Q4 2025 Release Notes
October - December 2025
Highlights
This quarter focuses on mobile/tablet experience and reliability improvements with 141 commits. 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
- Network interface diagnostics with error tracking
- Auto-retry system for video playback in fullscreen
User-Visible Changes
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 (New): - 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 (New): Configure events to always ignore per camera
- Complements existing "always notify" feature
- Per-camera event type filtering
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.
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. For users: 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
Statistics
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Commits | 141 |
| Lines added | 23,660 |
| Lines removed | 11,895 |
| Net change | +11,765 |
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