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RELEASE NOTES

Changelog

What’s new in the Bluecherry client and server. The five latest published releases for each, including betas, newest first.

bluecherrydvr/unity

Client releases

All client releases on GitHub

v3.0.0-beta27

Beta 27

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Fixes the fatal fps crash loop reported by Sentry (FLUTTER-5, #370) via #369, and hardens crash reporting: working hourly event budget persisted across restarts, anonymous install IDs, and server inventory context.

v3.0.0-beta26

Beta 26

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Crash fixes, timeline performance, and event accuracy, plus a full Russian translation.

Crash fixes

  • Fixed a crash opening Devices settings on desktop. The settings preview builds a tile without a video view ancestor, and a debug placeholder passed the wrong guard, so the options bar looked up an ancestor that was not there (#365).
  • Fixed a crash when dragging a layout tile past the end of the grid. Out-of-range drop indexes are now clamped to the last position instead of throwing (#367).
  • Both were caught by crash reporting and are covered by regression tests.

Timeline and playback

  • Scrubbing the timeline no longer re-opens every tile player on every movement. The position still updates immediately, but players re-open once scrubbing settles, and overlapping re-opens are serialized instead of tearing down a player mid-initialization (#363).
  • Event durations now use the server-reported media length, falling back to the previous approximation only when the server reports nothing (#296).
  • The desktop FPS readout always showed 0.0 due to an inverted check (and threw on Pi). It now reports the real codec frame rate, which also removes a misleading reading when diagnosing playback issues such as #345.
  • Status labels and debug overlays now show the actual stream resolution rather than the requested rendering quality.
  • Event playback over HTTPS now respects the allow-untrusted-certificates setting, fixing playback from servers with self-signed certificates.

Mobile

  • Switching view tabs left tiles empty until a manual reload, because the UI was never notified as players were created. Tiles now appear as each player becomes ready (#341).

Privacy

  • Log files and error output now redact credentials embedded in URLs before anything is persisted or printed.

Translations

  • Full Russian translation by @netcore-24. All 423 strings are covered and Russian appears automatically in the language picker.

Included PRs

  • #347, #360, #364, #366, #368

Known issues

  • #345: on some Intel GPUs the hardware decoder produces no frames (black video, streams stuck on the first frames). Workaround: Settings → Enable backwards compatibility (software decoding), then restart.
  • #348: timeline recording previews can fail to load on some servers; under investigation.
  • macOS builds are on hold for this release.

v3.0.0-beta25

Beta 25

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Same content as Beta 24, plus working release binaries.

Release pipeline

  • Publishing a release now triggers the build workflow (previously only draft creation did, so Beta 24 shipped with no binaries).
  • The fvp video SDK is fetched from a pinned GitHub release instead of SourceForge, which is currently outage-prone.

What's Changed

v3.0.0-beta23

Beta 23

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macOS

  • Publish the macOS app to the app store;
  • Reduced app size by 33%;
  • Updated video rendering backend for smooth rendering;

Web

  • A preview version of the web app is available for our demo server. Check it.
  • Improve the network requests security by using request headers instead of credentials-in-URL.
  • Added variables via URL, for example: http://localhost:64457/?host=demo.bluecherry.app, which allows the server interface to redirect to the web app.

General Updates

  • Redesigned secondary screens (fullscreen, new window screen) for camera and layout.
  • Possibility to reorder servers.
  • Fixed a crash related to loading and unloading several players at once.
  • Display the oldest recording date when browsing events.

What's Changed

Full Changelog: https://github.com/bluecherrydvr/unity/compare/v3.0.0-beta22...v3.0.0-beta23

v3.0.0-beta22

View on GitHub

Enhancements

  • Layouts Views:
    • Cameras can be accommodated vertically if there is enough space
    • Secondary Windows are allowed to be smaller: 300x200 pixels image
    • Correctly calculate the size of the reorderable grid children to avoid clipping
  • Timeline of Events Users can now select events and download them
    • Use Shift + Left Mouse to start selecting

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/e3676db0-e944-4067-971b-fb8ebfed6c6b

  • Add --mdk flag, that uses MDK to render videos instead of MPV

Bug Fixes:

  • Fixed layout sound volume not sticking between app restarts
  • Fixed camera selector panel turning grey randomly
  • Fixed video desync
  • Fixed adding a server that is already added
  • Fixed Secondary Windows hanging on startup
  • Fixed Timeline of Events tile not being in sync

What's Changed

Full Changelog: https://github.com/bluecherrydvr/unity/compare/v3.0.0-beta21...v3.0.0-beta22

bluecherrydvr/bluecherry-apps

Server releases

All server releases on GitHub

v3.1.15

Bluecherry 3.1.15

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Bluecherry 3.1.15

New: motion analysis on substream

  • Run motion detection on the low-res substream when configured; recording stays at full mainstream resolution

Stability (crash / DB contention)

  • Robust DB lock with holder diagnostics; cleanup transactions via API; contention counters and read cooldowns
  • Chunked cleanup commits, smaller batches, staggered schedule transitions, socket cleanup on shutdown/crash
  • Media archive/filepath indexes to stop full-table scans during storage cleanup
  • Capped OpenCV and motion-decoder thread pools (fixes CPU oversubscription)
  • Serialized live-streaming setup/teardown between device and substream threads

Cameras

  • ONVIF profile ranking for main/substream URLs; hardened add-camera URL parsing and discovery

Web UI

  • Localized login page with language switcher
  • Playback heading shows TZ-aware recording start; fixed MKV screenshot posters

Docker & playback (fixes #762, #763, #764, #765, #766)

  • Storage settings save in Docker (ship sudo + sudoers drop-in)
  • MP4 play/export when video isn't the first stream; HEVC remux; escaped shell args; diagnosable errors
  • Distinct missing-vs-unreadable recording download errors
  • Container boot warns when the web user can't read recordings

Built from master at 98380482. .deb is Ubuntu 24.04 (noble), amd64.

v3.1.14

Bluecherry 3.1.14

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Bluecherry is now completely free, no more licensing.

