Theia v4.4.5

Theia 4.4.5 — the profile circle, filled, and the episode buttons on a fresh install

4.4.5 is the last update of V4. It fixes two faults: a small profile photo was
drawn inside its circle with black margins, and on a fresh installation Skip
opening and Next episode did not appear. It also lets you frame your photo
before saving it. It carries 4.4.4 and 4.4.3, and below them everything 4.4.2
brought, so this page is the whole story of the end of V4.

The server, library, ordinary viewing and all features in this release remain
free for noncommercial use. There is no cloud account or telemetry.

Updating to 4.4.5

From 4.4.2, 4.4.3 or 4.4.4: this is a product release, the native player
does not change. Update from Theia's own update button - Settings → Updates,
then Check for updates. The server is replaced, and the signed interface pack
is checked, kept, and applied the next time the player starts. You do not need to
run a setup again.

From 4.4.1 or older: run the 4.4.5 setup once. 4.4.2 improved the native
player itself, and its interface refuses to start on the player 4.4.0 and 4.4.1
installed; a server-only update does not replace the player. The setup carries
the 4.4.2 player and this release's interface. Your library, profiles,
watchlists, preferences and viewing history stay in place, and so do the
settings you already saved.

Both of you need 4.4.2 or later for what two households share: a private
room, the presence choices, and a friendship removed on both sides. With a
friend still on an older version, basic presence keeps working. A private room
needs every participant on 4.4.2 or later: an older server refuses to create or
join one rather than opening a room anybody could enter.

Player updates are your choice. The player does not check for updates on its
own: open Settings → Updates and use Check for updates, or switch on
Automatic updates to have the player look when it starts, download in the
background while you browse, and offer to restart. A server installed alone
still updates itself, as before, and never during a film.

What changes in 4.4.5

• Your photo fills its circle. A photo of 512 pixels or less used to be
  stored in the middle of a black square, so it showed inside its circle with
  black around it. It is now kept at its own size and fills the circle. A photo
  you already saved keeps its margins until you choose it again: Theia does not
  keep the original.
• You frame your photo. After choosing a photo in Customize profile,
  drag it, or use the arrow keys, to place it in the circle, and zoom with the
  slider. Nothing is saved before Save profile. The photo is cropped on your
  computer, never enlarged, and the server still re-encodes it and strips its
  metadata. The browser page of the server keeps its automatic centred crop.
• The episode buttons on a fresh installation. Skip opening and Next
  episode come from the chapters a file names, and the server reads them with
  FFmpeg. On a fresh installation FFmpeg was not there yet, the native player
  does not need it to play, and the server answered that it knew nothing. Now the
  first episode you play fetches FFmpeg in the background (once, about 80 MB, the
  same verified download as before) and the player waits for the markers for up
  to two minutes instead of ten seconds.

Nothing else changes: no library scan, playback engine, native contract,
Firebase rule or settings behaviour is touched.

What was and was not checked in 4.4.5

• The photo. Both fixes were exercised in the interface's own render check,
  in English and French: a 600 x 300 picture chosen, zoomed twice and moved to
  its left edge with the keyboard uploads a 150 x 150 square of that edge. The
  server's tests store a 400 x 300 picture as a 300 x 300 square whose corners
  are the picture's colour, not black, and still reduce a larger one to 512.
• The episode buttons. A server built from this release, started on an empty
  data folder with no FFmpeg, answered the first marker request with building,
  downloaded and verified FFmpeg, and four seconds later returned the opening and
  the end credits of a test film whose chapters name them.
• Not tried before publication: framing a photo with a mouse in the native
  player, and a real episode on a fresh installation in the native player.

Also included: 4.4.4, the end of an episode out of your way

• The timeline comes first. Moving the pointer onto the playback bar near the
  end of an episode used to paint the scene preview and the countdown over each
  other. Now, while you are on the timeline, the end-of-episode buttons step
  aside, almost transparent, and let the pointer through; the countdown waits
  for you and carries on when you leave the bar, with at least five seconds to
  read it. In a watch party the countdown belongs to the whole room, so there
  the buttons step aside but the room's countdown keeps running.
• Skip opening leaves by itself. It shows for eight seconds when the opening
  starts. If you let the opening play, it leaves the picture, and it comes back
  whenever you move the mouse to show the controls. Go to the post-credits
  scene behaves the same way. The countdown and the end-of-season sentence stay
  until you answer them.
• New buttons. Skip opening is a dark pill with an arrow that sweeps
  across it when you point at it. Next episode is a light pill that fills from
  left to right as the 30-second countdown runs, instead of a sentence above it
  (screen readers still hear the seconds). Keep watching sits beside it,
  quieter. The panel behind them is gone.

What was and was not checked in 4.4.4

• The three changes were exercised in a browser, on the interface's own
  components: the buttons stepping aside for the timeline and the countdown
  waiting, then resuming; Skip opening leaving after eight seconds and coming
  back with the controls; the fill of Next episode; and every earlier case of
  the episode flow (cancel, seek back, season end, sleep timer, rooms).
• They have not been tried on a real episode in the native player before
  publication.

