Opencast 17: Release Notes
Opencast 17.9
This version contains new releases of both the admin ui (17.x-2025-10-23) and the editor (17.x-2025-10-23).
Opencast 17.8
This version contains two security fixes! One of them is a cross-site-scripting vulnerability in the Paella Player (see GHSA-m2vg-rmq6-p62r). The other allowed accidental publishing in the Opencast Editor (see GHSA-x6vw-p693-jjhv) It is advised to update to this version in a timely fashion
This version also contains new releases of both the admin ui (17.x-2025-09-26) and the editor (17.x-2025-09-26).
Opencast 17.7
Among other bug fixes, this version contains a security fix. Please see #6979 and GHSA-hq8m-v68g-8cf8 (once published) for details.
As a minor feature, it is now possible to pass additional arguments to whisper.cpp (#6966).
This version also contains new releases of both the admin ui (17.x-2025-08-29) and the editor (17.x-2025-08-28).
Opencast 17.6
This version contains a security fix! Please see GHSA-j63h-hmgw-x4j7 for more details. It is advised to update to this version in a timely fashion.
Workflow variables containing a colon in the variable name can now be escaped with a backslash.
Beforehand, the variable syntax ${var:iable} would interpret the part after the : as the default value if var was not
defined. This is especially useful for workflow properties defined by analyze-mediapackage based on element tags like
lang:en. Please note that this is a breaking change in the sense that the string "\:" will now be interpreted as a
":" (#6884).
Apart from that, this release contains multiple bug fixes, e.g. for timeouts in Stud.IP (#6825) and multi-threading for WhisperCPP (#6883) as well as snapshot deletion for remote storage ((#6885).
As a feature, we now accept AAI attributes as list (#6831).
There are also new versions of both the admin ui (17.x-2025-07-24 and the editor (17.x-2025-07-24 included.
Opencast 17.5
This release contains quite a few bug fixes and other improvements, most importantly a security fix for the paella player (#6783) and a bugfix for jwt tokens (#6791).
There are also new releases for both the admin ui (17.x-2025-06-27) and the editor (17.x-2025-06-19, but also see the release notes for 17.x-2025-06-18), respectively.
Additionally there is a minor change to the community workflows that should only affect adopters who ingest more than two streams (#6728).
An index migration script is added to allow updates from Opencast 16.x to 17.x without a reindex (#6524).
Opencast 17.4
This release contains a few bug fixes and enhancements of existing features. Among others, it enables the use of Elasticsearch even if the setup is in yellow state (#6681). It also adds an endpoint to trigger the update of a single event in search (#6653).
Most importantly, this contains a new version of both the Editor (17.x-2025-05-23) and the Admin UI (17.x-2025-05-24).
Additionally it contains a new version of Opencast Studio (2025-04-30) with a bugfix regarding incorrect error messages when uploading.
Opencast 17.3
This release contains a few bug fixes, among them performance improvements for the metrics endpoint (#6627). It's now also possible to trigger an index update for the archived information of an event (#6575).
Additionally, this contains new versions of both the Admin Interface (2025-04-17) and Studio (2025-04-02).
Opencast 17.2
This is a maintenance release of Opencast 17. It fixes a few minor bugs.
Opencast 17.1
This release contains a couple of bug fixes. It also includes new versions for the editor (2025-01-08) and the admin interface (2025-01-21). See the respective release notes for more details.
One can now also remove subtitles from within the editor [#6361] and configure asset upload options in more detail [#6362].
Opencast 17.0
Features
- New roles were added with which a user can get access to an event without having to be added to the ACLs. For more details see the relevant documentation. [#5056]
- You can now generate captions with Whisper asynchronously. [#6247]
- The Whisper.cpp integration now automatically re-encodes audio to a suitable format. It's no longer necessary to include a separate encode operation for this in the workflow. [#6248]
- You can now provide terms of use to be presented to new users in the Admin UI. For configuration see the respective docs. [#6010]
- There is a new UI for the documentation of our REST endpoints but since it currently has some issues, it's not turned on by default. You can however already try it out. [#5668]
- There is a new GraphQL API as an alternative to the existing REST API. Please be aware that this is not yet production ready and may change without further notice. [#5766]
- There is a new filter available in the Admin interface to show only events that are published or not published. [#6023]
- The integration of Tobira in the Admin interface was improved. [#6091]
- Paella Player 7 now also shows a preview image in portrait mode. [#6052]
Breaking Changes
- The old Admin UI was removed completely and is no longer available. [#5965]
- We changed the sorting of events and series in the new Admin interface to something more intuitive. This requires the
installation of the OpenSearch/Elasticsearch plugin
analysis-icu. Check the upgrade guide for more details. [#5413] - The required Java version is now 17. [#5763]
- The Microsoft Azure transcription integration was completely rewritten. Gstreamer is no longer needed as a dependency. Please consult the updated documentation to find out how to change your configuration and workflows so they are compatible again. [#5876]
- ACL templates in
etc/acl/must be provided in JSON format from now on. XACML files are no longer accepted. [#6018]
Configuration Changes
- We no longer use the prepared flavor in our workflows and the Editor configuration as it was no longer serving any purpose and made updating subtitles from the Editor difficult. Instead, we now always use the source flavor. [#5862]
- Since we removed feeds in OC 16, we no longer generate feed previews in our workflows. [#6087]
- Waveform peaks are now more visible, but that behavior is configurable. [#6028]
For more details, please take a look at the full changelog. If you want to update Opencast from a previous version, you should also read the upgrade guide.
Release Schedule
| Date | Phase |
|---|---|
| November 6, 2024 | Release Branch Cut |
| December 4, 2024 | Release of Opencast 17.0 |
Release Managers
- Katrin Ihler (elan e.V.)
- Veronika Schröer (University of Konstanz)