2.5.3

Mostly a collection of bugs fixes and stability improvements for 2.5.

• [BBB] Fix 1/32 64x64 panels on PocketScroller
• [BBB] Ability to select "7 bit blank last" color depth to work around issues with some panels. Better fix will hopefully come in the future
• Fix a bunch of warnings in the PHP logs
• Don't add escape codes into HexDump of channel data, causing crashes with debug logging turned on
• Fix problems of videos not starting on remote if master is also playing a video
• Add invert option to VirtualDisplay to help integration with Vixen users
• Fix display of file sizes over 2GB
• Fix negative time display with files over 2GB
• Reduce some playlist logging from Info level to Debug to prevent logs from becoming too large

2.5

New Features

• Detect if SD card does not have expanded filesystem and display action banner to do something with it
• Ability to create a new partition in unused space (instead of expanding into it) to allow creating a FAT or BTRFS partition for storage.
• Allow setting a "First Controller ID" setting for LOR output
• Scheduler allows scheduling playlists across midnight

Bug Fixes

• Fix FPD channel range detection
• Use FPP for default MQTT client ID
• Add warning/info about requiring gateway address
• rpi_ws2811 needs to not crash if only one string is defined
• Update playlist UI to add duration of sequence only entries
• Send plugin callbacks earlier to prevent sequence/media being out of sync at start
• Output processors were called twice
• Pause entry paused for unpredictable amounts
• Fix some issues with FPP connect upload from xLights of sequences with strange characters/spaces

Upgrade instructions

If you have a system running 2.1 through 2.4, you can go to the FPP about page (about.php) and click on the "Manual Update" button. At that point, a big green "Upgrade" bar should appear. You will get all the improvements above except those marked with the "requires re-imaging" notes on the release note for all the versions is upgrading through. Note: there are a LOT of changes in this release. The "Upgrade" button may take several minutes.

Images will be made available in a few days. Using the 2.4 image and doing the updates is the best option at this point.

2.4.2

Just a quick update to fix three issues with 2.4:

• Icons for Pi 3B+ and ZeroW
• Fix for remotes that don't shut their lights off at then end of sequences
• Fix upload of compressed sequences with spaces in there name

To install, use the 2.4 image and go to the "about.php" page and click on the Manual Update button.

2.4

New Features

• Support for gzip compression of fseq files while uploading from xLights (2018.44 or newer)
• Ask to copy settings/sequences/etc... onto newly formatted storage locations
• Playlist "pause" entry can now support fractional seconds
• Support for Adafruit PiRTC (pcf8523)
• Bind bridge mode UDP inputs to all interfaces, UDP data can come from any network
• Playlist page will display total duration for the playlist
• Filemanager now displays various information about media
• Multisync - can now manually enter IPs for remotes that are not discoverable (F16v3) or on another subnet
• Updates to backup/restore to allow network settings, others to be restored.

Bug Fixes

• BBB boot up was slower than necessary with v2.3 due to some changes from TI
• Remotes may blank/blink between sequences
• MQTT authorization updates, hostname updates
• Bug in scheduler which would occasionally cause playlists to stop gracefully prematurely
• Don't allow sending UDP data to itself. This was causing various network buffer fills and lockups
• Fix various outputs that only required a single channel (gpio) not working correctly (no data loading)
• Fix scripts that used to reference /opt/fpp/bin.pi
• Fix Mutlisync expert view to properly display if Update Available
• WiFi SSID/PSK not allowing various special characters
• Playlist shoudl allow sequences/music/videos with special characters
• NRF output fixed to work with 2.x
• RasClock RTC not working
• Multisync - media sync now occurs every 1/2 second, allows faster catchups.
• Multisync - media sync bugs/fixes to prevent getting out of sync, back and forth slow/fast, etc...
• omxplayer -b flag added to use a black background to prevent linux command line stuff from showing
• Various issues with Pi Matrix and others that had their channels shifted

Upgrade instructions

If you have a system running 2.1 through 2.3, you can go to the FPP about page (about.php) and click on the "Manual Update" button. At that point, a big green "Upgrade" bar should appear. You will get all the improvements above except those marked with the "requires re-imaging" notes on the release note for all the versions is upgrading through. Note: there are a LOT of changes in this release. The "Upgrade" button may take several minutes.

2.3

New Features

• Implement prev/next for "fpp -c"

Bug Fixes

• For outputs that use a background thread, fix a race condition where data can be overwritten while outputting
• Split "loading" the media and "starting" the media so it can send the start packet to the remote to start loading as well
• In SDL, occasionally the current time would drop a second and then come back up. This really messed up remotes
• Bunch of updates on remotes to properly report their position/status
• omxplayer output crashes and speed adjustments

Upgrade instructions

If you have a system running 2.2 or 2.1, you can go to the FPP about page (about.php) and click on the "Manual Update" button. At that point, a big green "Upgrade" bar should appear. You will get all the improvements above except those marked with the "requires re-imaging" note.

2.2

NOTE: there was a problem with the Pi image... A new image should be up shortly.

