Work in Progress - This release is currently in development. Content may change.

Q4 2025 Release Notes

October - December 2025

Note: As of 8 December 2025, Q4 is still in progress. This document will be finalised at quarter end (31 December 2025).

Highlights

This quarter focuses on mobile/tablet experience, reliability improvements, and camera compatibility with 163 commits across both platforms. Key achievements:

Health page overhaul - from minutes to seconds with server-side pagination
Major mobile and tablet UI overhaul with dedicated stylesheets
Enhanced TetherBox health monitoring with comprehensive diagnostics
Live View player reliability improvements for iOS/Safari
Intelligent VMD event filtering reducing false motion alerts by 60-80%
ONVIF PTZ support for DVR/NVR channels
Auto-retry system for video playback in fullscreen
Authentication lockout prevention for cameras

Platform Improvements

Text-Based Events ⭐

New event type for system notifications without video

Events can now be purely text-based, displaying system information directly in the event timeline without requiring camera footage. This enables proper tracking of:

Storage ejected/inserted events
TetherBox offline/online status changes
System alerts and notifications

Health Page Overhaul

Dramatically faster performance for large installations

The Health page has been completely rebuilt with server-side pagination. For integrators managing many sites: The page now loads in seconds instead of minutes. Each table (TetherBoxes, cameras, drives, etc.) loads independently, so you can start working immediately without waiting for everything to load.

Server-side pagination for all health tables
Each section loads independently
Instant filtering and sorting
No more browser freezes on large datasets

TetherBox Health Monitoring Enhancements

Comprehensive system health visibility improvements

For Facility Managers: - Clearer health status with actionable warnings - Proactive alerts for storage issues - MQTT heartbeat monitoring with staleness indicators - Full drive warnings with escalated status levels - "Unknown" status for TetherBoxes that have never connected

For Integrators: - CPU architecture visibility (x86-64-v4, v3, v2, ARMv8.2-A, ARMv8) - Network interface diagnostics (RX/TX errors, dropped packets) - Stress test results in readable format - Filesystem corruption detection with data loss risk alerts

New Diagnostic Features

Ejected Drives Detection: Critical alert when drives stop responding
IO Wait Monitoring: Warnings for disk performance issues
Slow Rotation Drive Warnings: Detection of sub-5400 RPM drives
LAN Interface Error Tracking: Cable status, link speed, carrier detection

Mobile & Tablet Experience

Major UI overhaul for mobile and tablet devices

Mobile-Optimised Layouts: - Dedicated layouts for live view, recordings, and user management - Touch-friendly controls throughout - Collapsible sidebar for more screen space - Bootstrap components optimised for touch interaction

Mobile Recordings View: - Dedicated mobile layout for recordings playback - Touch-friendly scrubbing and controls - Automatic layout switching when rotating device - Optimised controls for small screens

General Mobile Improvements: - Automatic mobile layout on phones and small tablets - Smooth handling when rotating device - Touch gestures throughout the platform - Better positioned help button on mobile - Improved bottom menu visibility

Live View Player Reliability

Improved stability on all platforms

Error Handling: - Specific error messages based on HTTP status: - 404: "Camera not found" - 401: "No permission for remote live view" - 406: "Live view outside scheduled hours" - 502/503: "TetherBox is not responding" - Graceful abort handling during navigation/refresh - First image load optimisation

Auto-Retry System: - Infinite retries in fullscreen mode - Exponential backoff (2s initial, 10s max) - Loading state during retry - Automatic recovery from temporary failures

iOS/Safari Improvements: - Native fullscreen prevention (WKWebView compatibility) - Autoplay in fullscreen mode - Pause recovery in fullscreen - Better object-fit styling

ANPR Whitelist/Blacklist Management

Inline plate management on camera pages

Whitelist and blacklist plates table directly on camera page
Add new plate form with group selection (whitelist/blacklist)
Expiry date support for temporary access
Last seen tracking
Server-side pagination

Camera Event Filtering

Always Ignore Events: Configure events to always ignore per camera
Complements existing "always notify" feature
Per-camera event type filtering

Event Time Filter Improvement

Time filtering now considers the full event duration, not just the start time. Previously, filtering by 8:19pm would miss an event that started at 8:00pm with 20 minutes of footage. Now any event active during the filtered time range will appear in results.

TetherBox Improvements

Raspberry Pi OS Support (Debian 13) ⭐

TetherBox now supports the latest Raspberry Pi OS based on Debian 13 (Trixie), ensuring compatibility with current Raspberry Pi hardware and taking advantage of the latest system improvements.

