FPP 7.4 is released!

[dkulp]

FPP 7.4 is released!
For the last month, the FPP developers have been concentrating on bug fixes and stability improvements.  Many of those fixes we merged onto the 7.3 branch, but other updates and changes have not.   The 7.4 release is mostly to collect all the fixes and updates into new images for ease of installation and updates.

NOTE: The OS level has changed. To get all of the updates, you will need to use the fppos upgrade method or use a new image.

Enhancements

• Change to use dedicated "falcon player" NTP pool (OS level update needed)
• Update the ChangeLog page to show tags on the branch
• fsequtils - add ability to examine sequence channel data
• Proxies will now open in a new tab when IP is selected
• Hide Scheduler menu entry and status box on remotes
• Add 'Save As New' button when editing an existing playlist entry
• Change hostname link to go to main status page
• Allow LED Panels in Advanced UI mode w/ non-panel cape installed
• Remove some unused packages on Pi (saves 180MB of space)
• Log output from mp3gain
• Run scripts in popup vs new tab.
• File Manager - Show thumbnails for image files with user-selectable thumbnail size

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bunch of minor memory leaks to prevent some crashes
• On multi-core Pi's, delay an extra 5s at boot (unless configured otherwise) to allow USB devices to be detected
• Don't show external URL's on multi sync page for Kiosk mode
• Fix crash if playlist json is invalid
• Fix crash in twinkly output if twinkly device is too busy to respond to authentication request
• Fix crash if empty string passes for playlist filename
• Fix problems download syslog and /var/log/messages
• Honor Group Count in auto-created Pixel String models
• Fix next playlist scheduledStartTime in status API.
• Pixel String page - Fix issue with pixel count warnings not displaying error status
• Fix rsyncd/smbd services restart after OS upgrade
• Fix reading settings with spaces in the values
• Fix compile on latest Fedora
• Try to detect corrupt eeprom and not crash fppd
• Don't flash a corrupt eeprom if eeprom download fails
• Bunch of minor spelling mistakes, text spacing updates, etc....
• Fix several race conditions that could cause lockups/hangs when using effects on overlay models
• Fix multi sync packets sending media timestamp and not the sequence timestamp
• Fix control channel output not using correct channels
• Fix support for 1600x900 monitors
• Fix Shift-Click in File Manager not working properly
• Fix auto generated overlay model names for models on smart receivers
• Fix issues signing cape eeproms
• Fix some issues with settings backups creating thousands of backup files consuming space

Installation Instructions
If you have a system running 7.x, 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 on the main status page. Click on that to start the update process. It may take a long time to upgrade. Likely 5-10 minutes. You will need to reboot after the upgrade is complete to finish the upgrade process.

For users of FPP 6.x or older, it is strongly recommended to do a full "OS Level" upgrade or re-image instead of attempting to upgrade directly from any older FPP version. There are several new features that will not work if an OS level upgrade is not done. There are two ways to do so:

• Re-image - you can backup your 5.x/6.x configuration, create a new image, and restore the configuration.
• In-place upgrade - this requires you to have FPP 5.5 and all the updates for 5.5 or FPP 6.3 already running on the device. Download the appropriate "fppos" file to your computer. Make sure the file extension is still fppos (some browsers will rename it). Upload it to the "File Manager" on the FPP instance. Then go to the about page. Under the normal "Manual Upgrade", a new Upgrade OS button should appear. Click it and wait a LONG time. When done, it should reboot into 7.3. At that point, go to the Uploads tab of the FPP File Manager and delete the fppos file. An alternate method to do an in-place upgrade if you are only upgrading one device AND the device has internet connectivity, is to select the 7.3 fppos (download) file and then click on the Upgrade OS button. This will download the fppos file and then install it as mentioned above. This will still take a LONG time and if you are doing this on more than one device, you will essentially be downloading the same file multiple times so is probably not the best way.

NOTE: In SOME cases, the reboot will fail due to library replacement. In that case, a power cycle may be required to get it back up and running.

Selecting an image
For Raspberry Pi series including Pi B, Pi B+, Pi 3, Pi 3+, Pi 4 and Pi Zero use this image

• https://github.com/FalconChristmas/fpp/releases/download/7.4/FPP-v7.4-Pi.img.zip

For Beaglebone Black, Beaglebone Green, PocketBeagle, and Beaglebone Green Gateway use this image

• https://github.com/FalconChristmas/fpp/releases/download/7.4/FPP-v7.4-BBB.img.zip

[JonD]

I hope this comment does not jinx this version, but that was the smoothest update I have done in a long time!  The Pi4 restarted after an OS upgrade, sound blaster was detected and I did not have to re-adjust the audio setting, in fact I did not have to adjust any settings, it just worked.  It rebooted quickly and seems to be running better.  The proxy link opening in a new tab is nice new feature as well.

Thanks for everyone's hard work!!!!

[tbone321]

IT also went well for me and I really like the scripts running in a popup window.  That makes things soooooo much easier.  So far, everything looks good.