Also included: 4.4.3, the interface follows the update

• A tester build is older than its release. The interface compared versions
  by their three numbers alone, so 4.4.2-test.3 counted as 4.4.2. It now
  follows the same order as the setup and the shell: a prerelease ranks below its
  release, and build metadata is ignored. The update button no longer mistakes a
  finished update for a current one, and no longer skips the setup a shell
  release needs.
• The interface travels as a pack again. 4.4.2 was a shell release and
  published no pack, so an installation that had confirmed a tester pack had
  nothing newer to fetch. 4.4.3 published the signed pack, and 4.4.4 does too.

Downloads

4.4.5 publishes the six standalone servers, the setups for Windows x64, Linux
x64, macOS Apple Silicon and macOS Intel around the verified 4.4.2 player, and
the signed interface pack with its signature. Each setup carries the server,
launcher, native player and media engine. The Windows ARM64 and Ubuntu ARM64
setups are not part of this release: the website links their last verified
setup, 4.2.1, which carries the player of before 4.4 and does not have these
features.

In the player (since 4.4.2)

• A timeline you can read. Move the pointer along the playback bar and a
  still of the scene at that second follows it, with its time. Nothing seeks
  until you click. The picture is the exact frame, not the nearest keyframe,
  decoded by a second, paused copy of the player's own engine; no thumbnail files
  are written. A position nobody has visited yet still takes a moment.
• Skip arrows that say what they do, and keep up. The step is 30 seconds
  by default and shown on both buttons (−30 s / +30 s); Settings → Playback
  offers 10, 30 or 60. Pressing them repeatedly adds up and reaches the position
  you meant, one jump at a time.
• Episodes that follow on. When a file marks where its opening, its ending or
  a scene after the credits begin, the player offers Skip opening (never
  automatic), then a quiet Next episode countdown of 30 seconds that you can
  cancel, and Go to the post-credits scene when there is one. It stops at the
  last episode of a season and says so; it never counts down into the next season
  by itself. This reads the chapter names written in the file. It does not
  guess from the picture or the sound, so a file without such chapters shows
  nothing extra and keeps the Next episode button it always had.
• A sleep timer: stop after this episode or after a chosen time.
• Settings in eight places, nothing lost. General, Playback, Audio &
  subtitles, Privacy, Server, Updates, Statistics and Help. New: the skip step,
  what to do when you return to a title (resume, ask or restart, with an optional
  short rewind), audio and subtitle choices remembered per series with your
  profile's defaults behind them, ordered language preferences, forced-only
  subtitles, a preference for or against hearing-impaired tracks, the audio output
  device, audio and subtitle timing, fullscreen at the start, whether minimising
  pauses, interface scale apart from subtitle size, the size of the artwork and
  preview caches with a button to clear them (media, profiles, opinions and
  history are never touched), and keyboard shortcuts you can change, with a check
  for conflicts. Every section can be reset on its own.
• A track menu with more room. The Synchronisation tab is gone; its sliders
  live in Settings → Audio & subtitles.
• A window that closes. Some players reported a Close button that did
  nothing after a film. Closing, from its own button or from the system's close
  action, now follows a bounded path that saves your progress ...

Theia v4.4.4

Theia 4.4.4 — the end of an episode, out of your way

4.4.4 refines what appears when an episode opens and ends. The countdown no
longer draws over the timeline, Skip opening no longer stays on the picture
for the whole opening, and the buttons have a new look. It also carries the
4.4.3 repair, and below it everything 4.4.2 brought, so this page is the whole
story of the end of V4.

The server, library, ordinary viewing and all features in this release remain
free for noncommercial use. There is no cloud account or telemetry.

Updating to 4.4.4

From 4.4.2 or 4.4.3: this is a product release, the native player does
not change. Update from Theia's own update button - Settings → Updates, then
Check for updates. The server is replaced, and the signed interface pack is
checked, kept, and applied the next time the player starts. You do not need to
run a setup again.

From 4.4.1 or older: run the 4.4.4 setup once. 4.4.2 improved the native
player itself, and its interface refuses to start on the player 4.4.0 and 4.4.1
installed; a server-only update does not replace the player. The setup carries
the 4.4.2 player and this release's interface. Your library, profiles,
watchlists, preferences and viewing history stay in place, and so do the
settings you already saved.

Both of you need 4.4.2 or later for what two households share: a private
room, the presence choices, and a friendship removed on both sides. With a
friend still on an older version, basic presence keeps working. A private room
needs every participant on 4.4.2 or later: an older server refuses to create or
join one rather than opening a room anybody could enter.

Player updates are your choice. The player does not check for updates on its
own: open Settings → Updates and use Check for updates, or switch on
Automatic updates to have the player look when it starts, download in the
background while you browse, and offer to restart. A server installed alone
still updates itself, as before, and never during a film.

