PeerTube

IMPORTANT NOTES

We have many important notes in this release. We know it’s a pain for sysadmin, but consider each one as a major step forward for PeerTube quality!

Sysadmins important notes

• Remove NodeJS 16 support (see https://nodejs.org/fr/blog/announcements/nodejs16-eol):

  • Please upgrade to NodeJS 18 before upgrading PeerTube
  • If you use NodeSource repository, you may have to migrate to their new repository: https://github.com/nodesource/distributions/wiki/How-to-migrate-to-the-new-repository
  • Check in production.yaml that you use 127.0.0.1 instead of localhost for listen.hostname, database.hostname and redis.hostname as Node 18 favours IPv6 for localhost resolution

• Remove WebTorrent support in player:

  • “WebTorrent videos” are renamed to “Web Video”. The video format is the same, we just stop to use P2P for these videos
  • There is not “Auto” quality anymore for Web Videos. The viewer has to explicitly choose the video resolution
  • We still use P2P with the HLS player, which is the recommended transcoding format since several versions
  • See https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/issues/5465 for more information

• Configuration key that you must update in your production.yaml if not automatically done by your upgrade script:

  • storage.videos must be renamed to storage.web_videos. The value of this configuration doesn’t need to be changed: https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/blob/develop/config/production.yaml.example#L151
  • transcoding.webtorrent must be renamed to transcoding.web_videos: https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/blob/develop/config/production.yaml.example#L522
  • object_storage.videos must be renamed to object_storage.web_videos. The value of this object_storage.web_videos.bucket_name doesn’t need to be changed: https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/blob/develop/config/production.yaml.example#L223
  • storage.storyboards must be added: https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/blob/develop/config/production.yaml.example#L157

• PeerTube Docker image now uses bookworm. chocobozzz/peertube:production-bullseye needs to be replaced by chocobozzz/peertube:production-bookworm

• Env configuration that your must update if you use Docker:

  • PEERTUBE_TRANSCODING_WEBTORRENT_ENABLED must be renamed to PEERTUBE_TRANSCODING_WEB_VIDEOS_ENABLED
  • PEERTUBE_OBJECT_STORAGE_VIDEOS_BUCKET_NAME must be renamed to PEERTUBE_OBJECT_STORAGE_WEB_VIDEOS_BUCKET_NAME
  • PEERTUBE_OBJECT_STORAGE_VIDEOS_PREFIX must be renamed to PEERTUBE_OBJECT_STORAGE_WEB_VIDEOS_PREFIX
  • PEERTUBE_OBJECT_STORAGE_VIDEOS_BASE_URL must be renamed to PEERTUBE_OBJECT_STORAGE_WEB_VIDEOS_BASE_URL

• You must update nginx configuration: https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/blob/develop/support/nginx/peertube

  • location ~ ^/static/(thumbnails|avatars)/ { block must be removed
  • location ~ ^(/static/(webseed|streaming-playlists)/private/)|^/download { must be updated to location ~ ^(/static/(webseed|web-videos|streaming-playlists)/private/)|^/download {
  • location ~ ^/static/(webseed|redundancy|streaming-playlists)/ { must be updated to location ~ ^/static/(webseed|web-videos|redundancy|streaming-playlists)/ {

• Tracing requires --experimental-loader=@opentelemetry/instrumentation/hook.mjs node option: https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube/blob/develop/config/production.yaml.example#L263

Developers important notes

• REST API breaking changes:

  • Removed webtorrentEnabled from user response (deprecated since 4.1 in favour of p2pEnabled)
  • Removed avatar and banner fields from account/channel responses (deprecated since 4.2 in favour of avatars and banners)
  • Removed filter query when listing videos (deprecated since 4.0 in favour of isLocal and include)
  • Deprecate /api/v1/videos/:id/webtorrent video file routes in favour of /api/v1/videos/:id/web-videos routes
  • Deprecate hasWebtorrentFiles body video filter in favour of hasWebVideoFiles when listing videos
  • Deprecate webtorrent transcodingType in favour of web-video in /api/v1/videos/{id}/transcoding route
  • currentTime is now required to notify the user is watching the video using /api/v1/videos/{id}/views (introduced in 4.2)

• Static server paths breaking changes:

  • /static/webseed/... is deprecated in favour of /static/web-videos/...
  • /object-storage-proxy/webseed/... is deprecated in favour of /object-storage-proxy/web-videos/...
  • /static/thumbnails/... is deprecated in favour of /static/lazy-thumbnails/...

