Solstice Versions 2.X Release Notes

Added support for configuration of two independent Solstice Directory Service (SDS) servers when the Pod is connected to two networks simultaneously via dual-network mode. Administrators can now assign a different SDS for each network interface. In this way, users on each network can discover and connect to available Pods without needing to enter an IP address or rely on UDP broadcast discovery. This feature maintains the independence of the two networks; no network traffic passes between them.

Added DNS support when the Pod is in Dual-Network mode. Hostnames can be entered into the Solstice Directory Service (SDS) IP address fields and those hostnames will correctly resolve to the appropriate IP address on the correct network.

Resolved issue where Pod could become unresponsive in certain networking conditions.

Improved performance of sharing app windows when using Windows 7.

Resolved issue that could cause the Pod to improperly change the user access mode to ‘locked’ after a session disconnect.

Improved stability of Pods connected via Ethernet when certain DHCP Linux servers are used.

Added support for dual Solstice Directory Service (SDS) implementations. The Dashboard can now configure two SDS instances – one for each network connection – on Solstice displays.

Critical security update for the Solstice Pod (software update recommended).

Streaming Optimization for Adverse Network Conditions. Solstice will monitor and detect variations in network performance and dynamically optimize video/audio streaming to accommodate a broader range of network conditions. Jitter/choppiness is significantly reduced and audio-video synchronization is significantly improved when there are high volumes of traffic on the host network.

Improved Security for Browser Look-In. When the Browser Look-In feature is enabled for a Solstice display and the user authentication mode set to Screen Key, users will now be required to enter the display’s Screen Key to view the display in their device browser.

Option to Run Solstice at Startup for Windows and Mac Laptops. For Windows and Mac users that download or update to the 2.8 Solstice client app, the app will automatically launch at startup of the client device. The default launch-at-startup option can easily be disabled in the client settings menu.

Performance Improvements for High Resolution Devices over 1080p. When sharing desktop/screen to a Solstice display from a high-resolution device (beyond 1080p), throughput (fps) is significantly improved and less network bandwidth is used.

Support for 24-Hour Time Format. The clock in the lower right corner of the Solstice display interface can now be set to 24-hour time formatting via the Solstice configuration panel or the Solstice Dashboard.

‘Getting Started’ Online Help. New web pages have been created to provide quick, informative help for end users and re-sellers, including setup instructions for Solstice admins and easier access to Solstice support. Links to the new pages have been added in convenient locations in the product.

Easy Upgrades to Enterprise Edition. Non-enterprise Solstice displays can be upgraded to Enterprise Edition quickly and easily via the Solstice Dashboard or the web Configuration Panel for the Solstice Pod. To upgrade, click the new upgrade link, which will take you to a web page to complete the upgrade

RSS Feeds Added to the Solstice Dashboard Message Center. The Solstice Dashboard’s Message Center can now accept RSS feeds as content for the bulletin message ticker posted to Solstice displays. Bulletin messages can now show multimedia content from RSS feeds and animate between sources. An unlimited number of RSS feeds can be curated with existing messaging features. Enterprise Edition Pods and Windows Software licenses will ship with a default RSS feed enabled that provides helpful information to get started with Solstice.

Support for Pod Software Updates Behind the Firewall via the Solstice Dashboard. The 2.8 version of the Solstice Dashboard can now deploy software updates behind a network firewall. This greatly improves the ease of updating Pods that do not directly have internet access due to network firewalls and provides more user control of release version updates.

In-Product Software Update Path for the Solstice Dashboard. The Solstice Dashboard now provides a direct update path from within the Dashboard when new versions become available.

New Quick Connect Configuration Option. In the Solstice Dashboard, a new option exists to disable automatic connection to a Solstice display when Solstice client apps are downloaded directly from the display.

Fixed update messaging that might improperly warn of a downgrade when not actually downgrading.

Resolved issue where updating Solstice Pods with a Solstice Local Release (SLR) file from the Dashboard might not update all Pods as intended.

Solstice Dashboard efficiency enhanced to reduce CPU usage.

Solstice Android app has improved user experience for keyboard input.

Resolved issue where shared desktops periodically appear as blank posts on the Solstice display.

Resolved issue where certain configuration options on the Solstice host were not being saved properly.

Resolved issue where participants could be disconnected after an iOS device is mirrored.

Improved stability of AirPlay mirroring from Mac OSX desktops.

Resolved issue where certain video files would not share from Android devices.

Resolved issue that can cause a Pod to become unreachable on some networks based on certain DHCP configurations.