What changes in 4.4.4

• The timeline comes first. Moving the pointer onto the playback bar near the
  end of an episode used to paint the scene preview and the countdown over each
  other. Now, while you are on the timeline, the end-of-episode buttons step
  aside, almost transparent, and let the pointer through; the countdown waits
  for you and carries on when you leave the bar, with at least five seconds to
  read it. In a watch party the countdown belongs to the whole room, so there
  the buttons step aside but the room's countdown keeps running.
• Skip opening leaves by itself. It shows for eight seconds when the opening
  starts. If you let the opening play, it leaves the picture, and it comes back
  whenever you move the mouse to show the controls. Go to the post-credits
  scene behaves the same way. The countdown and the end-of-season sentence stay
  until you answer them.
• New buttons. Skip opening is a dark pill with an arrow that sweeps
  across it when you point at it. Next episode is a light pill that fills from
  left to right as the 30-second countdown runs, instead of a sentence above it
  (screen readers still hear the seconds). Keep watching sits beside it,
  quieter. The panel behind them is gone.

Nothing else changes: no library scan, playback engine, native contract,
Firebase rule or settings behaviour is touched.

Also included: 4.4.3, the interface follows the update

• A tester build is older than its release. The interface compared versions
  by their three numbers alone, so 4.4.2-test.3 counted as 4.4.2. It now
  follows the same order as the setup and the shell: a prerelease ranks below its
  release, and build metadata is ignored. The update button no longer mistakes a
  finished update for a current one, and no longer skips the setup a shell
  release needs.
• The interface travels as a pack again. 4.4.2 was a shell release and
  published no pack, so an installation that had confirmed a tester pack had
  nothing newer to fetch. 4.4.3 published the signed pack, and 4.4.4 does too.

Downloads

4.4.4 publishes the six standalone servers, the setups for Windows x64, Linux
x64, macOS Apple Silicon and macOS Intel around the verified 4.4.2 player, and
the signed interface pack with its signature. Each setup carries the server,
launcher, native player and media engine. The Windows ARM64 and Ubuntu ARM64
setups are not part of this release: the website links their last verified
setup, 4.2.1, which carries the player of before 4.4 and does not have these
features. Their 4.4 setups are planned for early November, once their native
checks can run.

What was and was not checked in 4.4.4

• The three changes were exercised in a browser, on the interface's own
  components: the buttons stepping aside for the timeline and the countdown
  waiting, then resuming; Skip opening leaving after eight seconds and coming
  back with the controls; the fill of Next episode; and every earlier case of
  the episode flow (cancel, seek back, season end, sleep timer, rooms).
• They have not been tried on a real episode in the native player before
  publication.

In the player (since 4.4.2)

• A timeline you can read. Move the pointer along the playback bar and a
  still of the scene at that second follows it, with its time. Nothing seeks
  until you click. The picture is the exact frame, not the nearest keyframe,
  decoded by a second, paused copy of the player's own engine; no thumbnail files
  are written. A position nobody has visited yet still takes a moment.
• Skip arrows that say what they do, and keep up. The step is 30 seconds
  by default and shown on both buttons (−30 s / +30 s); Settings → Playback
  offers 10, 30 or 60. Pressing them repeatedly adds up and reaches the position
  you meant, one jump at a time.
• Episodes that follow on. When a file marks where its opening, its ending or
  a scene after the credits begin, the player offers Skip opening (never
  automatic), then a quiet Next episode countdown of 30 seconds that you can
  cancel, and Go to the post-credits scene when there is one. It stops at the
  last episode of a season and says so; it never counts down into the next season
  by itself. This reads the chapter names written in the file. It does not
  guess from the picture or the sound, so a file without such chapters shows
  nothing extra and keeps the Next episode button it always had.
• A sleep timer: stop after this episode or after a chosen time.
• Settings in eight places, nothing lost. General, Playback, Audio &
  subtitles, Privacy, Server, Updates, Statistics and Help. New: the skip step,
  what to do when you return to a title (resume, ask or restart, with an optional
  short rewind), audio and subtitle choices remembered per series with your
  profile's defaults behind them, ordered language preferences, forced-only
  subtitles, a preference for or against hearing-impaired tracks, the audio output
  device, audio and subtitle timing, fullscreen at the start, whether minimising
  pauses, interface scale apart from subtitle size, the size of the artwork and
  preview caches with a button to clear them (media, profiles, opinions and
  history are never touched), and keyboard shortcuts you can change, with a check
  for conflicts. Every section can be reset on its own.
• A track menu with more room. The Synchronisation tab is gone; its sliders
  live in Settings → Audio & subtitles.
• A window that closes. Some players reported a Close button that did
  nothing after a film. Closing, from its own button or from the system's close
  action, now follows a bounded path that saves your progress and then exits,
  without having to end the task.
• Spoiler protection on a series page. An outlined Spoiler protection
  toggle blurs the pictures of the episodes you have not finished and turns off
  their previews. It starts off each time you open the series and is not saved or
  shared. Titles and synopses are not hidden.
• A calmer library screen. The strip above the Search navigation is gone, the
  artwork fades continuously beneath the window controls, the navigation bar has
  more room for your profile photo and its presence ring, and a card's preview no
  longer draws a light arc in its left corners. Your own photo now shows in the
  profile list too.

