Wowza Media Systems™ regularly releases Wowza Streaming Engine™ media server software builds with new features and functionality. You can install the software on your computer using an installer, or if you already have Wowza Streaming Engine installed, you can update it with a build updater.
Note: If you have problems with or want to provide feedback about our software updates, contact Wowza Technical Support. To learn about the variety of support resources that we offer to our user community, see our Support Resources webpage.Wowza Streaming Engine software releases
Latest production release
Latest beta releases
Wowza Streaming Engine software releases
Wowza Streaming Engine currently has the following types of software updates:
- Production – Long-term supported builds with new features and bug fixes and full regression and performance testing for use in production environments and workflows.
- Patch – Between production releases, Wowza occasionally provides patches to fix bugs or regressions in the latest production release, which can be deployed in production environments and workflows for long-term stability.
- Beta – For early access to new features and improvements being developed, Wowza also provides betas between production releases. Although the improvements and enhancements have been tested by QA, full regression testing and performance testing hasn't been performed on beta builds, so they should only be used in testing environments and workflows. Support for beta builds is fully available, but there is no guarantee of hotfixes.
Latest production release
The latest Wowza Streaming Engine production build is Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.5 build 20200616153358 released on June 17, 2020.
For a complete list of changes in this build, see the Release Notes.
Note: A patch with updates to Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.5 is available from Wowza support as Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.5.01 build 20200724152835. For more information, see Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.5.01.
New features and functionality in Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.5
Wowza Streaming Engine is a robust, customizable, and scalable media server software that powers reliable streaming of high-quality video and audio to any device, anywhere. Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.5 contains several enhancements and fixes that help to improve the functionality of the media server software.
WebRTC updates
Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.5 includes significant upgrades and fixes for WebRTC functionality. We added support for configuring WebRTC streaming in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager and made WebRTC hosted test pages available for faster learning and testing. Additionally, we improved the accuracy of RTCP feedback messages for adaptive encoding when publishing WebRTC to Wowza Streaming Engine, and we improved the stability of WebRTC session timeouts. We also updated FIR messages to default to a more reliable time-based scheme, which enables a more regular interval for accessing WebRTC streams via a keyframe. For more information about WebRTC and Wowza Streaming Engine, see the following the articles:
- Set up WebRTC streaming with Wowza Streaming Engine Manager
- Set up WebRTC streaming with Wowza Streaming Engine
- WebRTC workflows in Wowza Streaming Engine
- Ingest RTSP, SRT, or RTMP streams into Wowza Streaming Engine for playback with WebRTC
SRT improvements
Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.5 offers enhanced support for Secure Reliable Transport (SRT). We now support SRT version 1.4, which provides increased reliability. Other improvements include a number of new and renamed properties for SRT MediaCaster ingest and SRT stream targets and fixes for outstanding issues. For more information on newly available SRT properties, see the following articles:
- Specify per-stream settings in Wowza Streaming Engine .stream files
- Use SRT to distribute live streams from Wowza Streaming Engine
Low Latency HLS enhancements
Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.5 includes adjustments to the Low Latency HLS implementation to keep up-to-date with modifications to Apple’s preliminary protocol extension to the HLS spec. We've added support for the EXT-X-PRELOAD-HINT media playlist tag, removed the HTTP/2 push delivery mechanism, and made other minor changes.
Performance upgrades
With Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.5, we've increased playback performance for connections over SSL/TLS, updated the default server performance tuning, made general WebRTC performance upgrades, and updated MediaCaster ingest performance.
Security improvements
In Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.5, we've fixed Wowza Streaming Engine Manager security concerns related to CSRF, authenticated XSS, and remote authenticated authorization. We've also added support for additional security-related HTTP headers in request responses, and we've enabled stricter Wowza Streaming Engine file access permissions on Linux and macOS.
Get the latest production release
- New Wowza Streaming Engine installation
Installers for this Wowza Streaming Engine build are available on our Downloads webpage and can be used to install a new Wowza Streaming Engine instance. - Update an existing Wowza Streaming Engine installation
To update a Wowza Streaming Engine installation, sign in to your Account Management page using your Wowza account and then check the Downloads tab for the latest updater for your Wowza Streaming Engine version. You must have an active Maintenance and Support contract to receive updaters. For more information, see Wowza Streaming Engine Maintenance and Support.
Note: You must have an active Maintenance and Support contract to receive updaters.
Patch updates to the latest production release
The latest patch release for Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.5 is available from Wowza support as Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.5.01 build 20200724152835. For information about the latest patch release, see Patch updates to Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.5.
Latest beta releases
Between production software releases, Wowza produces beta builds so you can get the latest bug fixes and improvements for Wowza Streaming Engine and get early access to new features being developed. Although the improvements and enhancements have been tested by QA, full regression testing and performance testing hasn't been performed on beta builds. Support for beta builds is fully available, but there is no guarantee of hotfixes. Contact support if you want access to a beta build that includes these fixes and enhancements.
Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.6b
The latest Wowza Streaming Engine beta build is Wowza Streaming Engine 4.8.6b build 20200914185817.