Resolved issue where the Pod’s display output could get in a frozen state.

Fixed problem on Solstice client app for Mac that could result in unreadable text in certain parts of the user interface.

Resolved issue that would occasionally cause the Pod to freeze and become unusable after a certain period of time.

Resolved issue that would unexpectedly disconnect users attached to the Pod’s wireless access point.

Resolved issue where Pods would go offline after losing signal from a display or after long periods of inactivity.

Client Discovery List Search. Solstice users now have the option to search for a display for connection by name in their Solstice client discovery list. Users simply enter text into a search field, allowing them to dynamically search for a specific Solstice display by name.

Broader Support for Client Video File Sharing on the Solstice Pod. Client video file sharing to the Solstice Pod has been expanded to support additional video file formats. Supported video codecs are H.263, H.264, and H.265/HEVC, and supported file formats are .mp4, .mov, .3gp. The number of simultaneous video files that can be shared to the Pod has increased from 1 to 4.

Support for Simultaneous iOS Mirroring Posts. The Solstice Pod will now support up to four simultaneous iOS mirroring posts via AirPlay. Users attempting to mirror additional iOS devices (beyond four) will be asked to wait until at least one iOS mirroring post is removed from the screen. Note Solstice Windows Software already supports multiple simultaneous iOS mirroring posts.

Robust Restart Management Services. The Solstice Pod has been equipped with a self-monitoring capability that, in the event of a system failure, will attempt to restart the Pod automatically. This can be useful if the Pod experiences an unforeseen network event that causes the Solstice service to fail.

Optional Software Update for Connected Clients. Solstice users may now opt to be notified when a software update is detected for their Solstice client app. When users enable the new client update notification option in the Solstice client settings menu, they will be prompted to update their client software when they connect to a Solstice display that has a more recent software version number than their Solstice client app. Windows and Mac client updates will be downloaded from the Solstice display host, and the client app will restart and reconnect to the Solstice display host. In the case of mobile clients, users will be redirected to the app store ‘install’ page for the most recent version.

Remove Media when PC is Locked/Sleeps. When a PC is explicitly locked (via ALT-CTRL-DEL for example) while still connected to a Solstice display, any posts from that user will be removed from the display.

Display ‘No Network’ in Presence Bar on Network Loss. The words ‘No Network’ appears in the presence bar of the Solstice display interface when a Pod loses network connectivity, even when the IP address is disabled for viewing on the Solstice display welcome screen.

Discovery Tags – Dynamic Discovery Filtering. Discovery tags allow Solstice users to filter a list of available displays for connection in their client devices by selecting one/multiple display group ‘tag(s)’ to filter by. A discovery tag denotes a logical group for a set of displays – such as location, department, etc. – and are created and applied to Solstice Enterprise Edition displays via the Solstice Dashboard. Multiple tags can be applied to Solstice Enterprise Edition displays.

Full Solstice Display Welcome Screen Customization and Branding. The Solstice Dashboard now presents a larger set of customization options for the Solstice welcome screen design. In addition to modifying the background image for the welcome screen, all other welcome screen elements can now also be modified. Each element can be shown/hidden and aligned left, right, or center. Color values can also be assigned to text and other elements to better match organizational branding.

Quality of Service – Differentiated Network Traffic Support. Solstice network traffic will now be augmented to use the IETF defined quality of service (QoS) header information. By configuring a 6-digit QoS bit string in the Solstice Dashboard, the Solstice deployment can implement the TCP/IP QoS headers that are used by the enterprise network to differentiate and prioritize network traffic.

Solstice Dashboard Update Notification and Warnings. Solstice Dashboard admins will now be warned when they attempt to update Solstice Pods to a software version that will make the Pods unsupported/unmanageable via their current Dashboard version. When this occurs, Dashboard admins will be prompted to update their Dashboard software first, and a download link for the newest Solstice Dashboard update will be provided. This warning dialog appears before the Solstice Pod(s) update is applied.

Microsoft qWAVE Requirement for Solstice Dashboard and Solstice Directory Service. As a result of new enterprise features added in the 2.7 release, the Solstice Dashboard version 2.7 and Solstice Directory Service version 2.7 will require a Windows component called ‘Quality Windows Audio Video Experience’ (qWAVE) to be installed on the Windows host computer or server. Note the qWAVE component is installed by default on Windows desktop hosts but is disabled by default on Windows Servers and must be installed separately. Refer to the installation instructions for Windows Server 2008 R2 and for Windows Server 2012 R2.

Desktop and app window posts from Microsoft Surface Pro client devices will now maintain correct orientation on the Solstice display when the client device is rotated between landscape and portrait orientations.

