Written (with clenched teeth...) to provide the
answers given by the XC Team, after questions were asked as part of a recently submitted ticket, that was chasing up other outstanding, unanswered and/or unresolved previous tickets etc
1) XC 5.4.2.* will NOT be released. The XC Core will be revised and a new XC 5.5.*.* version will be released instead. This has a current ETA of: Q2 / 2022
2) PHP 8.* support for XC5 (PHP 8.0 or PHP 8.1 was not stated...) will NOT be available until XC 5.5.*.* is released AND this may NOT be available in time for the 1st XC 5.5.*.* release
3) All of the Apache overdue changes e.g. mod_access_compat will NOT be available until XC 5.5.*.* is released
4) All of the outdated AKA
currently unsafe 3rd party components used within XC5 (and there are a LOT...) will NOT be updated or changed until XC 5.5.*.* is released
5) Support for Maria DB 10.6.* will NOT be included until XC 5.5.*.* is released
Unless you want to spend some considerable time de-bugging, and then re-writing vast areas of the core yourself, there is no other alternative. It's wait for XC5.5.* or bust aka Catch22. IMHO & In a nutshell: XC5.4.1.* is dead software walking and the 2nd coming; XC 5.5.* will (apparently) save us all...
Feel free to draw your own conclusions and / or decide if XC5 (sorry SellaLottaLabs...) and you, have a bright future together