# QIIME 2 2017.9 release is now live!
**URL:** https://forum.qiime2.org/t/qiime-2-2017-9-release-is-now-live/1160
**Category:** Announcements
**Tags:** release
**Created:** [September 5, 2017, 11:13pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/qiime-2-2017-9-release-is-now-live/1160 "2017-09-05T23:13:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 7
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@thermokarst](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/thermokarst)
#### Post date: [September 5, 2017, 11:13pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/qiime-2-2017-9-release-is-now-live/1160/1 "2017-09-05T23:13:40Z")
The QIIME 2 2017.9 release is now live! There are lots of exciting new changes packed into this release that are described below. Through the end of 2017 we will have **monthly releases**. We highly recommend staying up-to-date with the latest releases to get access to new features, bug fixes, documentation, etc. We will only provide user support for the latest monthly release of QIIME 2 as these monthly releases continue through the end of 2017.
QIIME 2 will succeed [QIIME 1](http://qiime.org/) on January 1, 2018. QIIME 1 will no longer be supported at that time, as development and support effort for QIIME will be focused entirely on QIIME 2. We recommend that existing QIIME users begin transitioning from QIIME 1 to QIIME 2 now.
Check out the [QIIME 2 2017.9 docs](https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.9/) for details on installing the latest QIIME 2 release, as well as tutorials and other resources. Get in touch on the [QIIME 2 forum](https://forum.qiime2.org) if you run into any issues!
We will provide official `conda` builds on release day. Virtual machine builds such as AWS and Docker will be released within the following week. We will post a follow-up announcement here when those builds become available.
Here's the highlights of the release:
- [QIIME 2 Framework](https://github.com/qiime2/qiime2)
- Artifacts and Visualizations now record their `output-name` in provenance. This can help consumers of provenance disambiguate multiple artifacts produced by the same Action (e.g. `qiime diversity core-metrics`). 🎉
- `FileFormat`s and `DirectoryFormat`s can now implement a `validate` method which may raise a `ValidationError` to explain what part of a given file/directory makes it invalid.
- Added additional validation and cleanup to TSV-format metadata files - rows made entirely of whitespace will be ignored (like they are with a comment line).
- [docs](https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.9/)
- Updated the Sample Classifier tutorial to include an example of `maturity-index`, as well as replaced the Atacama dataset with ECAM.
- Updated the Longitudinal tutorial to include an example of `volatility`, as well as using the ECAM dataset now.
- [q2-vsearch](https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.9/plugins/available/vsearch/)
- This new plugin wraps several `vsearch` methods, allowing for dereplication as well as _de novo_ and closed-reference OTU picking! 🎈
- A [Community Tutorial](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/clustering-sequences-into-otus-using-q2-vsearch/1348) for _de novo_ and closed-reference OTU picking with `q2-vsearch` is now available. This will be transitioned to the QIIME 2 docs in a future release.
- [q2-longitudinal](https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.9/plugins/available/longitudinal/)
- Warnings are now displayed in a collapsible section in the visualization instead of `stdout`.
- Fixed a bug in `linear-mixed-effects` that caused it to fail when only one variable was provided as input.
- LME now fails gracefully when singular matrix error is raised.
- Added `volatility` visualizer, which lets you plot a control chart of a single dependent variable across multiple groups contained in a sample metadata column.
- Fixed a bug that caused a misleading HTML title to be displayed in visualizations produced by this plugin.
- Added [`nmit`](https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.9/plugins/available/longitudinal/nmit) method, which performs nonparametric microbial interdependence test to determine longitudinal sample similarity as a function of temporal microbial composition. Thanks Yilong Zhang! 🎈
- [q2-sample-classifier](https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.9/plugins/available/sample-classifier/)
- Added the ability to collapse the (sometimes lengthy) "Feature Importance" table of the `classify-samples` visualizer.
- Fixed a bug that caused a misleading HTML title to be displayed in visualizations produced by this plugin.
- [q2-feature-classifier](https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.9/plugins/available/feature-classifier/)
- Added optional `class_weight` input to sklearn classifier fitting.
- Fixed a bug for classifiers that don't support confidence calculations.
- Added parameter descriptions to `classify-sklearn`.
- Renamed the `chunk-size` parameter of `classify-sklearn` to `reads-per-batch`.
- [q2-composition](https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.9/plugins/available/composition)
- The `statistical-test` parameter has been removed from `ancom`. This parameter did not generally work (resulted in an immediate error). It may be added back in the future.
- `ancom` now provides a message when no significant features are found instead of an empty table.
- `ancom` will now display a message if a volcano plot cannot be drawn.
- [q2-types](https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.9/plugins/available/types/)
- A new semantic type `SampleData[Sequences]` has been added. This has a default format of `QIIME1DemuxFormat` (and is the analogue to `seqs.fna` from `split_libraries.py`).
- `DNAFASTAFormat` now supports empty files (zero FASTA records).
- Fixed a bug in the `pd.Series` to `DNAFASTAFormat` transformer 🐛.
