Q1 2026 Release Notes

January - March 2026

Highlights

AI Insights: Advanced AI analysis for drive health monitoring. Compares SMART metrics from installation against current readings, combined with drive specifications, temperature trends, system workload, and reboot history to identify degradation and potential failures.

Automatic Configuration: TetherBoxes now automatically configure camera stream settings for optimal performance - no manual configuration required. This saves integrators significant setup time by automatically configuring bitrate, codec, profile, framerate, and resolution. Requires compatible camera with native APIs (Hikvision, Lilin, Homaxi and many others) or ONVIF. Manual override available via "Disable Defaults" toggle. Configuration suggestions displayed with clear explanations when automatic configuration isn't available.

Platform Knowledge Base: Help and documentation are now fully integrated into the platform. No more switching to external knowledge bases or searching through generic answers. Get contextual, actionable guidance exactly where you need it - directly within your workflow. Search by topic, browse by tag, and collaborate with comments on every article.

Health Report Redesign: Health Report email completely redesigned with summary cards showing total issues, TetherBox issues, and Camera issues at a glance. Organised health tables - Critical Issues (red), Noteworthy (orange), Suggestions (blue), and Monitored Devices. Each issue links directly to the affected resource and relevant help article with resource type icons (◼ TetherBox, ◉ Camera, ◆ Device, ▣ Drive). Alternating row backgrounds improve readability. Shows specific camera error states instead of generic "Error" label.

Monitoring Strip for ARCs: New event workflow for monitoring stations. Closed events with ongoing activity move to a Monitoring Strip instead of disappearing - with countdown timer, activity alerts, and one-click reopen. Dramatically reduces missed incidents and event volume. See the Monitoring Station Operator Guide for details.

ARC Performance Reports: Daily pre-aggregated reports for Alarm Receiving Centres showing event handling metrics, operator performance, and camera activity. Trends page displays events per day and response time trends over 60 days with paginated report history. Day detail pages show KPI cards (total events, average response time, alerts, closed percentage), hourly event distribution charts, operator performance tables with response times, and busiest cameras - all with direct links to users and zones.

This quarter focuses on continued reliability improvements.

User-Visible Changes

User Interface

• Improved Tooltips & Popovers: Completely reworked tooltip and popover system for better experience across different screen sizes. Live view and event thumbnail previews are now larger and properly positioned
• Dark Mode Enhancements: Comprehensive dark mode styling improvements across tooltips, popovers, modals, tables, and form elements for better contrast and readability

AI Insights

• Drive Health Analysis: "Get AI Insights" button on drive pages provides comprehensive health assessments with degradation trends, wear patterns, and failure predictions
• Expert-Level Reports: Health status (Good/Fair/Poor/Critical), key concerns, estimated remaining life, and recommended actions

Platform Knowledge Base

• Integrated Documentation: Full knowledge base built into the platform - no external sites, no context switching. Browse Cameras, TetherBoxes, integrations, and troubleshooting guides without leaving your workflow
• Smart Search & Tags: Find exactly what you need with hashtag-based search across all documentation. Click any tag to discover related articles instantly
• Collaborative Learning: Comment on any article, ask questions, and share solutions. Build institutional knowledge with your team, moderated by staff
• Contextual Help Links: Relevant help articles appear exactly where you need them - TetherBox offline? Quick access to troubleshooting and offline report forms directly from the status page
• New Support Forms: Submit feature requests, bug reports, device compatibility requests, and offline reports with unique reference numbers for tracking. Bug reports now support file attachments (screenshots, screen recordings)
• Monitoring Station Operator Guide: Comprehensive guide for ARC and remote monitoring station operators covering event processing workflows, monitoring strip behaviour, live preview features, site notes, and reporting performance issues
• ARC Performance Report: Dedicated support form for monitoring station operators to report slowdowns or freezes, collecting diagnostic information including time window, timezone, affected sites, speed test results, and workstation specs
• Quick Feedback Access: Direct links to feedback forms and release notes from the Help menu
• Error Page Support: 404, 422, and 500 error pages link directly to feedback forms for immediate issue reporting
• User Permissions: Comprehensive guide to configuring what each user can access - permissions, notifications, timeline access, and zone/camera restrictions. Addresses common configuration questions with practical examples and clear explanations
• Image Enlargement: Click any image in help articles to view full-size in a modal overlay
• Syntax Highlighting: Code blocks in help articles now display with GitHub-style syntax highlighting for better readability
• Nested Table of Contents: Help articles now show subheadings (H3) nested under their parent sections (H2) in the table of contents for easier navigation of longer articles
• New Documentation Articles:
  • ANPR setup and configuration with step-by-step integration guide
  • ANPR Whitelist with IP Relay for automatic gate/barrier control
  • SIA Protocol integration for alarm monitoring systems
  • Sentinel Immix integration guide for control room software
  • Audio Challenge setup for two-way audio and speaker broadcast
  • Device Detection explaining automatic network device discovery
  • Storage management and external drive configuration
  • AI Insights guide for drive health analysis
  • Events View Menu explaining filtering, grouping, and display options
  • Invalid Paths troubleshooting for stream configuration errors
  • Health Report explaining issue categories and sort order
  • Factory Reset guide for decommissioning and relocating TetherBoxes
  • TetherBox Firmware Updates explaining scoped rollouts and update timing
  • Request Throttling documenting rate limits and security protections
  • Camera Notification Settings for configuring which camera events trigger notifications vs are ignored