Changes since the previous production release
- Made the following improvements for LL-HLS:
- Fixed an issue that caused PART-HOLD-BACK values to not account for the maximum part target duration from all renditions.
- Fixed an issue that caused the cupertinoPartHoldBack property to be ignored.
- Fixed an issue with partial segments being removed earlier than three target durations from the end of the playlist for Low-Latency HLS streams, causing playback issues.
- Fixed an issue with onPublish events being called twice for HLS and SRT MediaCaster streams.
- Added support for H.264 levels 6, 6.1, and 6.2.
- Updated the Wowza Streaming Engine logging framework from Apache Log4j 1.x to Apache Log4j 2. Use the new [install-dir]/conf/log4j2-config.xml file for logging configuration.
- Added exception handling and logging for methods in Java modules.
- Fixed an issue with incorrect logging when using custom Push Publishing modules that contain map entries for the same stream name.
- Updated the Restlet framework library to version 2.4.3.
- Added a new property (name: insertConscryptCryptoProvider, location: [install-dir]/conf/Server.xml, <Server>/<Properties>, type: Boolean, default: false) to enable Conscrypt, an open-source Java Security Provider that improves SSL performance.
<Property> <Name>insertConscryptCryptoProvider</Name> <Value>true</Value> <Type>Boolean</Type> </Property> - Made the following improvements for SRT:
- Improved error handling for SRT ingest and publish on Windows operating systems.
- Fixed an issue with SRT streams with high packet loss that could cause a deadlock.
- Added new default methods to the IMediaStream interface in the Wowza Streaming Engine Java API to set or get whether a stream is an SRT stream:
- void setIsSRT(boolean isSRT)
- boolean getIsSRT()
- Added new methods to the LiveMediaSRTReceiver class in the Wowza Streaming Engine Java API for retrieval of native statistical data for SRT sockets:
- public SRTNativeTraceStats getSRTNativeStats()
- public SRTNativeTraceStats getSRTNativeStats(boolean instantaneous)
- Fixed an issue with erroneously logging "Stream index not found" when stopping SRT MediaCaster streams.
- Fixed a memory leak that occurred when shutting down a stream.
- Made the following improvements for nDVR:
- Fixed an issue with starting nDVR recordings using the Wowza Streaming Engine Java API not working due to a stream timeout.
- Fixed an issue with not saving changes made to an application's nDVR configuration in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager when was not enabled.
- Fixed an issue with the stream type for E-AC3 audio being incorrectly logged as AC3 audio with HLS streams.
- Fixed an issue with not saving overlay images when adding or updating them as a decoding preset in a Transcoder template for an application in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager.
- Added support for a new parameter in Transcoder templates for adjusting the volume on audio transcoded to the Opus codec (location: <Encode>/<Audio>/<Parameters>/<Parameter>, name: opus.gain, type: Double).
<Parameter> <Name>opus.gain</Name> <Value>12.5</Value> <Type>Double</Type> </Parameter> - Updated the encoder for VP8 and VP9 video codecs to use constant bitrate (CBR) encoding by default.
- Fixed an issue with the updaters for Wowza Streaming Engine 4.7.8 and later overwriting the tomcat.properties file and, if updating from version 4.7.7 or earlier, deleting the winstone.properties file.
- Added audio encode callbacks to the Wowza Streaming Engine Java API for intercepting and modifying audio data before and after resampling.
- Upgraded to newer versions of several libraries including Spring Boot 2.3.1, Spring Framework 5.2.7, Spring Security 5.3.3, Apache Tomcat 9.0.36, Apache Ant 1.10.8, Apache Taglibs 1.2.5, Apache Commons Lang 3.10, Apache Commons Text 1.8, Jackson 2.11.1, JAXB 2.3.3, Java Servlet API 4.0.1, Joda-Time 2.10.6, and Bootstrap 3.3.7.
- Fixed an issue with Wowza Streaming Engine looping indefinitely and increasing CPU usage when trying to connect to an RTP endpoint with I/O exceptions, such as when the RTP SSL certificate was not valid.
- Fixed an issue with an incoming stream being stopped through either the Wowza Streaming Engine REST API or Wowza Streaming Engine Manager and timing out at the same time that could cause a deadlock.
- Fixed an issue with error parsing of RTCP sender reports.
- Fixed an issue with the HTTP/2 implementation and connection window size doubling.
- Fixed an issue with a null pointer exception sometimes occurring when stopping a PushPublish session.
- Upgraded to NVIDIA NVENC SDK 9.
Removed functionality
The following features are no longer available:
- Removed the test players in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager. The Test Players window was renamed Test Playback and now provides playback URLs for each protocol that you can use with your player or the Video Test Players webpage.
- Removed Microsoft Smooth Streaming and Adobe HDS from the Playback Types options in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager.
- Removed support for sending a continuous live stream with Facebook Live stream targets. Existing stream targets with continuous live streaming enabled will need to be updated to disable sending a continuous live stream in [install-dir]/conf/[application name]/PushPublishMap.txt.
- Removed Concurrent collector from the Java Garbage Collection Settings options in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager.
- Removed Mirror Image from the destination options on the Add Stream Targets page in Wowza Streaming Engine Manager.