New Features:

• Enable use of external drivers (Realtek) on Raspberry Pi's to match Beaglebones (requires re-imaging)
• BBBSerial (DMX on Beaglebone Capes) - allow setting start channel to 0 to disable that output
• Support for Hidden Wifi networks
• Double buffering of Pi Matrix to reduce tearing
• Allow reducing the "color bits" for Pi Matrix to increase refresh rates on longer chains
• Add username/password settings for MQTT

Bugs fixed:

• Null pixels on BBB strings and Pi strings causing sequences to not play
• Fix multisync of videos not working at all due to full path names being sent
• HDMI output of video on remotes should sync better with master (new omxplayer binary) (requires re-imaging)
• Bunch of updates to Multisync code to get remotes syncing with master sooner after start
• Update status display if just a sequence is running (not in a playlist)
• Prioritize wlan0 gateway setting
• Move SDL decoding (audio/video) to background thread to allow main thread to process commands
• Fix video frame buffering to Pixel Overlay Models on remotes
• Allow decoding of videos if no audio device is present
• Fix issues with playlists containing filename that have %

Upgrade instructions

If you have a system running 2.1, you can go to the FPP about page (about.php) and click on the "Manual Update" button. At that point, a big green "Upgrade" bar should appear. You will get all the improvements above except those marked with the "requires re-imaging" note.

2.1

New features:

• enh - New "Expert Mode" for Multisync status page to view extended information about remotes
• enh - BeagleBone WIFI driver selection moved to Network page
• enh - BeagleBone - added WIFI driver for 8822bu (requires re-imaging)
• enh - Tether Mode can now be "On", "Off", or "If no IP" to go into Tether mode if no other connection is available. On Pi's, the default is now "If no IP" to allow easier setup for Pi Zero W.
• enh - Optimized the "ping" detection of controllers to be faster and reduce file handles
• enh - Add settings to configure MQTT broker/port/prefix
• enh - Add ability to trigger events and effects via MQTT

Bug fixes

• bug - Audio IP announce on Pi may only announce IPV6 IP address, not IPV4
• bug - Firefox only - playlist page did not number the playlists correctly
• bug - "Legacy Audio Output" choice not detecting when the audio stopped
• bug - Audio stuttering on single core Pi's (old B, Zero's)
• bug - Could not trigger playlists via MQTT if prefix is set
• bug - Much of issues related to adding Events to playlists and how they are stored in JSON
• bug - URL's/POST data in playlists would lose special characters
• bug - Make sure IPV4 interfaces are up before setting up Avahi to help avoid only ipv6 addresses being available
• bug - PiFace detection not working

Upgrade instructions

If you have a system running 2.0, you can go to the FPP about page (about.php) and click on the "Manual Update" button. At that point, a big green "Upgrade" bar should appear. You will get all the improvements above except those marked with the "requires re-imaging" note.

FPP v2.0

FPP 2.0 is a major update that requires all new OS images.

Major changes:

• New installation method - just "burn" the image onto an SD card using something like Etcher or Win32DiskImager, insert into Pi/BBB, boot. It's up and running in seconds. See http://falconchristmas.com/forum/index.php/topic,9372.msg86821.html#msg86821 for installation instructions.
• Updated to the latest OS images for Pi and BBB which supports all the latest hardware (Pi 3B+, Pi ZeroW, PocketBeagle, etc...)
• All new playlist code that provides options for multiple first/last items, querying URLs, publishing MQTT messages, remapping channels on the fly, running scripts directly without needing an event wrapper, running effects, volume adjustment, conditional branching, and all previous v1.x functionality. See note at the bottom about plugin callbacks.
• Default storage is now the SD card, but can easily be changed to USB. USB thumb drives are now optional.
• Selected storage can now optionally be ext4, btrfs (for compression), or the standard FAT/exFAT.
• New Output Processors for adjusting brightness, gammas, RGB orders, etc...
• All new code for Pixel outputs from Hat's and Capes. Virtual strings, brightness, gamma, RGB orders, etc... can be set in configuration now.
• Updated maximum channel count per sequence to 1M (from 512K)
• Separate configuration for e1.31 inputs (bridge mode) and outputs. Can bridge e1.31 to completely different universes and destinations.
• Support for receiving e1.31 sync packets in bridge mode.
• New e1.31 output code boosts universe count to almost 200.
• Support for DDP protocol for both sending as well as for receiving in Bridge mode
• UDP outputs (DDP, ArtNet, DDP) detect if controllers go offline or come back online and adjust accordingly. Prevents major pauses and other display issues.
• All new panel code for P10/P5 panel on the BeagleBones. Support for 12 P10 panels per output on Octoscrollers (96 panels!).
• BeagleBone Panel code updated to support almost any type of Panel. 1/2 scan, 1/4 scan, 1/8 scan P5, etc...
• Panel code for both Pi and BeagleBone update to support per-panel brightness and RGB order
• GPIO input and channel output for BeagleBones added
• Support for M4A audio files (from iTunes)
• MP4 playback can play to HDMI on Pi or to any Pixel Overlay Model (like panel displays)
• Support for a bunch of new USB wireless adapters for the BeagleBones, optionally use Kernel drivers to support even more.
• WIFI access point mode - connect from your phone to configure things
• MQTT event support

There are also a lot of internal updates and changes that don't have direct benefits to end users, but will help us move forward. There are some new (mostly undocumented) JSON API's, performance updates, internal structure changes, etc...