Dear Bluecherry community,

After many years of development, support, and running Bluecherry as a small business, the time has come to close the commercial side of the project. This was not an easy decision, but it’s one I feel is best for ensuring that Bluecherry continues in a way that is sustainable and accessible to everyone.

What’s changing:

  • Bluecherry is no longer offered as a paid product (donations are accepted!)
  • All features are now free and open source under the GPL license.
  • There will be no more licensing fees, no purchase requirements, and no restrictions on camera counts.

What’s staying the same:

  • The software itself lives on through the community and improvements as time allows.
  • Clients for Linux, Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android remain available from our downloads page and client releases.
  • Our community is still active — join us on the forums or in Discord.

👉Donate links:

Buy Me A Coffee

Ko-Fi

More release notes about v3.1.14

Install 'rrdtool' (apt install rrdtool) to use the new monitoring system in the Bluecherry admin

This release contains critical fixes for segmentation faults, database stability, and performance issues affecting large installations.

🔧 Critical Fixes

  • Segmentation Fault Prevention: Comprehensive null pointer protection in recording and streaming systems
  • Database Stability: Fix critical PHP mysqli connection bugs causing fatal errors
  • HLS Cleanup: Prevent race conditions and resource leaks during service destruction
  • Thread Safety: Add mutex timeout protection and safe thread cleanup to prevent server lockups
  • Database Timeouts: Implement proper timeout handling to avoid endless loops and hangs

🎯 Key Improvements

  • Audio Stream Validation: Robust validation for TP-Link and other cameras with problematic audio streams
  • Database Sync: Automatic database/filesystem synchronization to prevent disk fill issues
  • Missing Recordings: Script to scan and add missing recordings after VM restores
  • Modern Stats API: Replace fragile XML-based stats with robust JSON API
  • Monitoring: Enhanced system monitoring with real-time charts and metrics

📦 Package Dependencies

  • rrdtool: Added to Debian package dependencies for system monitoring
  • bluecherry: Updated package with all critical fixes

⚠️ Important Installation Notes

Users must install rrdtool and update bluecherry package:

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt update
sudo apt install rrdtool
sudo apt install bluecherry

🔄 Migration Notes

  • License system has been removed - this is now a free and open source release
  • Database schema updated for better performance and stability
  • All existing configurations and recordings are preserved

📋 Full Changelog

See the detailed commit history for complete technical details of all fixes and improvements.

🆘 Support

For issues or questions, please check the documentation or open an issue on GitHub."

v3.1.13

🆕 What’s New in 3.1.13

View on GitHub

Resolved Startup Log Spam: Fixed the "E(): Invalid media file path format: /" error messages that appeared when starting the service. Your logs will now be much cleaner!

Significant Media Cleanup Performance Boost: Added new MySQL indexes to optimize media cleanup operations.This dramatically reduces CPU usage during media cleanup, especially on systems with large databases.

Expanded Audio Codec Support. Bluecherry now supports a wider range of audio codecs, including:

G.711 (μ-law and A-law) AAC PCM G.726 Opus This ensures better compatibility with a variety of IP cameras and audio sources.

Smarter Handling of Audio Codec Issues: Instead of showing "error writing to recording" when an audio codec problem is detected, Bluecherry will now automatically ignore problematic audio codecs and continue recording video. This results in fewer interruptions and cleaner logs.

Cleanup System Optimization: Major optimization of the media cleanup system for large installations, resulting in much better performance and lower CPU usage during cleanup operations.

General Stability Improvements: Various bug fixes and under-the-hood enhancements for a smoother experience.

🔄 How to Upgrade Update your system using your package manager, or download the latest packages from our official repository. As always, we recommend backing up your database before upgrading. 📢 Need Help? If you encounter any issues or have questions, please reach out via our Discord, our support portal or community forums.

v3.1.11

View on GitHub

This release focuses on stability improvements over v3.1.9, reverting the RTSP server to the proven v3.1.9 behavior for enhanced reliability. The cleanup process has been optimized to run every 5 minutes instead of every minute to reduce system noise, while improving VBR stream DTS timestamp handling for more stable recordings. Additional fixes include media file path parsing improvements and reduced log spam from frame rate and timestamp gap warnings.

This also adds better support for RTSP streams that use VBR (CBR is still recommended).

Fixes:

  • FIX: Reduce log spam for frame rate and timestamp gap warnings
  • FIX: VBR stream DTS timestamp handling for improved recording stability
  • Improve storage management security and validation
  • Improve storage estimation accuracy and add data sufficiency checks
  • Make cleanup process more I/O friendly: reduce batch sizes, add delays between deletions, improve logging
  • DVR storage page is blank (Ubuntu 24.04 / php 8.2) (#729)
  • Unable to delete license key from web UI if license ports == 0 (#743)
  • Do not crash if MAX_STORAGE_AGE is empty (#731)

Features:

  • Remove 'There are no supported video capture cards detected on this system.' when no analog cards installed (#741)
  • Add PHP-FPM timezone fix script and update Certbot install logic for Ubuntu 24.04+ and Linux Mint 22.1+ in postinstall.sh
  • Add path validation and disk space checks to check_dir_permission.sh
  • Add transaction support and better error handling to storage.php