TetherBox

• Update Status Accuracy: TetherBoxes no longer show "updating" status when an update failed to start or complete due to connectivity issues, timeouts, or other problems. The status banner now only appears when an update is actively in progress
• Update Duration: Updates tab now shows how long each firmware update took for reference
• Frequent Reboots & Reconnects Detection: TetherBoxes with frequent reboots (>1 in last 2 days) or reconnects (>1 in last 2 days) now display warnings on the unit page with clear counts and links to relevant tabs for investigation. Health Reports also flag units with frequent reboots (>2 in last 7 days, suggesting UPS) or reconnects (>5 in last 7 days, indicating network instability)
  • 

Companies

• Improved Map Popup: Redesigned Companies info popup with cleaner table layout, prominent partner status badges (Gold, Silver, Bronze, OEM, Authorised), and View/Edit action buttons

Cameras

• Config Updated Column: New sortable column in Cameras table showing when configuration was last manually changed
• Configuration Suggestions: Cameras display configuration suggestions with a clickable popover in the index. Suggestions flag issues like bitrate too high for resolution, analytics stream using HEVC/High profile/high framerate/high resolution, TetherBox CPU overload (>85% or Load >3), 100Mbit network interface, and footage gaps. Each suggestion includes clear guidance with actionable links to troubleshooting guides
  
• Footage Gaps Troubleshooting Guide: New help article covering common causes of footage gaps including firmware issues, overheating, network congestion, PoE power problems, and packet loss detection
• Disable Defaults Toggle: New toggle in Cameras advanced settings to disable automatic configuration when manual control is preferred
• Disable API Option: New toggle in Cameras advanced settings to disable API communication (ONVIF, ISAPI, native APIs). Useful for Cameras lacking API support, with undocumented APIs, or buggy APIs causing errors
• Motion Detection & Basic Analytics: Automatic configuration enables motion detection and basic analytics on supported cameras. Advanced analytics requiring spatial configuration (tripwire, intrusion zones, etc.) must be configured manually through the camera interface as placement depends on your specific monitoring requirements
• Supported Cameras: Native API support for automatic configuration available on Hikvision, Dahua, Homaxi, and Lilin cameras. ONVIF supported for broader camera compatibility with more limited configuration options
• ANPR Plates Resync: New "Resync Plates" button in ANPR Plates tab deletes all plates stored on the TetherBox and re-sends them from the database. Useful when plates were added while TetherBox was offline, after TetherBox replacement, or when whitelist matching isn't working despite correct configuration
• ANPR Whitelist with IP Relay Guide: Comprehensive troubleshooting guide for ANPR whitelist and relay automation - covers relay path formats for different manufacturers (ControlByWeb, Robot Electronics, KMtronic, Denkovi), manual testing procedures, and step-by-step diagnosis for barriers not opening

Events

Monitoring Strip for ARCs

A completely new event processing workflow designed for Alarm Receiving Centres (ARCs) and remote monitoring stations:

• Soft Close: When closing an event that still has active analytics or motion, the event moves to a Monitoring Strip instead of disappearing immediately
• 2-Minute Countdown: Events remain visible in the monitoring strip with a countdown timer, sorted oldest-first (closest to expiring at top)
• Final Warning: In the last 30 seconds, the countdown pulses red - a last chance to verify nothing important is happening
• Activity Alerts: Events flash whenever new analytics are detected (person, vehicle, motion), drawing attention to ongoing activity
• One-Click Reopen: Instantly bring any event back for full review if activity continues
• Dramatically Fewer Events: By keeping events open in the monitoring strip while activity continues, a single event covers what would previously have generated multiple separate events. When reviewing historical events, sites that previously showed thousands of events now show hundreds - eliminating the need for camera snoozing or sensitivity workarounds

See the Monitoring Station Operator Guide for the complete ARC workflow including list view optimisation, bulk selection, live preview, and site notes.