NOTE: Plugin callbacks are not fully working in the new playlist code at release time although fixing this is on the short term ToDo list. If you need plugins w/ callbacks, you will need to stick with v1.x for now.

FPP v1.8

All versions of FPP v1.x are no longer supported

All users are strongly encouraged to upgrade to FPP 2.x.

Changes in v1.8 include:

• Channel Output drivers
  • Update RPIWS281X Channel Output to pull in latest upstream library
    version to support the Pi v2 B. (Jason Millard)
  • Updated help text for RPIWS281X output mentioning conflict with audio
    so audio will be disabled if this channel output is enabled.
  • Added support for Alan Hanson's Pi36 controller to Pi's WS2801 output.
  • Updated serial code to allow DMX and Pixelnet to be used on Pi's onboard
    serial port if a RS485 chip is connected.
  • Added end channel to BBB string Channel Output UI config.
• General
  • Bumped max IGMP membership up to allow up to 512 E1.31 universes in
    bridge mode.
  • New plugins added, Big Buttons, Stock Ticker, Switcher, Scoreboard (bshaver)
  • Made RGB Chase the default test mode instead of single-channel case.
  • Fixed current entry highlight bar disappearing when starting a playlist.
  • Direction change in single and RGB chase in Channel tester. The data
    used to rotate towards the left/beginning of the string, now it moves
    to the right/end of the string. Also a bugfix by DMJPixel.
  • Add ability to backup plugin settings
  • Add finer control when restoring from a backup (jaredb7)
  • Add mail control plugin
  • Add ability to control GPIO outputs from command line to not conflict
    with state stored in wiringPi library. (Brian Rudy)
  • Upgrade script added to install exfat-fuse to allow 64GB USB sticks.
• Bug Fixes
  • Log cleanup in various places
  • Fixed Left/Right oriented LED panels when used on the Pi
  • Fix auto-detection of OLA libraries to enable OLA Channel Output
  • Fix disabling of manual DNS entry
  • Clear test channels when channel tester is disabled
  • Fix bug preventing swapping of wireless cards
  • Clear restart/reboot flags when buttons at bottom of UI are clicked
  • Changes to fix socket bug that sometimes caused inability to restart fppd.
  • Updated File Manager to work through proxies (bigwavedave)
  • Fixed an error with the File Manager script editor when editing files
    containing an ampersand.
  • Missing scrollbar added to 'Uploads' tab in File Manager.

NOTE: This is not an automatic upgrade, the only way to pull in the v1.8
changes is to use the Upgrade button in the UI. The 'Manual Update'
button on the About page will not upgrade to the v1.8 code, it can
only be used to pull in v1.7 updates.

FPP v1.7

Changes in v1.7 include:

• Channel Output drivers
  • New Generic Serial Channel Output.
  • GPIO Channel Output now has a 'invert' option to invert the output.
  • Changed order of fields on E1.31/sACN Channel Output screen to make it
    clearer that the start channel is the FPP absolute start channel.
  • Add Channel Output driver for the Hill320 controller. This must be
    enabled by hand currently, there is no UI yet. Requires MCP23017 I2C chip.
• General
  • Updated note on FPP File Manager to indicate which sequencers natively
    support creating .fseq files.
  • Added ability to run User Scripts directly from the FPP File Manager to
    without having to create a wrapper Event.
  • Text Editor added to UI to allow editting User Scripts without having to
    download them to a local machine, edit, and then re-upload to FPP.
  • FPP MultiSync Remotes will now search for a HOSTNAME-specific
    background_HOSTNAME.eseq file prior to falling back to looking for
    background.eseq when starting up.
  • The status page should no longer hit the backend every second for a status update
    if the status page is not on the visible tab of the browser.
• Bug Fixes
  • Raspberry Pi direct-attached WS281x now allows the second string to be
    0 pixels rather than forcing at least one pixel on the second output.
  • Fixed bug in Channel Tester code to correctly honor start channel.
  • Bugfix in code that detects when a USB audio device has been removed
    and allows switching off the old device.
  • PiFace RTC should now be working again.
  • The "changes available" text should not be shown on the About page if
    the system can not access the internet to check for changes.
  • Run upgrade scripts with proper permissions during manual upgrades.
  • Fix setting initial volume level at boot.
  • Fixed max channel count in Pixel Overlay Perl script code.
• Experimental Code/Features
  • New X11Matrix Channel Output for development testing.

NOTE: This is not an automatic upgrade, the only way to pull in the v1.7
changes is to use the Upgrade button in the UI. The 'Manual Update'
button on the About page will not upgrade to the v1.7 code, it can
only be used to pull in v1.6 updates.