The developers of Jellyfin announced the full release of Jellyfin server version 10.11.0 on Sunday, October 19. The major update brings several improvements for the self-hosted media streaming platform I’m excited to see, including a system backup and a startup interface for administrators.
A lot of the updates arriving with this Jellyfin release make the server more reliable and resilient, at least if you, as the administrator, are taking advantage of those features. For example, there is now a built-in graphical interface for creating backups of your server files, including the database, metadata, subtitles, and trickplay images—those are the thumbnail-like images that appear when you hover over a specific point on a video’s timeline.
It’s a much-need update, though I was a little disappointed to see the developers note, “The backup and restore system can only restore systems on which the backup was originally made, so this is not a tool to migrate from other OS’s or 3rd party containers.” So it sounds like I won’t be able to use the backup system to migrate my existing server to another host. Still, I’m glad I can now easily protect against data loss.
Additionally, if you’re an administrator, you’ll now see a “Startup UI” when you try to access the server while it’s still starting up—on the local network only. It’ll show a log readout of what’s happening instead of just a static logo. That way, it’s clear that your server is not down or frozen and instead just needs a bit more time to finish the startup process. I can’t tell you how many times, after updating or recovering my system from a shutdown, that I’ve nervously refreshed the server dashboard address for a few minutes, completely unsure of what was happening, if anything. So this is a welcome improvement for me.
Jellyfin servers are also speeding up in various ways thanks to this release. The database engine will now be caching metadata in memory “aggressively,” resulting in what will hopefully be more responsive interfaces for the folks using your Jellyfin server. As the developers note, though, you should expect to see more RAM being consumed thanks to this update, but the usage should be efficient and effective. The search function has also been optimized for speed, which I’m looking forward to testing out because I’ve long felt finding movies on my server was a tad slower process than it should be.
There are a few deprecations to be aware of too. Namely, Jellyfin 10.11 is dropping support for 32-bit ARM processors, which were used mostly by low-powered SBCs that are now quite dated, like the Raspberry Pi 1 and 2. The developers justified this by writing, “We found consistently that these very old SBCs were absolutely terrible at running Jellyfin, even without transcoding, and we decided that dropping support would streamline our release processes and help ensure that users get the best experience out of the box.” If you’re somehow making Jellyfin work for you on one of those processors, you’ll have to look into other options to stay up-to-date.
I’m only scratching the surface here, though. There are several more fixes and improvements in this release, from fun additions like welcome page background images, to under-the-hood technical improvements like an upgrade to FFmpeg 7.1. Check out the blog post I’m linking at the end of the article to see all the details.
If you want to get Jellyfin 10.11, you can download it directly from the Jellyfin server downloads page. If you’re upgrading from an older version of Jellyfin, you should carefully review the “TL;DR” notes on migration. They include a lot of important warnings and information you should take into consideration, including the fact that it’s not possible to upgrade to 10.11.0 from any version other than 10.10.7. Be prepared for a potentially long wait while the upgrade happens, too, and back up all your media first to be prepared for upgrade disasters.
Jellyfin
- OS
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Windows, Linux, macOS, Android, iOS, Fire TV, Roku OS, WebOS, Xbox,
- Price
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Free
Jellyfin is the volunteer-built media solution that puts you in control of your media. Stream to any device from your own server, with no strings attached. Your media, your server, your way.
Source: Jellyfin