Friends and rooms (since 4.4.2)

• Presence you can read. The library bar shows how many friends are around
  with their faces beside the number. A friend is Online, Inactive (after
  2, 5 or 10 minutes, as you choose), Watching, or Offline, with a mark on
  the photo that does not rely on colour alone. You can choose for a while to be
  Up for a film, Do not disturb or Invisible, hide your title or your
  last-seen time, and ask for a quiet notice when a chosen friend comes back.
  Presence belongs to an open player, not to a server that happens to be on, and
  pausing a film is never announced.
• Ending a friendship ends it on both sides, even if the other server was off
  at the time.
• Rooms are private. A new room admits only the friends the host invites. An
  invitation is for one profile, lasts until the room ends and survives a
  reconnection. The host can also let others ask to join and answer each
  request. Guests cannot invite anybody. Invitations are shown to their recipient
  and nobody else.

What Firebase now holds

Theia's Firebase database still holds directory entries for all local profiles,
including names and pictures, and carries friend requests, presence and the
opinions you write between linked friends, under anonymous server identities.
New in 4.4.2: your chosen availability, a generic activity (browsing, in a
room, watching) and, if you leave it on, the last moment your player was seen
reach each friend who can read your pr...

Theia 4.4.3

Theia 4.4.3 — the interface follows the update

4.4.3 repairs one path: a household that updated to 4.4.2 from a tester build saw
the server change version while the interface stayed on the tester build, and the
player's check kept saying it was current. The update button now reads a tester
build as older than its release, and the final interface reaches the player as a
pack again.

The server, library, ordinary viewing and all features in this release remain
free for noncommercial use. There is no cloud account or telemetry.

Updating from 4.4.2 or a 4.4.2 tester build

This is a product release: the native player does not change. Update from
Theia's own update button - Settings → Updates, then Check for updates. The
server is replaced, and the signed interface pack that carries this repair is
checked, kept, and applied the next time the player starts. You do not need to
run a setup again.

A tester installation whose interface is still marked 4.4.2-test.3 takes this
pack as well: 4.4.3 is newer than it. The technical details then show the
interface on 4.4.3; the native player line keeps whatever shell that installation
has, which is what the line is for.

Updating from 4.4.1 or older

The 4.4.2 interface needs the player introduced by 4.4.2, and a pack cannot
replace a shell. Run the 4.4.3 setup once: it carries the stored 4.4.2 player
and this release's interface. Your library, profiles, watchlists, preferences and
viewing history stay in place. Windows ARM64 and Linux ARM64 keep the 4.2.1
setups the website links, as in 4.4.2.

What changes

• A tester build is older than its release. The interface compared versions
  by their three numbers alone, so 4.4.2-test.3 counted as 4.4.2. It now
  follows the same order as the setup and the shell: a prerelease ranks below its
  release, and build metadata is ignored. The update button no longer mistakes a
  finished update for a current one, and no longer skips the setup a shell
  release needs.
• The interface travels as a pack again. 4.4.2 was a shell release and
  published no pack, so an installation that had confirmed a tester pack had
  nothing newer to fetch. 4.4.3 publishes the signed pack, and a level-3 shell
  installs it silently.

Nothing else changes: no library scan, playback, native contract, Firebase rule
or settings behaviour is touched.

Downloads

4.4.3 publishes the six standalone servers, the setups for Windows x64, Linux
x64, macOS Apple Silicon and macOS Intel around the verified 4.4.2 player, and
the signed interface pack with its signature. Windows ARM64 and Linux ARM64 keep
the 4.2.1 setups the website links, until their native checks can run.

Theia v4.4.2

Theia 4.4.2 — the last V4 update

4.4.2 closes the V4 line. It gives the player a timeline you can read, episodes
that carry on by themselves when you want them to, settings you can configure
once and trust, rooms that only admit who you invited, and a clearer sense of
which friends are around.

The server, library, ordinary viewing and all features in this release remain
free for noncommercial use. There is no cloud account or telemetry.

Updating to 4.4.2

Run the 4.4.2 setup once. This release improves the native player itself, so
its interface refuses to start on the player 4.4.0 and 4.4.1 installed. A
server-only update does not replace the player. Your library, profiles,
watchlists, preferences and viewing history stay in place, and so do the
settings you already saved.

Both of you need 4.4.2 for what two households share: a private room, the
new presence choices, and a friendship removed on both sides. With a friend still
on an older version, basic presence keeps working. A private room needs every
participant on 4.4.2: an older server refuses to create or join one rather than
opening a room anybody could enter.

Player updates are now your choice. From this release the player no longer
checks for updates on its own: open Settings → Updates and use Check for
updates, or switch on Automatic updates to have the player look when it
starts, download in the background while you browse, and offer to restart. A
server installed alone still updates itself, as before, and never during a film.