On Microsoft Surface Pro and Windows 10 high-resolution clients, the UI and text sizes have been adjusted and scroll bars have been added so that all of the options are readable and visible in the client UI window.

A ‘cancel’ option has been added to the Solstice Dashboard admin password dialog to allow the user to return to operation of the Dashboard if the admin password is not known.

Android and iOS users that have already installed the Solstice client app on their devices are no longer redirected to the app stores when they connect to a Solstice display via Quickconnect from a web browser. Instead, the installed client app is detected and launched.

A proxy test error has been resolved. The proxy test no longer passes when invalid authorization credentials are provided. Now the test fails in these cases.

Solstice users with Galaxy S6 client devices can now share photos correctly via the share media option.

Support for sharing Microsoft Office applications to a Solstice display from Mac clients has been improved. The applications update correctly on the Solstice display when the Office application is advanced to subsequent pages/slides on the client device.

Windows 10 client screens with lower resolutions than the Solstice display now appear correctly when shared to a Solstice display.

A blinking graphics artifact no longer appears on the Solstice display when the access control setting is changed from moderated to open mode during a Solstice session.

AirPlay connections from Mac OS X clients to a Solstice Pod no longer freeze.

The performance of status checks of Solstice displays from the Solstice Dashboard has been improved.

Users can now share Internet Explorer 11 app windows from Windows 8 clients to the Solstice display.

Audio quality has been improved when desktop sharing with audio from Mac OS X clients to Solstice appliances (NUCs).

Mac OSX clients no longer show corrupted text in the discovery panel.

Error messaging has been improved upon the expiration of a Solstice Windows Software trial license.

File selection for media files has been updated to allow file names with ‘diacritical marks’ such as accents, umlauts, cedillas and tildes. Examples include é, ü, and ñ.

Video File Playback with high bitrate videos improved. Sharing video files larger than 200MB that are encoded at high bitrates is now possible. These videos will periodically buffer but still continue to play properly through the ‘Media Share’ option.

Video file framerate is improved when looping video. When looping a video, a framerate drop was possible previously. The framerate is now consistent when looping a video file multiple times.

Text and high-resolution image quality is greatly improved. When sharing desktops from PC-based clients (OS X and Windows) image quality should be noticeably improved from previous versions.

Keynote App Window sharing now works properly in fullscreen and presentation modes. Presentations are now displayed correctly when a user switches to full screen or presentation mode.

Periodic audio drops on networks with variable quality have been fixed. Audio streaming has been improved when the ‘Desktop Audio’ toggle is used. Previously, periodic drops of audio occurred when network jitter was significant. This has been addressed.

Pods can now be configured to SSID networks as a wireless client.

Client software connectivity is more resilient to network variability. If poor or variable network connectivity is experienced between the client and Pod, clients could easily lose connectivity. Clients will now attempt to reconnect automatically if network conditions improve.

Pod connectivity is more resilient to network variability. Pods are now more resilient to situational network variability in certain network circumstances where they would have previously lost network connectivity.  Long-term connection stability on both OS X and Windows clients has been improved.

PC client software no longer crashes when the client PC goes into sleep mode. In certain OS configurations, if a client PC went to sleep while the Solstice client was active, the Solstice client could crash. The user is now disconnected and the client software remains running.

Improved support for application window sharing on OSX when those applications are in full screen mode including, Keynote, Safari, and Powerpoint.

OS X client no longer crashes when disconnecting from AirPlay while sharing desktop.

Display now returns to ‘Align to Grid’ mode after last user disconnects. If ‘Align to Grid’ was turned off during a session, ‘Align to Grid’ will now be automatically turn back on after the last user disconnects from the Pod.

Moderator mode client posts are now removed after a client disconnects. Previously, when non-moderator users disconnected while in Moderator Mode, their posts would remain on the display. Posts are now removed when the client disconnects.

Moderator control over video playback. Moderators can successfully operate video playback controls of guest video posts once they have been accepted from the moderator queue.

Desktop audio will wait for moderator acceptance. Audio will not play from guests who share desktops with audio until the moderator accepts the post.

Chrome version 50 and above now displays properly when using App Window sharing in Windows 10. Windows 10 clients attempting to use App Window sharing in Windows 10 would display a black share window on the display. Chrome is now properly displayed.

PC clients can continue to use the Solstice client after changing primary display in system settings.

User is now warned if changing OS X audio device while sharing audio. Previously, if a user changed audio devices (i.e. plugging or unplugging headphones) while the Solstice client was running, audio sharing would not work properly. Users are now warned if this occurs.

