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PipeWire 1.4.0 (2025-03-06)

This is the 1.4 release that is API and ABI compatible with previous 1.2.x and 1.0.x releases.

This release contains some of the bigger changes that happened since the 1.2 release last year, including:

• client-rt.conf was removed, all clients now use client.conf and are given RT priority in the data threads.
• UMP (aka MIDI2) support was added and is now the default format to carry MIDI1 and MIDI2 around in PipeWire. There are helper functions to convert between legacy MIDI and UMP.
• The resampler can now precompute (at compile time) some common conversion filters. Delay reporting in the resampler was fixed and improved.
• Bluetooth support for BAP broadcast links and support for hearing aids using ASHA was added. A new G722 codec was also added. Delay reporting and configuration in Bluetooth was improved.
• The ALSA plugin now supports DSD playback when explicitly allowed with the alsa.formats property.
• A PipeWire JACK control API was added.
• A system service was added for pipewire-pulse.
• Many documentation and translation updates.
• Many of the SPA macros are converted to inline functions. All SPA inline functions are now also compiled into a libspa.so library to make it easier to access them from bindings.
• The module-filter-chain graph code was moved to a separate filter-graph SPA plugin so that it becomes usable in more places. EBUR128, param_eq and dcblock plugins were added to filter-graph. The filter graph can now also use fftw for doing convolutions. The audioconvert plugin was optimized and support was added to audioconvert to insert extra filter-graphs in the processing pipeline.
• New helper functions were added to parse JSON format descriptions.
• The profiler now also includes the clock of the followers.
• RISCV CPU support and assembler optimisations were added.
• The clock used for logging timestamps can be configured now.
• The JSON parser was split into core functions and helper.
• Support for UCM split PCMs was added. Instead of alsa-lib splitting up PCMs, PipeWire can mark the PCMs with the correct metadata so that the session manager can use native PipeWire features to do this.
• Support for webrtc2 was added to echo-cancel.
• IEC958 codecs are now detected from the HDMI ELD data.
• Conversion between floating point and 32 bits now preserve 25 bits of precision instead of 24 bits.
• A new Telephony D-BUS API compatible with ofono was added.
• The invoke queues are now more efficient and can be called from multiple threads concurrently.
• Clock information in v4l2 was improved.
• An ffmpeg based videoconvert plugin was added that can be used with the videoadapter.
• The GStreamer elements have improved buffer pool handling and rate matching.
• The combine-stream module can now also mix streams.
• link-factory now checks that the port and node belong together.
• The netjack-manager module has support for autoconnecting streams.
• The native-protocol has support for abstract sockets.
• The pulse server has support for blocking playback and capture in pulse.rules.
• The corked state of stream is now reported correctly in pulse-server.
• Fix backwards jumps in pulse-server.
• Latency configuration support was added in loopback and raop-sink.
• The ROC module has more configuration options.
• The SAP module now only send updated SDP when something changed.
• RTP source now has a standby mode where it idles when there is no data received.
• Support for PTP clocking was added the RTP streams.
• The VBAN receiver can now dynamically create streams when they are detected.
• Error reporting when making links was improved.
• Support for returning (canceling) a dequeued buffer in pw-stream.
• Support for emiting events in pw-stream was added.
• pw-cat now support stdin and stdout.

Highlights (since the previous 1.3.83 release)

• Small fixes and improvements.

PipeWire

• Fix some missing includes in metadata.h
• Pass the current error in errno when a stream is in error (#4574)

modules

• Evaluate node rules before loading adapter follower to ensure properties are set correctly. (#4562)

SPA

• Avoid a use after free when building PODs. (#4445)
• Take headroom into account when calculating resync.

Bluetooth

• Fix +CLCC parsing.

GStreamer

• Notify about default device changes in deviceprovider.
• Copy frames between pools and avoid splitting video buffers.

JACK

• Add an option to disable the MIDI2 port flags. (#4584)

What’s New

• Messages are automatically adapted to dark mode with a quick toggle in the header.
• New "Appearance" Settings UI to globally control message threading/sorting order.

What’s Changed

• Criteria for closing idle message databases.

What’s Fixed

• Thunderbird Release channel was not displayed in "About Thunderbird".
• Crash could occur when shutting down during MAPI send.
• The error message for compacting a corrupted local folder was not useful.
• Deleting or detaching attachments in a saved .eml file appeared to work but failed.
• On HiDPI screens, clicking addresses in the header could show popup off-screen.
• Opening an .EML file in profiles with many folders could take a long time.
• Some messages may have been threaded incorrectly in unified folders.
• Unified folders could become unusable instead of being automatically rebuilt.
• Folders at level 3+ were not auto-discovered when IMAP subscriptions were ignored.
• New subfolder did not inherit parent view, sort order, sort type, or columns.
• With "Fetch headers only" enabled, messages could not be sorted by size.
• Selecting starred messages did not update immediately.
• Marking a unified folder as favorite did not show it in favorite folders.
• Users with many folders experienced poor performance when resizing message panes.
• The UI could falsely report a message as encrypted when a null cipher was used.
• Search messages dialog list could not be sorted by clicking the header icon.
• Sending to multiple SMTPs could fail silently due to missing address book.
• "Replace" button in compose window was overwritten when the window was narrow.
• Changing the UI font size did not apply to some dialogs.
• Deleted Gmail messages stayed visible until compact/expunge, despite settings.
• Export to mobile did not work when "Use default server" was selected.
• Account settings menu could be loaded twice.
• Account Settings updated font size were not reflected in the content frame.
• Add-ons: Context menu entries were incorrectly aligned.
• Middle-click autoscroll cursor appeared without arrows instead of expected design.
• Some functionality was missing for newsgroup messages opened from a file or URI.
• Notifications for new mail were not showing for IMAP.
• Message and folder lists could display incorrect line spacing after restart.
• Clicking a 'mid:' link could clear the thread pane and cause errors.
• Release channel incorrectly showed What's New page after update.
• "Save Link As" was not working in feed web content.
• Sort indicators were missing on the calendar events list.
• Visual and UX improvements
• Security fixes