VortX

0.4.0 Beta 16 - Dolby Vision buffering, player switches, and next-episode recovery:

Install this over any earlier Apple build. Beta 16 focuses on playback failures reported in diagnostics 21–24: Dolby Vision production stopping, replacement sources opening on the wrong player surface, stalled next-episode recovery, and Apple TV going idle during a player handoff. Apple build 252. All Beta 15 changes are retained; these packages are built afresh from the reviewed source, not an older beta executable.

This is an Apple-only update for Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, and Apple Silicon Mac. Android remains on the signed Beta 14 packages linked below.

What's fixed:

Dolby Vision's local rolling buffer no longer gives the same capacity to both rewind history and forward loading. Both sides previously budgeted against the entire publication allowance independently. Together with the still-advertised previous playlist, that could fill the physical spool and block the next segment from being published. The allocation is now shared, with room for a segment already being closed. Advertised video and subtitle resources keep their validity deadlines; the fix does not prematurely delete segments AVPlayer is still allowed to request.

AVPlayer's preferred buffer is coupled to what the DV producer can actually supply. When bitrate is known, the target uses the forward allocation rather than the whole rolling window. Very high-bitrate sources no longer retain an unconditional minimum that can exceed the affordable lead. Unknown-bitrate sources retain their existing behavior until usable measurements arrive. This repairs an app-side producer/player mismatch, not a supposed TorBox outage.

Changing source or episode keeps the accepted player and the current stream. A replacement accepted on VortX Player could previously clear fallback state and rebuild an AVPlayer surface using the original launch episode. Both Apple playback surfaces now retain the accepted engine. An explicit player switch uses the active URL, request headers and content hints, not stale launch values. The original source stays separate from any local proxy URL.

An empty next-episode source gets one recovery owner instead of competing retry loops. A prepared URL that produces no video packets is marked exhausted. Its exact load can accept a late-arriving alternative within the bounded settlement window, while conflicting startup and same-URL retry timers are retired. Duplicate errors or EOF callbacks cannot reopen that dead URL. Source changes, episode changes, cancellation and your pause choice still win. If no usable alternative arrives, the error replaces the reconnecting spinner rather than leaving it spinning indefinitely.

Resume recovery no longer fights itself or enters the manual-seek cache hold. The ordinary stall watchdog waits while the exact deferred-resume recovery owns an unconfirmed resume. Recovery nudges use the resume-specific seek path and a confirmed position; they do not arm the separate manual-scrub refill watchdog. A valid Continue Watching persistence floor is retained. This targets the confirmed recovery conflict, not every possible late native seek callback.

Seek-preview contribution stops rechecking unchanged work on every playback tick. The overnight diagnostic contained thousands of identical upload-admission checks without any new captured frames. An unchanged title now rechecks when duration first becomes known, when new coverage is captured, or during teardown. New titles keep their own initial check. This removes redundant work and keeps useful playback evidence from being buried in repeated preview messages; it does not claim every source now has previews available.

Diagnostics distinguish local spool capacity from a source-read stall. A bounded receipt records physical storage accounting and companion-resource bytes when admission waits. It excludes source URLs, credentials and account identifiers. A read stall alone is not labeled as provider downtime.

Verification and remaining limits:

All 18,757 lines of diagnostic 24 were read, alongside the previous diagnostics and a retrieved device log. The overnight capture includes roughly 55 minutes of healthy Debridio/VortX Player playback with hardware decoding and zero sampled output/decoder drops. It does not contain the initiating AIOStreams/AVPlayer failure, so it cannot establish that the two add-ons selected identical files or request paths.

Please test:

• Play a DV title beyond several rolling-window advances, then pause, resume and seek backward and forward.
• Switch between AVPlayer and VortX Player on an AIOStreams source. Confirm the same title, episode, position and your Play/Pause choice survive.
• Start a series from Continue Watching and try both automatic advance and the next-episode button. Include a source that previously opened blank or remained reconnecting.
• Leave playback running through an AVPlayer-to-VortX recovery beyond the TV's usual screensaver interval. Confirm the TV stays awake while video is playing.
• If a failure remains, export the diagnostic shortly afterward so the initial cause is retained. Include the source/add-on and whether it followed pause, seek, an engine switch or an episode transition.

Install:

Apple TV. Use VortX-tvOS-v0.4.0-beta.16-ci.ipa for Full or VortX-tvOS-lite-v0.4.0-beta.16-ci.ipa for Lite. Install the same variant you normally use through your signing service.

Check SHA256SUMS-ci.txt; the immutable tag, source commit and protected build provide provenance for these files. This beta is deliberately promoted to Latest with Apple update/install feeds verified during publication.

VortX:

The Android APK is an early technical preview, not the finished app. VortX is Apple first: the Apple TV, iPhone, iPad, and Mac apps are the complete experience today. Android is just getting started, sharing the same native engine, and the preview exists so Android users can watch the port take shape and help steer it. Expect missing features, rough edges, and fast-moving builds. If you want the full VortX experience right now, use the Apple apps; if you try the Android preview, please report what you hit, because every report shapes the port.