MAFFT: current version has a bug in the FFT-NS-i / --auto options

[victorlin]

Context

From the MAFFT Downloads page:

Versions 7.463 – 7.486 had a serious bug in the FFT-NS-i option; unnecessarily much memory was requested and the calculation sometimes failed. This bug also affected the --auto option. Please use 7.487 or higher. (2021/Jul/25)

Current MAFFT version on the Docker image is 7.475 which falls in the affected range.

docker-base/Dockerfile

Line 82 in 87ed733

RUN curl -fsSL https://mafft.cbrc.jp/alignment/software/mafft-7.475-linux.tgz \

I'm not sure if any workflows are affected, but noting it here regardless.

Possible solution

Upgrade MAFFT to 7.487 or higher.

[tsibley]

ISTR looking at this in the past and finding we don't use MAFFT's FFT-NS-i mode… but not totally sure.