2026.18 Released

2026.18 Released

2026.18 — October 2, 2026

Enhancements

  • AGFazio — Sequencer grid: Shift now holds timing in place while dragging, and a collision slide stops at the obstruction instead of continuing past it (#7042)
  • heffneil — “Show All Timing Tracks” is now offered from any view and from right-clicking a timing row, not just the Master View’s model-row menu (#7145)
  • derwin12 — Selecting an effect in the Select Effects panel now scrolls the sequencer grid to bring it into view
  • derwin12 — New sequence wizard defaults the master view to a sensible model order (groups at top by size, then models by name) when no default view is chosen
  • heffneil — Filter and search boxes now match words in any order, ignore separators (“all house”, “allhouse” and “all-house” all find grp_all_house_display), and support * ? wildcards and /regex/
  • heffneil — Display Elements: find bar with next/previous buttons for the Added models list (#6929)
  • derwin12 — Moving Head effect now warns when a drawn Path does a “bad flip” (#7083)
  • derwin12 — Moving Head Advanced: Position Zones can be exported to, and imported from, other moving head props (#6926)
  • heffneil — Import Effects: the filter boxes narrow the mapping tree and the source list (display only – Ok, Save Map, Auto Map and Clear All still cover hidden rows)
  • heffneil — Import Effects: right-click a group in the source list to add it to the layout and map it; Cancel removes groups added during the import
  • heffneil — Import Effects: the mapping tree redraws once after Auto Map instead of row by row, removing a 30+ second stall on large shows on macOS (#7142)
  • heffneil — Import Effects can record the sequence effects were imported from (listed in Sequence Settings > Meta Data) so it can be reopened later from Import > Open Original File
  • AGFazio — Perspectives now also capture the Layout tab’s panel arrangement, including panels floated onto a second monitor (#6889)
  • heffneil — Layout Resize right-click menu gets a Match Depth option in 3D mode (#7095)
  • heffneil — The model picked in the Visualiser is highlighted in the Layout preview (colour set by “Model Picked In Visualiser” in Preferences)
  • heffneil — Layout Controllers page: the selected controller’s box is highlighted along with its models, and controller labels have a Label Size setting
  • AGFazio — Added a Cancel option to the Model States delete confirmation
  • derwin12 — Check Sequence has a redesigned report with a table of contents, a next/previous issue stepper, per-section show/hide and Expand All/Collapse All (#7150)
  • derwin12 — Media Manager: new “Check Media…” button checks the sequence’s audio and video files for formats that won’t render in upcoming xLights versions
  • derwin12 — Added a keybinding to toggle the video preview panel, and the key binding list can be sorted by Type or Key (#7091)
  • AlexB — Added an “additional tools” toolbar (Batch Render, Bulk Controller Upload, Check Sequence, FPP Connect) (#6801)
  • derwin12 — Batch Import Sequence Lua script: browse buttons for the source and destination folders, and right-click Select All/None/Highlighted on the sequence list (#7089)
  • dkulp — New -q / –quiet command line switch logs the startup notices (show directory, files loaded) instead of showing them in a dialog
  • derwin12 — More logging for stem separation to help diagnose hangs, and a StemSeparationCPU special option to skip the GPU on Windows
  • dkulp — FPP Connect model upload now also sends submodels and model groups so FPP can run overlay effects on them (FPP 10+)
  • dkulp — FPP Connect warns when models uploaded to FPP earlier no longer match the layout and offers to upload them again
  • PeteMatthews — ILT controllers: added a new Scene controller type; serial outputs can now stand in for relays (#7093)