In the player

• A timeline you can read. Move the pointer along the playback bar and a
  still of the scene at that second follows it, with its time. Nothing seeks
  until you click. The picture is the exact frame, not the nearest keyframe,
  decoded by a second, paused copy of the player's own engine; no thumbnail files
  are written. A position nobody has visited yet still takes a moment.
• Skip arrows that say what they do, and keep up. The step is 30 seconds
  by default and shown on both buttons (−30 s / +30 s); Settings → Playback
  offers 10, 30 or 60. Pressing them repeatedly adds up and reaches the position
  you meant, one jump at a time.
• Episodes that follow on. When a file marks where its opening, its ending or
  a scene after the credits begin, the player offers Skip opening (never
  automatic), then a quiet Next episode countdown of 30 seconds that you can
  cancel, and Go to the post-credits scene when there is one. It stops at the
  last episode of a season and says so; it never counts down into the next season
  by itself. This reads the chapter names written in the file. It does not
  guess from the picture or the sound, so a file without such chapters shows
  nothing extra and keeps the Next episode button it always had.
• A sleep timer: stop after this episode or after a chosen time.
• Settings in eight places, nothing lost. General, Playback, Audio &
  subtitles, Privacy, Server, Updates, Statistics and Help. New: the skip step,
  what to do when you return to a title (resume, ask or restart, with an optional
  short rewind), audio and subtitle choices remembered per series with your
  profile's defaults behind them, ordered language preferences, forced-only
  subtitles, a preference for or against hearing-impaired tracks, the audio output
  device, audio and subtitle timing, fullscreen at the start, whether minimising
  pauses, interface scale apart from subtitle size, the size of the artwork and
  preview caches with a button to clear them (media, profiles, opinions and
  history are never touched), and keyboard shortcuts you can change, with a check
  for conflicts. Every section can be reset on its own.
• A track menu with more room. The Synchronisation tab is gone; its sliders
  live in Settings → Audio & subtitles.
• A window that closes. Some players reported a Close button that did
  nothing after a film. Closing, from its own button or from the system's close
  action, now follows a bounded path that saves your progress and then exits,
  without having to end the task.
• Spoiler protection on a series page. An outlined Spoiler protection
  toggle blurs the pictures of the episodes you have not finished and turns off
  their previews. It starts off each time you open the series and is not saved or
  shared. Titles and synopses are not hidden.
• A calmer library screen. The strip above the Search navigation is gone, the
  artwork fades continuously beneath the window controls, the navigation bar has
  more room for your profile photo and its presence ring, and a card's preview no
  longer draws a light arc in its left corners. Your own photo now shows in the
  profile list too.

Friends and rooms

• Presence you can read. The library bar shows how many friends are around
  with their faces beside the number. A friend is Online, Inactive (after
  2, 5 or 10 minutes, as you choose), Watching, or Offline, with a mark on
  the photo that does not rely on colour alone. You can choose for a while to be
  Up for a film, Do not disturb or Invisible, hide your title or your
  last-seen time, and ask for a quiet notice when a chosen friend comes back.
  Presence belongs to an open player, not to a server that happens to be on, and
  pausing a film is never announced.
• Ending a friendship ends it on both sides, even if the other server was off
  at the time.
• Rooms are private. A new room admits only the friends the host invites. An
  invitation is for one profile, lasts until the room ends and survives a
  reconnection. The host can also let others ask to join and answer each
  request. Guests cannot invite anybody. Invitations are shown to their recipient
  and nobody else.

What Firebase now holds

Theia's Firebase database still holds directory entries for all local profiles,
including names and pictures, and carries friend requests, presence and the
opinions you write between linked friends, under anonymous server identities.
New in 4.4.2: your chosen availability, a generic activity (browsing, in a
room, watching) and, if you leave it on, the last moment your player was seen
reach each friend who can read your presence. Only that last moment is kept,
never a history. Invisible publishes no activity, title, room offer or last
seen, and a hidden title hides its artwork and episode details too. Ending a
friendship places an authenticated removal notice in the other friend's inbox
until their server has processed it. Your library catalogue and viewing history are still not
sent, and no sign-up is required. The database rules gained exactly the
validators this needs and were deployed on 20 October 2026, before this release.

Downloads and platform limits

Use the setup for your platform from this release's assets. Each carries the
server, launcher, native player and media engine. The six standalone server files
remain for existing server updaters.

4.4.2 provides complete setups for Windows x64, Linux x64, macOS Apple Silicon
and macOS Intel. The Windows ARM64 and Ubuntu ARM64 setups are not part of this
release: the website links their last verified setup, 4.2.1, which carries the
player of before 4.4 and does not have these features. Their 4.4.2 setups are
planned for early November, once their native checks can run.

macOS apps are ad-hoc signed and not notarised: open the app the first time with
Control-click → Open. Linux playback remains software-decoded SDR with PCM
output. Windows binaries are unsigned and may show a reputation warning. Rooms
need direct connectivity through the configured encrypted tunnel; there is no
third-party relay.

