5.0.5

AetherEngine 5.0.5 bundles one subtitle-retention fix and one new load-time capability, both from device reports by @rrgomes during the 5.0.4 retest. Additive and backward compatible: LoadOptions.autoplay defaults to true, so every current caller is byte-identical.

Fixed

Subtitle cues no longer starve permanently after a backward seek into cache-resident content (#125)

During a long mixed-direction seek storm on a heavy 4K Dolby Vision remux with embedded PGS and SubRip tracks, subtitle cues could stop rendering partway through and never return, each track re-arm logging backfilled 0 cues over an armed but empty store.

The #112 overlay is fed only from the session's SubtitlePacketStore, whose single writer is the producer demux pump, and the playhead-paced drainer pruned that store every tick at playhead - retentionSeconds. A backward jump into segment-cache-resident content is served without a producer restart, and the pump stays parked forward, so once a forward excursion pushed the prune cutoff past the returned region its packets were gone and never re-harvested. The drain window then landed permanently empty.

The trailing time-prune is removed. The store is now bounded only by its existing per-stream byte cap (evict-oldest), so text tracks keep the whole session and bitmap tracks keep a wide trailing window, matching how the segment cache retains history for backward seeks rather than clamping to a window ahead of the playhead. A backward seek past a bitmap stream's evicted edge is a deferred windowed-re-read fallback.

Thanks to @rrgomes for the code-level diagnosis (the pump as the store's only writer, the cache-resident backward jump that skips the restart) and the byte-retention fix direction.

Added

A host can now mount media paused: LoadOptions.autoplay (#124)

Every load path ended in an unconditional autostart, so a host that wanted to hold a pause at mount (a synchronized-start lobby that loads several devices and starts them together on a signal, or a hold-at-mount / resume prompt) always received one engine-initiated resume at load completion and had to claw it back with a racy state-sink clamp. Same declared-versus-real split as #122/#123.

LoadOptions.autoplay defaults to true, so every current caller is byte-identical. Set it to false and the load skips its terminal play() and state = .playing across all paths (native VOD, software, both audio backends, and the lean native remote-HLS path), leaves playIntent false, and settles .loading to .paused through the existing host.$isReady readiness waypoint; the host resumes later with play().

On the native VOD path the SDR-to-HDR cold-start readiness gate is skipped for a paused mount, since it is an autostart-path recovery that plays to poll readiness. The reloadAtCurrentPosition path (audio switch, live rejoin) is unchanged.

Thanks to @rrgomes for the device traces and the code-level shape of the fix.

Compatibility

Additive and backward compatible. LoadOptions.autoplay defaults to true; no API removals. Verified: full test suite green, -strict-concurrency=complete clean, tvOS Simulator build succeeds.