Q4 2024 Release Notes

October - December 2024

Highlights

This quarter focuses on Rails 8 modernisation, ANPR improvements, and platform performance.

User-Visible Changes

Event Management

• Events can now be exported as CSV files for easier analysis and record keeping.
• The system now defaults to showing "all" Events instead of "smart" events for better visibility.
• Fixed bug where manually closed events without recordings were incorrectly deleted.
• Improved bulk event closing functionality to handle events correctly.
• Fixed issue where recordings could have missing event associations.

Audio & Notifications

• Added audio notification sound that plays when new Events arrive in real-time.
• Relay Devices can now be reset directly from the interface.

Live View Improvements

• Individual camera boxes in the live view can now be cleared.
• Improved styling and layout of the clear button, especially for timelines with more than 36 Cameras.
• Removed the "move camera" option from live view controls to simplify the interface.

ANPR (Licence Plate Recognition)

• Renamed LPR (Licence Plate Recognition) to ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) throughout the system for consistency with industry standards.
• Added "direction" field to ANPR data exports (CSV and XLS files).

Camera & Device Support

• Added support for Homaxi DVR systems.
• Improved RTSP streaming with better handling of "not enough bandwidth" scenarios.
• Enhanced SSL certificate generation to be more robust and reliable.
• Fixed race condition that could cause duplicate camera ports during TetherBox setup.

Performance & Reliability

• Upgraded platform to Rails 8 for improved performance and modern features.
• Added performance monitoring with ScoutAPM to identify and resolve bottlenecks.
• Increased server capacity (Puma and live streaming threads) to handle heavier workloads.
• Live view snapshots are now excluded from performance monitoring to avoid false alerts.
• Improved database reconnection handling for better stability.
• Switched to zstd compression (from gzip) for faster database backups.

Email & DNS

• Enhanced email deliverability with TLS_RPT, BIMI, and DMARC DNS records.
• Implemented memcache failover for improved DNS reliability.

Streaming & Timelines

• Limited local streaming to 25 TetherBoxes per timeline to maintain performance (temporary measure pending better solution).
• Removed the "New Timeline" button to streamline the interface.

API Changes

• Updated API endpoints from LPR to ANPR terminology.
• Improved API documentation for updating processes.

Infrastructure

• Added support for OpenVPN resync on single server cloud deployments.
• Fixed weather processing platform alerts to reduce false warnings.
• Regional pricing adjustments for India market.

Statistics

Bug Fixes

• Fixed various SSL certificate validation issues.
• Resolved timing issues in the test suite for more reliable deployments.
• Fixed typos in OpenVPN resync functionality.
• Multiple small bug fixes improving overall system stability.