FPP 9.0 Released!

[dkulp]

FPP 9.0 Released!

Enhancements

• Official support for new PocketBeagle 2
• Most capes for original PocketBeagle can now work with the PocketBeagle 2
• New BBShiftPanel driver for PocketBeagle 2 for driving LED Panels
• SD Cards auto-expand storage space on first reboot (second boot)
• ColorLight updates
• New ability to drive multiple ColorLight matrices from single FPP instance (requires multiple ethernet adapters)
• Preliminary support for v13 ColorLight firmware (works in SOME cases)
• Try to autodetect ColorLight firmware versions and if receivers are present, Advanced Mode UI settings to override detection
• UI Updates:
• Update available icon now in upper menu when an update is available
• Channel Input and Channel Output configuration now updates immediately and no longer requires an FPPD restart
• Many settings (not all) are now reflected immediately instead of requiring an FPPD restart
• Changes to Command presets no longer require an FPPD restart
• Active Overlay Model Effects are now displayed on the Effects page (and can be stopped there as well)
• DHCP leases from FPP will automatically display as Proxied on Proxies page
• Help menu re-organized with help pages put into categories on a new "Get Help" page
• Playlist cards now display total length and number of items
• Localization settings moved from "System" and "Time" tabs to separate Localization tab
• Services (like Samba/MQTT/etc...) moved to new "Services" tab
• New features for Capes/Hats/Outputs
• Capes can now provide "Device Tree Overlay" files to pre-configure onboard peripherals as part of kernel boot. Results in faster boot and clearer logs
• Ability for capes to use "nice names" (like "DMX1") instead of linux names like "ttyS4" for serial outputs
• Many new Panel interleave types for Beagle based Panel drivers (Octoscrollers, PocketScrollers, etc...)
• OLEDs on Capes now provide additional status messages during boot
• Capes can specify which GPIO pins to show or hide on GPIO lists to prevent users from adjusting GPIO's that are used internally
• Security updates
• Many settings are no longer exposed in the HTML page if not required for that page
• Content-Security-Policy header is now set to prevent malicious javascript from accessing sites that are not authorized
• Output Processors Updates:
• New "Clamp Value" output processor to make sure channel values do not exceed a set value
• New "Scale Value" output processor for scaling all channels by a common factor
• Output Processors can now be configured with Model names instead of just channel ranges
• New MQTT broker configuration to allow FPP instance to become an MQTT broker
• New support for CH340 based USB relays
• Support for Raspberry Pi Compute Module 5

Major Changes/Incompatibilities

• The "FPD" dongle output for driving PixelNet is now deprecated and will be removed in the future
• Many of the "Remote XXXX" FPP commands (like "Remote Playlist Start") are deprecated and will be remove in the future. Use the normal FPP command with the Multisync checkbox and target set
• FPP now only includes the "In Kernel" WIFI drivers. Some older WIFI adapters may no longer work
• FPP's backend HTTP service which was on port 32322 is now only bound to localhost and is unavailable from external hosts/scripts

Upgrade Instructions
Due to incompatibilities with the underlying libraries, an "OS Level" upgrade is required.

• Re-image - you can backup your 8.x configuration, create a new image, and restore the configuration.
• In-place upgrade - This requires you to have the latest FPP 7.5 or newer and all updates already running on the device. On the "About" page in FPP, there is an "Upgrade OS" choice selection where the appropriate 9.0_2025-08 image can be selected. FPP will automatically download the fppos file and install the upgrade. It will take a LONG time. When done, it should reboot into 9.0. At that point, go to the Uploads tab of the FPP File Manager and delete the fppos file. 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/9.0/FPP-v9.0-Pi.img.zip
For Beaglebone Black, Beaglebone Green, Original PocketBeagle, and Beaglebone Green Gateway use this image
https://github.com/FalconChristmas/fpp/releases/download/9.0/FPP-v9.0-BBB.img.zip
For PocketBeagle2 use this image
https://github.com/FalconChristmas/fpp/releases/download/9.0/FPP-v9.0-BB64.img.zip

[breese]

Installed on my PI5 with a 500G NVME. Went exactly as expected!
Plugin's like After Hours Music will have to be Updated after the O/S upgrade.
Thank you team!!

[usmick78]

Will the FPP manual for 8.x from September 2024 still work with 9.0?

[Poporacer]

Will the FPP manual for 8.x from September 2024 still work with 9.0?

Yes, they are very similar. There have been a few UI changes and things might not me in the same order, but the 9.0 manual should be out in a day or three.

[Sawdust]

You say: FPP now only includes the "In Kernel" WIFI drivers. Some older WIFI adapters may no longer work.....Yes about 1/2 my dongles no longer connect, and most of those that connect now have bad dBm levels. . . like now -71 dBm at less than 20 feet, no walls.  When 8.x came out I needed to replace most dongles then, including EDI Max dongle.  Any Linux compatible seem to work, but some of those are not connecting. 

What specification/criteria do I need when buying new dongles for 9.x 
Any help is greatly appreciated.

[dkulp]

There is a lot of information at https://github.com/morrownr/USB-WiFi 

That said, in general, I recommend adapters based on the Realtek 8812BU chipset.  Those are certainly the most tested adapters since that's all I use for my own FPP instances and all that I sell in my store now.   

Basically, most of the Mediatek chipsets work fairly well.   SOME of the Realtek chipsets work, particularly for the WIFI 5 level.  Almost none of the WIFI 6 and WIFI7 adapters work at this point.  

[usmick78]

Is there a possibility of a password and Login ID? I get a black and white screen asking for an fpp login. Then it asks for a password.

Any thoughts? FPP9 came from Github

[darylc]

Is there a possibility of a password and Login ID? I get a black and white screen asking for an fpp login. Then it asks for a password.

Any thoughts? FPP9 came from Github

Load it's web interface, don't use a monitor/keyboard or ssh.

[jimcortez]

Love the ability to change the output processors without a restart of fppd! Is there a config setting to still allow the api server to bind to 0.0.0.0 on port 32322? While I have some code that uses the api and does run on the same system, it is much easier to develop and debug if I can access the endpoint remotely. I trust my network and willing to take the risks of open services!

[dkulp]

Not at this point, no.   All the API's should be available via the normal API calls on port 80.