What was and was not checked

• The timeline preview, the settings, spoiler protection, presence, a private
  room's island, the profile photo and closing were run in the real Windows
  player, on the maintainer's machine. The skip buttons and the episode
  countdown were exercised in browser and unit tests, not on a real episode
  ending. macOS and Linux are checked by the release pipeline's installation and
  generated-film tests; hardware decoding, HDR output and a physical Intel Mac
  are not. The exact timeline preview and the list of audio outputs were also run
  against the engine the Linux setup ships. On Linux the instant preview applies to
  SDR films; for an HDR film it comes from the server, as in 4.4.1, because that
  engine cannot tone-map a still. This has not been measured on macOS.
• Two problems reported earlier, the freeze after pressing skip repeatedly and a
  window that would not close, were never reproduced. The fixes are reasoned,
  covered by tests and by a native close test that starts from a healthy state.
• The new presence was tried between two households on a test build and reported
  working. Private rooms, their invitations and the shared countdown have been
  checked with isolated servers on one machine, not yet between two real
  households.
• Opening and ending markers come only from chapters named in the file; how many
  real libraries carry them has not been measured.

Not in 4.4.2

A few ideas were proposed during this release and not retained: correcting a
detected marker by hand, searching the settings, hiding episode titles and
synopses, undoing a seek, browsing a file's chapters, checking that the next
episode exists before counting down, and explaining a track fallback. None has a
date.

After 4.4.2

This is the last update of V4, and the next step is Theia 5.0. Where V4 was
about people watching together, 5.0 looks outward: everything that connects Theia
to what surrounds it, such as cloud and servers, and storage in the cloud. Whether
it also opens Theia to mods or plugins is not decided. There is no date, and
nothing is promised beyond this.

Two things are certain. There will be no account and no telemetry, in 5.0 as
today. And **...

Theia v4.4.1

Theia 4.4.1 — opinions between households, and who is around

The first fixes after 4.4.0 was tried by two households, and the first time
Theia's Firebase database carries more than introductions.

The server, library, ordinary viewing and all features in this release remain
free for noncommercial use. There is no cloud account or telemetry.

Updating from 4.4.0

This is a product release: the native player does not change. Update from
Theia's own update button; the server is replaced, and the signed interface pack
that carries everything below is checked, kept, and applied the next time the
player starts. You do not need to run a setup again.

Both of you need 4.4.1 to read each other's opinions through Firebase. With
a friend still on 4.4.0, presence keeps working and an inactive friend simply
reads as online; their opinions are still asked through the encrypted tunnel,
which needs direct connectivity between your two servers, as before.

What changes

• One opinion per title, and you see it. Once you publish words about a film
  or a series, they appear as your own review - with your thumb, the date, a
  spoiler mark if you set one - with Edit and Delete. The box that wrote
  them comes back only to change them. Publishing again replaces your opinion;
  it never adds a second one.
• Your friends' opinions reach you without an open port. Opinions now travel
  through Theia's Firebase database, like friend requests and presence, so two
  households whose routers do not let each other in can still read what the
  other thinks. A page you keep open looks again every twenty seconds.
• Online, inactive, offline. A friend whose player nobody has touched for
  five minutes is shown as Inactive; a friend whose server is off is Offline;
  someone playing a film is Watching. Each picture carries a filled dot, a ring
  or a dimmed face. A friend shown as inactive is not counted among the friends
  online in the library bar. The player tells its own server that somebody is
  there at most every thirty seconds, while its window is visible; nothing is
  stored.

What Firebase now holds

Theia's Firebase database still receives directory entries for all local
profiles, including names and pictures, and exchanges requests and presence
between linked friends under anonymous server identities. New in 4.4.1: the
thumb and the text of each opinion you write are stored there, in the inbox of
each friend who can read it, until you delete the opinion, end the friendship, or
that friend deletes it. Only that friend's server can read its inbox, and only
your server writes under your profile. Presence gains one flag, inactive. Your
library catalogue and viewing history are still not sent, and no sign-up is
required.

Downloads

4.4.1 publishes the six standalone servers, the setups for Windows x64, Linux
x64, macOS Apple Silicon and macOS Intel, and the signed interface pack with
its signature. Windows ARM64 and Linux ARM64 keep the 4.2.1 setups the website
links, until their native checks can run. A setup of this release carries the
native player verified for 4.4.0.

Theia v4.4.0

Theia 4.4.0 — a stable player, smaller updates

Theia 4.4 separates the native player from its interface. The window and media
engine stay installed; future compatible releases can update the interface and
server without downloading a new native player for every computer.

The server, library, ordinary viewing and all features in this release remain
free for noncommercial use. There is no cloud account or telemetry.

Updating to 4.4

Run the 4.4 setup once to replace the older player. A server-only update
does not install the new interface loader. Your library, profiles, watchlists
and viewing history stay in place.

This is a native-player release. Future compatible product updates use signed
interface packs; an update that needs a new native capability still requires a
new player. A downloaded interface is verified before use, starts as a trial,
and falls back to the previous interface if it fails to confirm its launch.
An interface update does not interrupt a film and applies on the next launch.

Reliability

• Friend requests and presence include the Firebase integration developed for
  4.3.1. A request waits while the recipient is offline; shorter THEIA2 codes
  identify profiles. Existing friendships carry over when both sides update.
  Requests need no open router port. Watch parties and opinions continue over
  the encrypted tunnel.

