, features that have been removed in past minor releases, and any other backward incompatible changes that are planned or have been removed in past minor releases. The objective is to give users a clear rationale why a certain change has been made, and what alternatives (if any) should be used instead.

These changes are sorted (in their respective sections) in a reverse chronological order.

• Future changes (currently deprecated functionality)
  • For Developers
    • Removals
      • SimpleMenu.select_menu attribute
      • Downloader’s shared libraries
• Backward incompatible changes in Red 3.5
  • For Users
    • Removals
      • redbot-launcher
    • Behavior changes
      • x86-64 CPUs are now only supported if they support x86-64-v2 instruction set
      • Thread-related changes
      • Commands for changing Bank and Modlog settings are now core commands
      • Commands in the [p]set group have been reorganized
      • Red requires to have at least one owner
  • For Developers
    • Removals
      • Config.driver and redbot.core.drivers package
      • redbot.core.data_manager.load_bundled_data() function
      • is_mod_or_superior(), is_admin_or_superior(), and check_permissions() functions in redbot.core.checks
      • bordered() function
      • commands.DM_PERMS constant
      • redbot.core.utils.caching and redbot.core.utils.safety modules
      • guild_id parameter to Red.allowed_by_whitelist_blacklist()
      • redbot.core.commands.converter.GuildConverter
      • redbot.core.utils.mod.is_allowed_by_hierarchy()
    • Behavior changes
      • Update to version guarantees and privatization of many APIs
      • redbot.core.data_manager.storage_details() returns a deep copy of underlying dict now
      • Changed the version order of final dev releases and dev pre-releases
      • Red.get_owner_notification_destinations() may now return instances of discord.Voice/StageChannel
      • modlog.get_modlog_channel() may now return instances of discord.Voice/StageChannel
      • menus.DEFAULT_CONTROLS and ReactionPredicate.*_EMOJIS use immutable types now
      • Permissions defined in @commands.*_permissions() decorators are always merged now
      • Some of the primary dependencies have been removed or replaced
      • discord.py version has been updated to 2.2.3
      • Case.channel can now be a discord.Thread
      • commands.BadArgument is no longer wrapped in commands.ConversionFailure containing parameter and its value
      • Some of the method arguments in the bot class and commands package have been made positional-only
      • bot.add_cog() will now raise discord.ClientException instead of RuntimeError when cog is already loaded
      • Many functions and methods do not support discord.PartialMessageable objects
      • Cog package (extension) and cog loading / unloading is now asynchronous
      • Red.embed_requested()’s parameters and their default values have changed
      • modlog.create_case() now raises instead of silently returning on error
      • Config’s register methods now only accept JSON-castable types
      • Config now always returns base JSON types, never subclasses
      • Config.*_from_id/*_from_ids() methods now raise when int is not passed
      • Case.message can now be discord.PartialMessage
      • redbot.core.bot.RedBase has been merged into redbot.core.bot.Red
      • Context.maybe_send_embed() requires content with length of 1-2000 characters
      • menu() listens to both reaction add and remove