Other Improvements

• Scrollable Notes: Site and camera notes now display in scrollable popovers when viewing events, preventing long notes from expanding the interface. Notes are accessible within the event row with dedicated icons
• View Site Notes Permission: New "Allow Viewing Site & Camera Notes" permission enables regular users to see site and camera notes in event details (default disabled). Helpful edit note button provided for those with edit permissions to the site or camera
• Keyboard Shortcuts: Press Escape to quickly deselect all selected events
• Improved Accessibility: Event action buttons (close, hide, flag, delete) converted to proper button elements for better screen reader support and keyboard navigation
• Camera Notifications Redesign: Notifications tab reorganised into two clear sections - Notification Settings (controls push/email alerts) and Event Filtering (completely discards matching events). Each section has explanatory alerts clarifying the distinction. Help documentation expanded with VCA and Smart Motion guidance for reducing false alerts

Access Control (Paxton Net2)

• Connection Reliability: Rewrote the real-time events listener to fix socket exhaustion caused by reconnect loops accumulating unclosed sockets. Connections are now properly cleaned up on reconnect (keepAlive disabled), auth tokens validated before use to prevent 414 errors, and reconnect delays are configurable (60s for auth failures vs 3s for normal disconnects)
• Broader Net2 Compatibility: Improved support for additional Paxton Net2 versions, including better handling of protocol differences across Net2 firmware revisions
• Self-Signed Certificate Support: TLS handling for self-signed Paxton certificates and expired SSL certificates, with CORS-aware initialisation using the Paxton server URL as origin
• Connection Status: Access control table now shows real-time connection status for each Net2 controller, making it immediately visible when a device is unreachable or experiencing communication issues
• Error Handling: All access control actions now use the TetherX Action Button pattern, providing clear error feedback when commands fail instead of silently failing. Error messages from the Net2 controller are displayed directly to the user
• Real-Time Updates: Access control table updates in real-time via Turbo Streams when devices are added, modified, or removed - no page refresh required
• Improved Table Layout: Cleaner column rendering with dedicated partials for name, IP address, TetherBox, and timeline columns
• Troubleshooting Report: Diagnostic troubleshooter script (script/paxton/troubleshoot.rb) tests each layer of the Net2 connection and produces actionable reports for customer and Paxton support

Stats & Analytics (Staff)

• Fleet Health Summary: New dashboard on the Health page showing fleet-wide metrics at a glance - total TetherBoxes in use, healthy systems percentage, overloaded units, storage issues, offline units, unresponsive cameras, and cameras with errors. Includes alerts for storage bottlenecks and units with unknown CPU specifications
• CPU Performance Analysis: New analysis view showing TetherBox CPU performance relative to camera load, with recommendations for units that may be underpowered
• Staff Support Overview: Enhanced support dashboard with quick access to common support metrics and tools

ARC Slowdown Diagnostics

New internal diagnostic tooling for investigating operator-reported slowdowns. Issues that previously took hours to diagnose now take seconds. Operators provide a 5-10 minute time window and TetherX support runs diagnostics that examine:

• Rate limiting: Throttled or blocked requests that triggered protective limits
• Temporary IP bans: Banned suspicious requests or IPs
• Server errors: 5xx responses, gateway timeouts, and failing endpoints
• TetherBox updates: Firmware updates in progress (expected downtime)
• Service health: Application or VPN service restarts
• VPN upstream timeouts: TetherBoxes with camera connectivity issues
• Request patterns: Response codes, top paths, and request rates

Multi-timezone support displays results in UTC, GMT, Sydney, Mumbai, Montreal, and Vietnam for easy cross-referencing with operators worldwide.