• Playback keeps its original clock when a converted stream is reloaded.

• Progress writes retain the server and profile they belong to, remain ordered
  while offline, and preserve a newer position when an older write finishes.

• Leaving playback saves the latest position. Offline completion and resume
  indicators follow the same rules as the server.

• Existing local preferences and pending progress migrate to the stable
  interface origin. The original outbox is retained during migration.

• Autoplay follows preference changes made during playback and stays disabled
  in watch-party rooms. Borrowed room streams retain the selected profile.

• Artwork and original-language audio selection use the server's actual data
  shapes. Server requests have deadlines and can be cancelled.

Downloads and platform limits

Use the setup for your platform from this release's assets. Each setup carries
the server, launcher, native player and media engine. Standalone server files
remain available for existing server updaters. Internal payloads and the shell
mirror are build inputs, not additional installation steps.

4.4.0 includes complete setups for Windows x64, Linux x64, macOS Apple
Silicon and macOS Intel. GitHub refused the Windows ARM64 and Linux ARM64
native jobs because of its billing/spending limit. Their 4.4 setups are
deferred; the website explicitly links their last available setup, 4.2.1.
All six standalone servers are 4.4.0. An older ARM64 setup does not install
the new 4.4 interface loader.

macOS apps are ad-hoc signed and
not notarised. Linux playback remains software-decoded SDR with PCM output.
Physical HDR/audio output and first-download Gatekeeper behaviour require
verification on the relevant hardware. Rooms need direct connectivity through
the configured encrypted tunnel; there is no third-party relay.

For friendships between households, Theia's Firebase database receives directory
entries for all local profiles (including names and pictures), even before a
friend is added. Requests and current presence are exchanged between linked
friends under anonymous server identities. It receives no library catalogue or
viewing history. No sign-up or password is required. This additional service is
described in the README.

Native player shells (build inputs)

Native player bundles used to assemble Theia product releases (decision 196).

These are build inputs, not installers. Download Theia from the latest stable release.

4.4.0 baseline: private source commit 3ed8f3692f01e132740e6eb8ae5fa3b648aced7f. Each promoted bundle has native generated-film and visible-controls evidence. Windows ARM64 and Linux ARM64 are deferred because GitHub refused their native jobs for billing; no unverified shell is substituted.

Theia v4.3.0

Theia 4.3.0 — between friends, and the Macs are back

4.3 lets friends tell each other what they thought of a film, redraws the
title pages, makes the player lighter and faster, and brings macOS back. The
server, library, ordinary viewing and everything in this release remain free.

Downloads

Each setup contains the server, launcher, native player and media engine. Choose
all-in-one, server-only or player-only during installation. From 4.3 the setup
looks for a newer setup before it installs: a file you kept, or sent to a
friend, installs the newest Theia, and works offline with what it carries.

Your computer	Download
Windows x64	Windows x64 setup
Mac with an Apple chip	Apple Silicon setup
Mac with an Intel processor	Intel Mac setup
Ubuntu 24.04 x64	Linux x64 setup
Windows ARM64	Windows ARM64 setup (4.2.1)
Ubuntu 24.04 ARM64	Linux ARM64 setup (4.2.1)

macOS is supported again, Apple Silicon and Intel. The ARM64 setups
(Windows and Ubuntu) follow in early November, once their machines can run
the native checks; until then those computers keep the 4.2.1 setup. Servers
installed alone update themselves to 4.3.0 on all six platforms.

Upgrading:

• Windows 4.2.1: Settings → Server & updates → Update Theia opens this
  setup for you.
• macOS and Linux 4.2.1: run this setup once. The 4.2.1 player's button
  updates the server alone; from 4.3 on, it updates everything: the player
  closes, every program is replaced, and Theia opens again on its own.
• From 4.2.0 or earlier, run the setup by hand.

Your library, profiles, friends and watch history stay in their data directory.
An older setup never replaces a newer installation.

On macOS and Linux, make the setup executable with chmod +x and its filename.
Mac apps are ad-hoc signed and not notarised: the first time, open the app with
Control-click → Open. Windows binaries are unsigned. Ubuntu still needs
libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0 and libayatana-appindicator3-1.

Between friends

• On a film or a series, a thumb up or down and a short review of up to 500
  characters, with a spoiler switch that blurs it for the others.
• Your friends' opinions appear on the same page, with their profile photos.
  Only friends who added each other see them, and each opinion stays on its
  author's server: nothing is copied anywhere else.

Title pages

• A header that plays the title, with the poster beside it, then tabs:
  episodes, synopsis, cast, saga and reviews.
• Playback on this device concludes: opening it measures the file (fetching
  FFmpeg first when the server does not have it yet), and each line says
  whether it works, works with a conversion or is at risk, and why. It reports
  what the driver and the screen announce, never a promise the playback alone
  can keep.
• A cleaner version chooser for titles with several files.

Lighter and faster

Measured on the same machine before and after: the player is 11.5 MB instead of
15.1 MB, its interface 1.7 MB instead of 4.5 MB, a title page opens in 242 ms
instead of 361 ms (worst case 253 ms instead of 877 ms), and the search page
uses half the processor it did.