Bug Fixes

  • dkulp — Fixed crashes when a model was edited, deleted, replaced or renamed, or a sequence was opening, while a render was running; importing models from another show and updating from the base show folder now wait for the render to stop
  • dkulp — Fixed several sequencer grid crashes: dragging an effect edge or using the right-click menu after an undo, redo or delete; closing or deleting while a row was being drawn; rubber-band selecting with only timing rows visible; pasting into a timing range that no longer exists; dropping an effect on a row whose model no longer exists; and moving an effect with the arrow keys while a render was stopping
  • heffneil,dkulp — Crash closing a sequence, changing a musical sequence to Animation in Sequence Settings, or loading a new song (#7144)
  • dkulp — Crash adding pre/post milliseconds when the sequence duration is longer than the audio
  • dkulp — Crash loading a sequence with negative effect/palette references
  • dkulp — Fixed a render crash when the show folder’s render cache is on a network drive
  • derwin12 — Effect settings with a leading space in their value (seen in some older sequences) were treated as 0, so fade in/out and other numeric settings could render wrong (#7055)
  • derwin12 — Model > Paste Effects on a submodel or group row no longer erases every submodel’s effects and pastes them onto the main model (#7141)
  • derwin12 — Changing the sequencer View now clears the prop filter
  • derwin12 — Right-click “Convert Effects to ‘Per Model'” now refreshes the Layer Settings panel when it is showing an affected effect (#7060)
  • derwin12 — Changing the effect type from the Effect panel drop-down no longer resets Layer Settings Render Style to the default when the effect is on a model group
  • derwin12 — A preset saved or updated with “Apply preset as: Relative” now applies as Relative instead of reverting to Using Layers
  • dkulp — Crash using the Effect Presets panel after switching show folders
  • dkulp — Crash rendering a Candle effect (single flame, not Per Node) in some cases
  • dkulp — Butterfly, Plasma, Pinwheel, Fan and Video effects could corrupt memory on a variable sub-buffer and crash later in an unrelated place
  • dkulp — Faces effect with Eyes set to Auto rarely blinked on a tightly sung timing track
  • dkulp — Text effects naming an unknown xLights font crashed instead of falling back to the OS font
  • dkulp — Shader effect no longer renders a solid frame at the lowest Zoom setting
  • dkulp — Shader effects rendered on the GPU (Metal on macOS/iPad, Vulkan on Windows/Linux) started one frame ahead of the OpenGL path
  • dkulp — A Shader effect whose GPU resources cannot be created now renders yellow like any other failed shader instead of closing the app
  • dkulp — Linux: fixed Shader effect crashes and corrupt rendering with hardware OpenGL (#7052)
  • derwin12 — Moving Head effects with a drawn Path and Cycles > 1 no longer jump to a wild tilt/pan for one frame at each cycle boundary (#7113)
  • derwin12 — Moving Head effects moved, pasted or imported onto a different single-fixture moving head could render nothing until the effect panel was reopened (#7080)
  • derwin12 — Copying and pasting a Moving Head effect onto the model group it came from no longer collapses every fixture’s settings to one fixture’s
  • derwin12 — Moving Head Path Scale/Time Offset/Ignore Pan/Tilt edits no longer replace the selected heads’ path with one drawn for other heads
  • derwin12 — Moving Head Dimmer tab now shows the saved dimmer curve when the selected heads use different colors (#7133)
  • dkulp — Crashes in the Moving Head path sketch editor when closing an empty path, deleting handles, or dragging a path closed with a curve
  • dkulp — Moving Head effect panel could show an assert when the Path “crosses behind” warning appeared
  • derwin12 — Windows: Moving Head RGB color wheel picker was clipped and sized wrong
  • dkulp — Crash importing a GDTF moving-head fixture
  • dkulp — Shows and model imports from before 2024.05 with 3D moving heads failed to load (“Unknown model type: DmxMovingHead3D”); they are converted to Moving Head Adv again
  • dkulp — A single model that could not be loaded aborted loading the whole layout and could hang xLights on exit; it is now skipped and logged
  • derwin12 — Arches model’s starting location was wrong
  • AGFazio — Layout now rejects a blank model name (#7079)
  • derwin12 — Polyline: dragging a curve segment’s Bezier handle along the Z axis in 3D no longer snaps it to Z=0 and locks further Z movement (#7045)
  • derwin12 — Cloning a model group left both the original and the clone highlighted, with the property grid still editing the original (#7049)
  • derwin12 — Layout tab could open on the “Unassigned” preview instead of “Default” when the last-saved preview no longer existed, showing no models
  • derwin12 — Selecting a controller no longer loses its yellow “models on this controller” highlight in the layout preview when a model is moved
  • dkulp — 3D layout preview no longer crashes when hovering over models with Ctrl held after a model was deleted
  • dkulp — Fixed a crash changing a named preview’s background image, brightness, transparency or fill after that preview was deleted or another show folder was opened
  • bcole808,dkulp — Named preview background images, custom model background images and model dimming curve files were lost when the show folder was moved or opened on another machine
  • dkulp — Fixed a crash importing submodels when the model chosen in the import dialog no longer exists
  • derwin12 — Opening a sequence in read only mode (.xsqz) no longer allows the layout to be saved