- `CasavaOneEightSingleLanePerSampleDirFmt` and related formats have been made significantly more robust and will now report issues such as missing forward/reverse reads, duplicate sample IDs, and unusual directory structures at import time.
- [q2-feature-table](https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.9/plugins/available/feature-table/)
- Added [`qiime feature-table heatmap`](https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.9/plugins/available/feature-table/heatmap/) visualizer for visualizing a feature table as a heatmap, optionally in the context of sample metadata and sample/feature axes clustering.
- Added y-axis labels to the frequency plots in the [`summarize`](https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.9/plugins/available/feature-table/summarize/) visualizer!
- Added [`qiime feature-table filter-seqs`](https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.9/plugins/available/feature-table/filter-seqs/) to support filtering `FeatureData[Sequences]`.
- Added a new `merge` method: `sum`. This allows for both overlapping Sample IDs and Feature IDs when merging two tables.
- [q2-phylogeny](https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.9/plugins/available/phylogeny/)
- `fasttree` method now supports an `n-threads` parameter for running `FastTree` in multi-threaded mode (uses `FastTreeMP` to accomplish this).
- [q2-diversity](https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.9/plugins/available/diversity/)
- `core-metrics` now computes only non-phylogenetic metrics (so a phylogenetic tree is not required as input). Added `core-metrics-phylogenetic` which computes both phylogenetic and non-phylogenetic metrics and requires a tree as input.
- `core-metrics` and `core-metrics-phylogenetic` now output the rarefied table in addition to the other outputs.
- Fixed a bug in `alpha-rarefaction` that caused visualizations produced with optional metadata to display the sum of the various metrics, instead of the median.
- A new method `beta-phylogenetic-alt` has been added. Notably, this method is _faster_ and uses much less memory while producing identical results to `beta-phylogenetic`, making it ideal for large datasets. This method also includes support for [Generalized UniFrac](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22711789) and [Variance Adjusted UniFrac](https://bmcbioinformatics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-2105-12-118). At a later date, this may be merged with `beta-phylogenetic`.
- `alpha-rarefaction` now ignores metadata columns that contain entirely "null" values and provides a warning indicating which columns those were.
- [q2cli](https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.9/interfaces/q2cli/)
- Fixed a bug where `--help` text labeled output visualizations as both Artifacts and Visualizations.
- `qiime tools import` error messages are now formatted in a more user-friendly way.
- Input options are now ordered to match the signature of the registered action, this means that required options will appear first in the help text followed by optional options and then outputs.
- Provide prettier errors when attempting to use invalid metadata (either TSV or QZA format).
- [q2-emperor](https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.9/plugins/available/emperor/)
- Upgraded to the latest version of [Emperor](http://emperor.microbio.me/uno/), which includes the following changes:
Happy QIIME-ing! 🌞
---
### Author:  [@asr17](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/asr17)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2017, 7:51pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/qiime-2-2017-9-release-is-now-live/1160/63 "2017-09-29T19:51:08Z")
I can't find the url for QIIME2 2017.9 virtual machine, thanks.
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### Author:  [@thermokarst](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/thermokarst)
#### Post date: [September 29, 2017, 7:55pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/qiime-2-2017-9-release-is-now-live/1160/65 "2017-09-29T19:55:31Z")
Hi @asr17!
We haven't gotten the VMs out the door just yet:
> [@thermokarst](#):
>
> We will provide official conda builds on release day. Virtual machine builds such as AWS and Docker will be released within the following week. We will post a follow-up announcement here when those builds become available.
but hopefully in the next few days! Stay tuned here for a follow-up! 🦖 🎉
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### Author:  [@thermokarst](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/thermokarst)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2017, 9:00pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/qiime-2-2017-9-release-is-now-live/1160/67 "2017-10-02T21:00:04Z")
An off-topic reply has been split into a new topic: [Filter Seqs (feature table)](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/filter-seqs-feature-table/1387)
Please keep replies on-topic in the future.
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### Author:  [@jairideout](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/jairideout)
#### Post date: [October 2, 2017, 11:19pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/qiime-2-2017-9-release-is-now-live/1160/68 "2017-10-02T23:19:06Z")
The QIIME 2 Virtual Machines are now available! We have QIIME 2 2017.9 available on AWS, Docker, and VirtualBox, please [see the docs](https://docs.qiime2.org/2017.9/install/virtual/) for more information. Thanks!
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### Author:  [@nhuda6](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/nhuda6)
#### Post date: [October 3, 2017, 7:55pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/qiime-2-2017-9-release-is-now-live/1160/69 "2017-10-03T19:55:20Z")
Adding tool for maturity-index calculation is a cool idea. Thank you so much for adding this tool.
> [@thermokarst](#):
>
> maturity-index
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### Author:  [@ebolyen](https://forum.qiime2.org/u/ebolyen)
#### Post date: [October 23, 2017, 4:44pm UTC](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/qiime-2-2017-9-release-is-now-live/1160/70 "2017-10-23T16:44:16Z")
An off-topic reply has been split into a new topic: [Save emperor plot and legend as .png](https://forum.qiime2.org/t/save-emperor-plot-and-legend-as-png/1586)
Please keep replies on-topic in the future.