• Plugin API breaking changes:

  • Deprecated webtorrent key in getFiles() helper result. Use webVideo instead

CLI tools

• Removed unmaintained peertube-import-videos (also aliased as peertube import-videos or peertube import) script
• PeerTube remote CLI is much more simpler to install using NPM: https://docs.joinpeertube.org/maintain/tools#remote-peertube-cli

Features

• :tada: Add “Password protected” video privacy #5836 :tada:
  • A single password can be set using the web interface at video upload/import/update
  • The REST API can store as many passwords as you want, allowing developers to use this feature to easily give or revoke access to a video on the fly
• :tada: Add video storyboard support :tada:
  • PeerTube automatically generates a storyboard on video upload/import
  • Viewers can see the image around the targeted timecode when hovering the progress bar
  • Storyboard of videos uploaded/imported before v6 can be generated by the admin using npm run create-generate-storyboard-job command
• :tada: Add ability for users to replace their video file :tada:
  • Has to be enabled by the PeerTube instance administrator
  • The user can replace the video file in the Update Video page
  • The re-upload date is displayed under the video player
• :tada: Add video chapters support :tada:
  • Add chapters in the upload/import/update video page or let PeerTube automatically imports them from the video container/youtube-dl
  • Markers are displayed in the player progress bar to symbolize a chapter
  • Chapter title is displayed when hovering/touching the player progress bar
• Better video player:
  • More efficient as we don’t rebuild the player every time the played video changes
  • The player keeps the current player settings (playback speed, fullscreen…) when the played video changes
  • Automatically adjust the player size to match video ratio
• Improve SEO and video link sharing:
  • Use short video/channel/account URLs in sitemap and for canonical tags
  • Add JSON-LD tag in embed page
  • Embed page does not forbid indexation anymore: we use a canonical tag instead that targets the watch page
  • Forbid indexation of remote videos, accounts and channels (instead of providing an invalid canonical tag)
  • Truncate OpenGraph/Twitter card link description
• Fix client accessibility and keyboard navigation:
  • Fix links in bootstrap alerts color
  • Better input placeholder contrast
  • Fix video miniature link label
  • Add ability to disable hotkeys
  • Improve table overall accessibility
  • Wrap icons that can lead to an action inside buttons
  • Fix left menu admin/my-library menu accessibility
  • And many more improvements!
• Improve remote runner management:
  • Add ability to remove runner jobs
  • Add runner job state quick filter
  • Merge registration tokens and runners tables in same page
  • Add copy button to copy registration token
• Add ability for admins to force transcoding on a specific video even if it’s in broken state (stuck in To Transcode for example)
• Add an option to sign federated fetches (ActivityPub based software such as Mastodon may require it to access content)
• Download video file directly from S3 using pre signed URLs
• Lazy download remote video thumbnails to reduce storage
• Improve recommended videos when the watched video doesn’t have tags set
• Add more rate limits in configuration (plugins, well-known, feeds, activity_pub and client endpoints)
• Add ability to reset video Originally published at attribute
• Add ability for admins to set the default user channel name #6000
• Server now uses ESM modules
• Add worker threads Prometheus metrics
• Performance:
  • Process unicast HTTP job in worker threads
  • Sign ActivityPub requests in worker threads
  • Optimize recommended videos HTTP request
  • Optimize videos SQL queries when filtering on lives or tags
  • Optimize /videos/{id}/views endpoint with many viewers
  • Add ability to disable PeerTube HTTP logs

Bug fixes

• Don’t cache upload response if the video has been deleted
• Fix broken upgrade script when using custom database port
• Prevent duplicate runner names
• Avoid runner job update error
• Notify remote runners there are available jobs when a job is aborted/errored
• Fix updating P2P settings in left menu
• Fix 500 HTTP error on invalid short UUID conversion
• Don’t display admin email in security.txt well-known endpoint
• Optimize update-host script to fix out of memory error
• Fix error log when using an unconventional distribution of FFmpeg with a non-standard version string #5917
• Fix live replay REST API breaking change: replaySettings.privacy is not required anymore
• Fix broken live replay when updating replay privacy
• More robust About page when getting category from server
• Fix ERR_HTTP_HEADERS_SENT crash
• Avoid illegal characters in torrent filename
• Avoid federation error log with remote Like on Note
• Fix atom feed with Science & Technology category
• Support empty value returned by filter:api.video.get.result hook
• Prevent remote subscribe on accounts (not yet supported by PeerTube)
• Fix feed audio file mimetype
• Fix video quality on high video resolution/fps
• Fix disabling Object Storage ACL using Docker env PEERTUBE_OBJECT_STORAGE_UPLOAD_ACL_PUBLIC and PEERTUBE_OBJECT_STORAGE_UPLOAD_ACL_PRIVATE in .env
• Correctly end live session on ffprobe error
• Fix video stats X axis with old videos
• Fix empty master playlist upload on s3