[Maht87]

Went well for me on my VM, 3 Pis, and K8-PB, but on my K32A-B I ran into a failure during install and a resulting prompt to rebuild FPPD because it was missing.  I tried the rebuild and upgrading again, but it continued to result in failures.  I believe the failure was due to one of my plugins(either the Brightness Control or Model Testing), so I removed all plugins except for the Si4713/Vast one, uploaded the FPPOS file, then did the manual upgrade.  After a reboot/power cycle, it worked perfectly! 

I did notice with each of the last few upgrades on my main FPP VM, I've had to alternate between turning IP Forwarding on my show network interface (192.168.100.x) on/off to get the other FPPs to have internet access.  The main/home network (192.168.1.x) interface's IP Forwarding option is on Masquerading/NAT, and I haven't had to change that one at all.  For example, The last upgrade, I had to turn the show network interface (192.168.100.x) IP Forwarding ON to get for the other players to connect to the internet, yet this upgrade I had to turn it OFF for them to regain access.  It seems like I've had to do this the last 3-5 upgrades.  It's not resetting the option, its more like something is changing on the backend software side.  Maybe it has something to do with me running the main player as a VM (Ubuntu based FPP install).   This isn't an issue for me, but I did want to mention this in case anyone else runs into it.

[piperpilot]

Hi, I upgraded tonight...from a REALLY old version...5.4 or something if I recall.  Anyways, seems to be working well except for one issue...the status page doesn't update.  It doesn't show the scheduler status and all of the control buttons are grayed out.  I have searched everywhere and can't figure out whats going on...have I hit a bug, upgrade issue or just dumb user problem?  Link to what I am seeing is pasted below.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ix3cdv4wjffq5a4c27xwa/StatusPage.png?rlkey=a91ihs479zsy4d6jad2usm0y4&dl=0

Thanks!
PiperPilot

[MikeKrebs]

Is the phone version of the page? What is in the hamburger menu?

[piperpilot]

No, I just made it smaller for the screenshot, it was taken on Chrome on a Mac.

[Poporacer]

If you used the fppos upgrade from ver 5.4, then you will need to do the upgrade a second time. 

[piperpilot]

If you used the fppos upgrade from ver 5.4, then you will need to do the upgrade a second time.

Hi Poparacer, I have actually done the upgrade a couple of times now with no change.  Any other suggestions?  I'm trying to avoid a re-image if possible.

[Poporacer]

Any other suggestions? 

Check your Playlists for errors, and check your Scheduler for empty schedule entries. 
Or jump in the Zoom Room, that is the quickest and best help you can get. They will get you up and running in no time.

[Poporacer]

I have actually done the upgrade a couple of times now with no change.

Are you sure you are you doing the FPPOS upgrade a second time??

[piperpilot]

I have actually done the upgrade a couple of times now with no change.

Are you sure you are you doing the FPPOS upgrade a second time??

That was the problem...it didn't give me that option.  When I got on the zoom call, I launched in a different browser and the option to upgrade the FPPOS worked.  This fixed the problem.  Thanks for the assist!

[ezellner]

Just updated from an old 5.3 version and it was super smooth. However, it generated a red box error message saying the UDP was directed to itself and it was disabling that ip address. I had two ethernet ports with the same ip address (one isn't used anyway) which I changed and I still get the message. Not sure where to fix this issue or if it's related to the update. Everything seems to be working OK despite the message.

[k6ccc]

Just updated my P10 matrix panel from 7.3.1 to 7.4.  Only took a few minutes, but it took a power cycle to get back into the GUI (waited 90 minutes).  Appears normal from both FPP test patterns and via E1.31 from LOR.  We'll see tonight if it is working properly...

Version Info
FPP Version:	7.4
Platform:	BeagleBone Black (PocketBeagle)
FPP OS Build:	v2023-12
OS Version:	Debian GNU/Linux 11 (bullseye)
Hardware Serial Number:	1744GPB50414
Kernel Version:	5.10.168-fpp
System Boot Time:	2023-12-13 14:29:23
fppd Uptime:	04:59

[Poporacer]

However, it generated a red box error message saying the UDP was directed to itself and it was disabling that ip address.

The upgrade did not create that error, it is a configuration issue.

I had two ethernet ports with the same ip address

Can you explain what this means? Did you have an Ethernet adapter on an FPP Device and assigned it the same IP address as the other Ethernet interface on the same device or different devices?

Not sure where to fix this issue or if it's related to the update.

Not related to the update and how to completely fix it will depend on your show design which we do not have any information on.
 
To explain what that error is first:
On that FPP device you have an E1.31/DDP output configured to send E1.31/DDP data to an IP address of that FPP. So what happens is the FPP will process the incoming E1.31/DDP data and then send the same data to the network only to come back to itself to process again...This is definitely not what you want to happen since it will cause the props to stutter and look like they are lagging...FPP is smart enough to block this data but telling you that it should be fixed.

But a quick and probably temporary fix is to go to the Input/Output Settings>Channel Outputs and E1.31/DDP page and delete the line that has the output sending to itself. But you will probably re-create the problem the next time you use FPP Connect or upload controller configs.