ONVIF PTZ Control for DVR Channels

PTZ controls (pan, tilt, zoom) now work correctly when accessing cameras through DVR/NVR channels with automatic capability detection and proper channel addressing for multi-camera recording devices.

Intelligent VMD Event Filtering

Reduces false motion alerts by 60-80%

Dramatically fewer false motion detection alerts from cameras with noisy sensors. Real motion events are preserved whilst filtering out camera noise, providing cleaner event timelines with only meaningful detections. Per-camera filtering configuration available.

Selective ONVIF Analytics Event Filtering

Configure TetherBox to ignore specific camera analytics events that aren't needed. For example, disable motion detection events when better analytics (like line crossing or intrusion detection) are available, reducing alert fatigue by focusing only on relevant event types. Per-camera ONVIF capabilities are now stored in the database for granular control.

Enhanced Environmental Monitoring via Modbus

Support for additional Modbus environmental sensors to track temperature and humidity in server rooms and equipment areas, monitoring environmental conditions alongside video surveillance.

Authentication Lockout Prevention

Cameras no longer lock out after incorrect password attempts. A global authentication cooldown with 12-minute waiting period prevents device lockouts, particularly beneficial for Hikvision cameras which aggressively lock on failed authentication. This reduces system downtime and eliminates the need to reboot cameras or wait for automatic unlock periods.

Drive Ejection and File System Corruption Reporting

TetherBox now persists and reports drive errors, file system corruption, and reboot reasons to the TetherX platform. This provides clearer visibility into storage issues and system problems through the integrator report, making it easier to diagnose and resolve hardware failures before they cause recording loss.

API Changes

New Zone Endpoints

Two new endpoints for live view player integration:

GET /zones/:id/zone_config - Full zone configuration including streaming URLs, camera capabilities, and TetherBox settings. Used for initializing live view players.
GET /zones/:id/state - Current zone state including camera status, online state, and error messages. Used for polling state updates.

See the API documentation for full details.

Bug Fixes

Camera Communication

Fixed critical file descriptor leak causing EMFILE (too many open files) errors on cameras with buggy firmwares
Fixed multipart stream parsing for improved ANPR detection reliability
Fixed Dahua PTZ zoom direction (zoom in/out now operates correctly)
Fixed ONVIF event stream reconnection logic

Network & System

Improved network interface error detection and recovery
Enhanced drive detection with consolidated utility logic
Better model validation and data integrity checks

Background Tasks

Improved background task reliability with enhanced retry mechanisms
Better error categorisation for failed operations

Other Changes

Application Layout Updates

TetherBox config simplified for faster page loads
Download link expiry time now displayed
Browser back/forward navigation now works reliably with dynamically loaded pages

Network Interface Improvements

Carrier detection (cable unplugged = "no-carrier")
VPN interface handling improvements
MAC address and vendor display
Link speed, MTU, driver information
Dynamic vs static IP indication

Subscription Dialog Modernisation

Unified confirmation dialog system replacing legacy modals
Cancellation confirmation dialog
Subscription update dialog with details
Better error handling and display

Page Performance ⭐

~2x faster page loads across key pages

Events, TetherBoxes, Cameras and other key pages load around twice as fast
Drastically reduced database queries
Lazy-loaded filters with temporary placeholders while loading
Page sections load independently for faster time-to-interactive

Real-Time Updates

More efficient real-time updates
Reduced unnecessary page refreshes

Internal Changes

Legacy ActionCable Cleanup

Removed legacy real-time update channels (sites, TetherBoxes, users, wireless). All functionality now handled by modern Stimulus controllers. More reliable real-time updates with less browser memory usage.

Latency Tracking Improvements

More lenient stale threshold (10s -> 30s) to reduce false warnings
More consistent latency display

Background Processing Improvements

Better handling of audit log sessions
Unified export cleanup (snapshots and event exports) with 7-day retention
Pending events automatically cleared after 3 minutes if stuck
Improved scheduled task reliability

Turbo Migration

Modernised delete confirmations throughout the platform
Consistent confirmation dialogs across all forms

Code Quality

Various bug fixes and code improvements
Better error logging throughout
Improved automated test coverage

Statistics

Metric	Platform	TetherBox	Combined
Commits	141	22	163
Lines added	23,660	3,340	27,000
Lines removed	11,895	502	12,397
Net change	+11,765	+2,838	+14,603

Migration Notes

For Integrators

Test mobile/tablet experience - major UI improvements
Test live view on iOS - improved compatibility

For Facility Managers

Review drive health alerts - new diagnostic features available
Try mobile/tablet access - significantly improved experience
Pending events auto-clear after 3 minutes if not processed

Release Date: 31 December 2025 (Pending - Q4 in progress)

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