Bug Fixes

• Relay Test Buttons: Fixed relay test buttons showing generic "command sent" message instead of actual success/error from the relay device. Now displays actual TetherBox response with proper error messages when relay commands fail
• Relay Device Visibility: Fixed relay devices not appearing in camera's Relay Devices tab when viewing from a different timeline. Relay devices are now visible across all timelines and filtered by TetherBox instead
• Wireless Table: Fixed JavaScript error when wireless table receives real-time updates
• Events Page: Fixed operator section being loaded for guest users viewing shared events
• Session Expiry: Graceful handling when turbo frames encounter auth redirects (visits login instead of throwing TurboFrameMissingError)
• Drive Age Display: Drives with less than 24 hours of operation now show "< 1 day" instead of "Unknown"
• Resolution Detection: Fixed 5MP cameras with 4:3 aspect ratio (e.g., 2560x1920) being miscategorised; now correctly displayed as "2.7K" with appropriate bitrate thresholds
• Tunnel Port Selection: Fixed race condition where manually selected tunnel ports (e.g., 8081) were ignored and port 80 was used instead. Form now syncs port selection before submission to prevent timing issues
• Health Alert Spam: Added deduplication safeguards to prevent duplicate health alert emails. Jobs skip execution if recently run (1-minute debounce) and skip email sending if already sent in last 2 hours
• Notification Deduplication: Fixed duplicate offline/online notifications being sent after server restarts or cache clears. Deduplication state is now stored in Redis (separate from Rails cache) and survives restarts, preventing duplicate emails for TetherBox/camera offline alerts, analytics notifications, and other rate-limited messages
• Tooltip Race Conditions: Fixed tooltips occasionally appearing at top-left of screen when moving mouse quickly between elements, and stuck tooltips that wouldn't hide after user moved away
• Live Preview Resolution: Event thumbnail live previews now request 720p resolution instead of small dynamic size, resulting in sharper tooltip previews on retina displays
• Icon Centering: Fixed icons not centred in sidemenu and thumbnail overlays after Font Awesome 7 upgrade
• Storage Failure Notification Spam: Fixed recorders with multiple cameras (e.g., 32-channel DVRs) sending separate storage failure notifications for each camera. Now sends a single notification per device listing all affected cameras
• GPS Upload Events: Fixed error when processing GPS upload events from mobile/vehicle cameras. Events with newer analytics types (GPS upload, config change, WiFi connect, doorbell call, animal detection, object tracking, low humidity) now save correctly
• Media Info Parsing: Fixed error when TetherBox reports stream status as a string (e.g., "ok") instead of detailed stream information array
• Monitoring Strip Timeout: Fixed events in monitoring strip closing earlier than expected. Bulk close now respects timeline's soft close timeout setting and skips already soft-closed events to prevent duplicate countdown timers
• Monitoring Strip Animations: Fixed exit animations not playing when events leave the monitoring strip. Events now properly animate out instead of disappearing instantly
• Monitoring Strip Timer Stability: Fixed countdown timer jumping erratically when receiving websocket updates. Timer now calculates remaining time once and decrements locally
• Event Thumbnails After Navigation: Fixed thumbnails not loading when using Next/Prev buttons on event detail pages. Lazy thumbnail loader now properly re-initialises after Turbo navigation
• Audit Log for Event State Changes: Fixed audit logs showing empty params and missing resource changes when events were soft-closed, closed, flagged, or hidden via the events list. Audit log now correctly distinguishes "Soft-closed event" from "Closed event"
• Event Duration Recalculation: Fixed seconds_since_midnight values being corrupted when saving events for non-time-related changes (e.g. soft-close). The calculation now only runs when starts_at or ends_at actually change, preventing timezone-dependent drift

Internal Changes

• Rails 8 Modernisation: Adopted latest Rails 7.1/8 features including self-invalidating password tokens (no more database token storage), timing-safe authentication (removes timing attack vulnerability), automatic attribute normalisation, and controller rate limiting
• Dependency Cleanup: Removed mini_racer, libv8-node, terser, and execjs gems (~168MB) as esbuild now handles JavaScript bundling and minification
• Security Improvements: Replaced manual timing attack prevention (random sleep) with proper timing-safe authentication; added bundler-audit for gem vulnerability scanning and npm audit for JavaScript dependencies in commit hooks; fixed Brakeman-identified vulnerabilities (Regex DoS, XSS, path traversal); improved Rack::Attack to block vulnerability scanners (zgrab, nuclei, shodan, etc.) and invalid requests with automatic IP banning
• Worker → ActiveJob Migration: Converted Sidekiq workers to ActiveJob for better Rails integration and resumable job support
• Ruby 4.0 Upgrade: Updated to Ruby 4.0 with all compatibility fixes
• TetherBox Deploy Monitoring: Added timeout detection for stale deploy jobs and email notifications for failed deployments
• Factory Reset Stale Detection: Factory resets stuck for over 2 hours are now automatically detected as stale, allowing users to retry instead of seeing "already in progress"
• IP Conflict Detection: Improved to detect conflicts across entire site (not just per TetherBox) with clickable links to conflicting devices
• Support Email Improvements: Better email subjects with company/timeline context; rate limiting for duplicate alerts
• Translations: Added proper native translations for Spanish, Hebrew, Russian, French, and Ukrainian
• Error Page Diagnostics: Error pages now include unique request IDs and diagnostic details, enabling faster troubleshooting when issues are reported
• Spec Modernisation: Reorganised test suite following Rails conventions - moved 85+ browser tests to spec/system/, fixed 400+ RuboCop violations, simplified factory boilerplate, added accessibility testing support
• Deduplication Module: New Deduplication module using Redis (via Sidekiq) for job deduplication, notification throttling, and rate limiting. Unlike Rails.cache, these keys survive cache clears and server restarts. Migrated 15+ files from Rails.cache to the new system. Removed problematic Rails.cache.clear call from memcache failover that was wiping deduplication state on process start

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