  • dkulp — Dragging a smart remote onto an unexpected target in the Controller Visualiser no longer crashes
  • derwin12 — macOS: Controller Visualiser’s Print Preview screen now responds to clicks
  • dkulp — Import Effects groups are readable in dark mode again for layouts saved by 2024.09-2024.18
  • derwin12 — Importing effects from a sequence with embedded shaders, SVGs or text files now keeps them embedded
  • derwin12 — Import Effects from a plain .xsq now copies Video/Pictures/Shader/Glediator/Shape media into the target show folder, like a Sequence Package import, instead of referencing the source show folder
  • derwin12 — Import Effects now registers the media the imported effects use right away, so missing images and videos are flagged in the Media Manager without reopening the sequence
  • derwin12 — Import > Open Original File is disabled when the sequence has no recorded source, the record checkbox is hidden when remapping within the same sequence, and packaged sequences no longer include the list of sequences effects were imported from
  • scott — Import Channel Map’s saved mappings did not restore selected timing tracks or any model/strand/node mappings
  • derwin12 — Media Manager panel wasn’t refreshed after a media conversion
  • dkulp — macOS: uncompressed .mov files with certain widths (for example 50 pixels, 24-bit) were flagged as unsupported when the sequence opened even though they render correctly
  • dkulp — Windows/Linux: fixed a possible crash loading audio whose decoded length is longer than the file reports
  • dkulp — .fseq files: short zstd-compressed files could read back with wrong channel data, and truncated or corrupt files could crash or use huge amounts of memory
  • dkulp — Saving an .fseq could hang if compression failed, and zlib compression could drop data from extremely large frames
  • heffneil,dkulp — Fixed crashes in the Test dialog after typing in a tab’s name filter, or when a controller was removed while the controller tree was being built
  • derwin12 — Testing a submodel’s “Output to Lights” now sends the actual node colour of the highlighted node range instead of a flat test value
  • derwin12 — Declining to continue after an output failed to open left Stop Output doing nothing and controller properties greyed out until restart (#7071)
  • derwin12 — Controllers tab shows the global controller settings (Controller Sync, Global FPP Proxy, etc.) again when no controller is selected
  • derwin12 — Controller ping status now updates as soon as each ping returns instead of showing the previous result
  • dkulp — Crash uploading to a controller when the upload rebuilt its outputs
  • dkulp — FPP Connect’s Add FPP by IP now reliably finds Falcon V4/V5 controllers in player/remote mode
  • dkulp — FPP Connect no longer forgets manually added addresses when more than one has been added
  • pixelpropshop/dkulp — FPP Connect could restore old upload settings in place of a device’s current ones, and a choice set back to its default did not stick for some devices
  • derwin12 — FPP status checks could crash for many “other” controller types (#7147)
  • derwin12 — FPP upload no longer tries to upload a 3D Image Object’s or Mesh’s texture file that is missing locally, which could make the upload look stuck (#7098)
  • derwin12 — macOS: FPP Connect alternating rows no longer show as black
  • derwin12 — Falcon F16v4/v5 upload ignored a 4 channel colour order (e.g. WRGB) set on the model’s controller connection (#7085)
  • scott — Falcon “get media files” always returned an empty list
  • derwin12 — Crash uploading to a Falcon V4 controller when its media list returned file names as objects
  • dkulp — Crash exporting a HinksPix HSEQ from an FSEQ rendered with fewer channels than the current layout
  • scott — Import From Controller (Custom model dialog, Twinkly) silently did nothing
  • scott — Minleon controller connect could compute 0 ports instead of the real port count
  • scott — Discovered DDP controllers could have their channel count computed as 0
  • scott — Experience controller firmware version wasn’t detected when the version string didn’t start with “v” (#7078)
  • dkulp — Crash when the main window received a second close while exiting
  • dkulp — macOS: fixed a crash on exit when a 3D mouse sent motion after the app started shutting down
  • dkulp — macOS/iPad: a GPU buffer that could not be allocated (older Macs with little video memory, or a very large model) now falls back to rendering that layer on the CPU instead of crashing
  • dkulp — Windows: bundled third-party DLLs are now code signed so Windows 11 Smart App Control no longer blocks xLights from starting (#7044)
  • dkulp — Windows: crash reports could name an unrelated xLights function for a crash inside a system or driver DLL
  • dkulp — iPad – Undo after dragging, aligning or distributing a Model Set member now moves the whole Set back, and an align, flip, match size or bulk edit on several models undoes in one step
  • dkulp — iPad – Package Sequence could leave out external shader files after the app freed memory under pressure

Changes

  • heffneil — The sequencer prop filter is no longer saved into the sequence; models hidden by the filter in older sequences stay hidden until re-shown in Display Elements
  • dkulp — Crash reports now carry more detail: the fault address, signal and a backtrace taken at the moment of the fault, the machine configuration on every report, and the CPU name and real core count on ARM Linux machines such as a Raspberry Pi
  • derwin12 — The log now records what marked the layout or controllers as needing a save (#7137)