Updates

• An update offers the newest release that has a file for your computer, so a
  platform left out of a release no longer reads "update available" followed by
  "no binary for this system".
• On macOS and Linux an update closes the programs it replaces instead of
  leaving the old ones running, and a server kept by launchd or systemd is
  restarted by it.

Also

• Who is watching draws each profile's ring in the colour of its photo.
• Errors and warnings in the player are tinted again: their colours were never
  declared, so they had been drawn plain.

Limits

• The ARM64 setups are not in this release yet (see above).
• Gatekeeper on a first downloaded launch, and Mac hardware decoding and HDR,
  are not established; the Mac checks run on machines that render in software.
• Rooms still need direct connectivity through the configured encrypted tunnel;
  Theia uses no third-party relay. Physical HDR output is not established.

Engine mirror for reproducible builds (not a Theia release)

Engine archives mirrored for Theia's reproducible builds — not a Theia release.

The native player bundles libmpv, an LGPL build pinned by SHA-256 in Theia's
build manifest. The upstream projects keep about thirty days of builds, so the
exact archives a release was built with are kept here, unchanged, for later
rebuilds. Theia's build tool downloads them from here first and refuses any file
whose SHA-256 is not the pinned one.

Archive	Platform	SHA-256	Source (offer of the corresponding source)
libmpv-v0.41.4-macos-arm64.tar.gz	macOS Apple Silicon	584210a193e8925a7a2fcb6bb89bbcaa450937caf9601c1304a8d34698da3765	https://github.com/178meorg/libmpv-macos-build
libmpv-v0.41.4-macos-x86_64.tar.gz	macOS Intel	1e924be7be2870d62cabed33a75f4416647002c0b0e75eb9dce0f301c8a5d83b	https://github.com/178meorg/libmpv-macos-build
libmpv-0.41.0-linux-x86_64-lgpl-20260906162952.tar.gz	Ubuntu x64	202b6c16e272f47cfc261023b23551d70db34598519978b8621ead33bde9bb17	https://github.com/jason-yau/mpv-prebuilt
libmpv-0.41.0-linux-arm64-lgpl-20260906162952.tar.gz	Ubuntu ARM64	62ed443a6d189548d36d52fbc8832088833ef3c0a93e0c5ecf1cf915da13ea4f	https://github.com/jason-yau/mpv-prebuilt

All are licensed LGPL-2.1-or-later; the licence text is LICENSE-libmpv.txt.
mpv's own source is at https://github.com/mpv-player/mpv.

Theia v4.2.2

Theia 4.2.2 — quality choices, and rooms without stray pauses

4.2.2 follows the field test of 4.2.1. The server, library, ordinary viewing and
everything in this release remain free.

Downloads

Each setup contains the server, launcher, native player and media engine. Choose
all-in-one, server-only or player-only during installation.

4.2.2 has setups for Windows x64 and Ubuntu x64 only. The macOS and ARM
setups could not be built for this release; those platforms keep the 4.2.1
setup, linked below, and get these fixes with the next release. Servers
installed alone update themselves to 4.2.2 on every platform.

Your computer	Download
Windows x64	Windows x64 setup
Windows ARM64	Windows ARM64 setup (4.2.1)
Mac with an Apple chip	Apple Silicon setup (4.2.1)
Mac with an Intel processor	Intel Mac setup (4.2.1)
Ubuntu 24.04 x64	Linux x64 setup
Ubuntu 24.04 ARM64	Linux ARM64 setup (4.2.1)

Upgrading: from 4.2.1 on Windows, Settings → Server & updates → Update
Theia opens this setup for you. From 4.2.0 or earlier, run it by hand. Your
library, profiles, friends and watch history stay in their data directory. A
server installed without the player updates itself.

On macOS and Linux, make the setup executable with chmod +x and its filename.
Mac apps are ad-hoc signed and not notarised; Windows binaries are unsigned.
Ubuntu still needs libwebkit2gtk-4.1-0 and libayatana-appindicator3-1.

Playback

• The quality menu offers its lower qualities for a film started without being
  inspected first. It used to say no other quality existed; the player now asks
  the server to measure the file the first time the menu opens, when FFmpeg is
  already installed.

Rooms and the island

• In a room, a click on the film only shows the controls. It used to pause the
  film for everybody when somebody clicked beside a button.
• The room button in the control bar is gold while a room is on, so it says
  that a room is open as well as opening it.
• Alone, the island no longer draws a down arrow: it shows when the film ends
  and does not open.

Limits

• A first opening of the quality menu on an unmeasured film can take a second
  or two while the file is measured.
• Sound reported as strange on one tester's machine since 4.2.1 is still being
  investigated. Where a home cinema amplifier or a headset handled the untouched
  stream better, Settings → Playback → Untouched sound to the amplifier
  brings back the 4.2.0 path (and its exclusive use of the audio output).
• Rooms still need direct connectivity through the configured encrypted tunnel;
  Theia uses no third-party relay. Physical HDR output is not established.