Pods are now compatible with a wider range of CEC-enabled displays. Previously some CEC implementations would cause the Pod to not come back up after the display was turned off. The Pod is now more resilient to variable CEC implantations.

Splash screen IP address changes to ‘No Network’ accurately. IP address on the Splash Screen is automatically refreshed to read ‘No Network’ when the Pod is not attached to a valid network.

Low-latency audio/video streaming for desktop and app window sharing. The 2.6 updates for Solstice Software and Pods reduces latency between the user’s device and the Solstice display by 75%.

Increased video frame-rates when multiple, simultaneous desktops are shared. Both Solstice Software and Pods now supports substantially higher framerates when multiple live desktops are shared on the display at the same time. In tests, framerates improved by 50% over the previous version when four desktops are shared at 1080p.

1X enterprise wireless support. The Pod now supports 802.1X EAP protocol when connecting to wireless networks. This option allows for entry of a username and password to connect to an authentication server at the time of deployment.

Web proxy support for Solstice Software and Pod web processes. Solstice can now be configured with a proxy server IP address for internet traffic access. Options include Username/password credentials for secure access and ports 80/443 traffic can be routed to different proxy server locations on the network. This allows Solstice Pods deployed behind a secure web proxy to still reach the over-the-air update server. The proxy server allows Solstice Software instances to be licensed and activated when deployed behind a secure proxy server.

Updated user-interface workflow for iOS mirroring. IOS users that select the ‘Mirror my Device’ button in the Solstice app on their devices will now see an instructional animation that shows how to select and mirror to the Solstice display from the AirPlay® menu.

Dashboard support for customization of splash screen elements. The Solstice Dashboard now allows administrators to control toggle on/off splash screen elements to appear on the Solstice display. Dashboard admins can independently control the appearance of Display Name, IP Address, and Screen Key for both the main Solstice display splash screen as well as the presence bar.

Improved audio synchronization from Mac OSX devices. Synchronization accuracy is now on par with performance levels from Windows-based devices.

QuickConnect with dual-network works on both interfaces. Users connecting to the ‘second’ network in dual-network mode, no longer have to re-type an IP address to get the client to connect. QuickConnect will automatically connect users from either network and populate their most-recently-used list correctly.

Sharing MS Office Suite applications from Surface Pro devices corrected. Office Suite applications will correctly share to the display. Users no longer need to answer a dialog box asking ‘Did your application share correctly?’.

IOS mirroring with dual-network modes usability improvement. Enabling the iOS mirroring AirPlay proxy feature will no longer require a Pod restart when in dual network modes.

Pod loss of wireless settings. Intermittent loss of wireless settings when powering down a Pod has been fixed.

Ethernet IP Address and Screen Key visibility. The Screen Key and IP Address will both continues to be displayed on screen correctly when selecting customization options in the Solstice Dashboard.

Sharing multiple application windows/desktop from Surface Pro. Sharing more than one desktop application window will no longer cause the second application window to appear as a white screen on the shared display.

Audio streaming quality while sharing videos from the Safari browser. Noisy, choppy audio due to resource contention while playing YouTube videos in the Safari have been fixed.

Audio repeating on OSX Desktop Shares. Repeated audio looping when sharing desktop audio from an OSX device no longer occurs.

iOS Mirroring Service Stability. A stability issue that could cause the iOS mirroring service to stop on a Pod has been resolved.

Installing a new license on a windows host. Installing a new license on a PC that was previously licensed for a 30-day trial no longer causes Solstice to crash and a reboot of that PC.

Touch sensitivity and selection of media playback elements. Controls related to video file playback (seek/pause/mute) are easier to select when using a touch screen.

Unselecting a Display in the AirPlay® menu no longer prompts for a Password. When the screen key is enabled and a user stops mirroring an iOS device to the display by unselecting it, the screen key password dialog no longer appears.

Solstice Windows Software Instabilities when Sharing Audio to a PC with No Audio Device Connected. This issue has been resolved. Users can share desktop audio to Solstice installed on a PC with no active audio device. Those users will not hear audio, but the Solstice will continue to be stable.

Clicking Meeples using Touch or Mouse on Display. Issues that made it difficult to correctly click a meeple to open its menu on the display have been resolved.

Play/Pause Synchronization. The icon that depicts video play/pause when sharing a video file remains in the correct state even when looping a video multiple times.

Long-term use of both network interfaces on Pod. Potential issues where the Pod could become unresponsive over long periods of time when both network interfaces were being used have been fixed