Update/Beta Category

emergent
emergent
in General

It would be nice if there was a forum category where a post is made for each new general (and beta) update that includes the release notes of each release. This would help to make it easier to keep track of new features and bug fixes. Many companies do this and it's really useful. It is also a great way to get feedback on beta releases.

Comments

  • Ben
    Ben

    Thanks for the suggestion, I can see how this could potentially be useful. However, this information is already elsewhere (on the beta page and the version history page). We would prefer that users email us if they find any problems in either the release version or the beta version. We want the forum to be a place where users share information and ideas rather than a means of reporting problems.

  • zoinkazoid
    zoinkazoid
    edited September 2025

    Are the release notes on the beta page inclusive for all beta "subversions" up to that point, i.e. do the release notes for 6.13b8 include notes for all versions, i.e. 6.13b{n: where n = 1..7}?

    I was getting an easily reproducible crasher on 6.13 that I was going to report, but I upgraded to the latest beta version (6.13b7) and it was fixed, so I didn't report it.

    The current release notes for 6.13b8 say,

     "Translated into French, German and Italian"

     "Fixes Settings window sound preview button in macOS 10.13"

     "Fixes web interface issues in older versions of Safari"

    but nothing about the bug that I was experiencing.

    Also, it would be helpful "if Settings -> License -> Software Update" displayed the version number of the "Latest Beta Version" instead of just "Latest Beta Version". If you click the "Install" button, SecuritySpy downloads and installs the latest beta version and restarts itself, even if you're already running that version.

    De rigueur is to compare the version that's currently running against whatever the latest is, then, If already running that version, just notify about that fact rather than blindly downloading, installing, and restarting.

  • Ben
    Ben
    edited September 2025

    On the beta page, the list of improvements apply to the latest/current beta version only; we don't keep records of what has been added to which specific incremental beta.

    And, while I agree with you that it would be handy if the specific available beta version would be displayed in the software update section of the Settings window, our current system doesn't allow for this. I'll see if we can add this, but I can't promise that we will - the beta update functionality is mainly to aid our support provision, making it easy for us to instruct a user to try the latest beta when we have fixed a specific problem that they have reported.

    In terms of the crashing bug, it's entirely possible that this has been fixed in the beta (great to hear that!). When we discover an uncommon, non-specific bug, we'll just fix it without specifically mentioning in the version history. Otherwise, virtually every release will include an item like "Other bug fixes" or suchlike, which isn't very useful. On the other hand, if we discover a more common or specific bug then we'll include this (e.g. "Fixed problem X with function Y").

  • zoinkazoid
    zoinkazoid

    Thanks for the helpful information.

    I just noticed that the release notes for the current 6.14b9 release are identical to those that were listed for 6.14b8, so it looks like they were simply carried forward, i.e. they are not for the latest/current beta.

    Yes, the crashing bug in 6.13 was most definitely fixed in one of the 6.14 betas. On 6.13, if you have the browser window displaying .unf files, such as motion capture video clips, SS will crash after the .unf gets renamed to .m4v. Happens every time.

  • Ben
    Ben

    Thanks for the feedback - yes that was a known bug that was fixed, so it's good to hear that you are now seeing this work correctly.

    Sometimes when going from one beta to another there is nothing of note to add to the beta version history - it could be a change/improvement in something already mentioned, or another change that is not worthy of mentioning (in this case, going from b8 to b9, it was simply better Italian translations and some additional logging added so that we could help another user with something).

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