Release Notes for Flix 6.3.7

This document includes Release Notes for Flix 6.3.7 and Flix Server 6.3.7-1.

Release Notes for Flix Server 6.3.7-1

Release Date

10th November 2021

This server-only update does not require any update to your 6.3.7 Flix Client app.

For a detailed guide on upgrading to Flix 6.3.7, refer to the Upgrading to Flix 6.3.7 section at the bottom of this page.

Bug Fixes

Under the Hood

• ID 492945 - Importing large numbers of panels or publishing simultaneously from multiple clients occasionally caused Flix Server to become unresponsive.

Release Notes for Flix 6.3.7

Release Date

9th September 2021

For a detailed guide on upgrading to Flix 6.3.7, refer to the Upgrading to Flix 6.3.7 section at the bottom of this page.

New Features/Feature Enhancements

• ID 467912 - File Transfer Improvements.

• ID 457565 - Photoshop 2021 Support.

• ID 460163 - Storyboard Pro 20 Support.

Article:  When importing from Storyboard Pro 20, dialogue for panels will not get transferred over to Flix. Please refer to this Knowledge Base Article for more information.

• ID 439362 - macOS Big Sur Support.

• ID 470283 - The latency between Flix Client and Flix Server will be displayed on the right of the status bar. If the latency is higher than the recommended maximum or the server does not send back a valid date, a warning will be shown in amber.

• ID 469602: A link to the Flix tutorials webpage has been included in the Help menu.

• ID 468165: Save button will now be disabled immediately upon save, showing a loading icon while the save is in progress and disabling once the save is finished.

• ID 475400: Added Flix 5 panel data to panel properties, if the panel was migrated from a Flix 5 project.

Bug Fixes

• ID 458646 - Upon disabling or losing network connectivity (including VPN), Flix will show the "Reconnecting to server" pop-up.

• ID 457768 - Opening panels from Flix, in Photoshop, will no longer generate unnecessary artwork copies across the local temp directories.

• ID 434339 - Download requests from Flix Client will now be spread equally across all available servers.

• ID 472158 - The import modal for Photoshop and Manual Imports will no longer open and close multiple times per import.

• ID 468721 - The 'Send Thumbnails' button on the Photoshop plugin would not work if the language setting in Photoshop wasn't set to English. All buttons on the plugin will now work regardless of the language setting.

• ID 470446 - When sending thumbnails from Photoshop to Flix, only the necessary frames/layer comps will be sent, excluding any invisible layers.

• ID 473227 - Flix now adds more logs for the publish process to trace potential errors better.

• ID 469043 - Flix will now disable Photoshop plugin buttons during an import, either manual import or import from Photoshop, in order to prevent panels created out of order.

• ID 472643 - Unnecessary files have been removed from the 'flix.zxp'.

• ID 468935 - Flix will now import successfully when switching server with a fresh database.

• ID 480223 - Flix now stores up to 10 log files for both the client and the transfer utility.

• ID 467145 - Flix displays an error message to the user when the client loses connection to the server. This error message would persist upon the next successful attempt to log in. This message no longer persists unless the client is still unable to connect to the server.

• ID 477328 - LDAP login processes have been improved to prevent chance of Flix servers locking up while logging in with LDAP and TLS active.

• ID 462828 - Panels duplicated in Flix are now stored as duplicates in the database.

• ID 474286 - If a manual import into Flix had failed it would then be impossible to complete any further imports into the panel browser. Flix will now recover after failed imports, allowing users to continue working.

• ID 462830 - Duplicated clips from Avid would always create new panels in Flix. Now, duplicated clips will create a new panel upon its first import into Flix, but they will be reused after each subsequent import.

• ID 470900 - Fixed transferring large files failing to transfer when their sizes total at least 900Mb, due to connections timing out, primarily when using VPN or slower connections.

• ID 470774 - Improved reliability and efficiency of server-to-server communication, particularly under heavy load.

• ID 476699 - When hitting a transfer error during an import it was impossible to save the revision, meaning any panels that had imported successfully were lost and the UI became unstable. Now users are given the option to delete all panels that failed to transfer and save the revision. This will ensure that users can continue working.

• ID 470313 - Improved error handling in cases where thumbnails fail to be created. These panels will now show an appropriate icon in the panel thumbnail and a tooltip stating what the error is.

• ID 481968 - Updating an existing camera move from Storyboard Pro would cause those panels to version up upon each subsequent import, regardless of whether a change was made or not. Now panels will only version up if they have been edited in Storyboard Pro.

• ID 484320 - Adding keyframes to existing panels from Storyboard Pro on a second import would cause the keyframes to be applied incorrectly. This would result in an incorrect camera move. It is now possible to add keyframes to existing panels without breaking the camera move.

• ID 485810 - Improved PDF creation script to work across all Flix versions. https://github.com/TheFoundryVisionmongers/flix-scripts

• ID 480730 - Flix will return a 'Forbidden' error when a user requests a show without the correct group permissions when using the API. This prevents unauthorised users from creating PDFs using the PDF creation script.

• ID 487450 - Flix Client now sends publish emails post request header with the correct date/time to avoid the Flix Server logging out the user.

System Requirements

Flix Server

Mac

Big Sur (11), Catalina (10.15) or Mojave (10.14)

A 64 bit processor @ 2GHz minimum (2 CPU cores minimum, 12 CPU cores recommended, 12 vcpu* for a VM)

8GB of RAM minimum, 32GB of RAM recommended

*tested using VMWare vSphere.

Minimum bandwidth requirements: We cannot guarantee that Flix will work if your internet speed is below 4 Mbps. For the optimal experience of Flix, we recommend using an internet speed of or above 16 Mbps.

Linux

CentOS/RHEL 6.10 or CentOS/RHEL 7 (recommended)

A 64 bit processor @ 2GHz minimum (2CPU cores minimum, 12 CPU cores recommended, 12 vcpu* for a VM)

8GB of RAM minimum, 32GB of RAM recommended

*tested using VMWare vSphere.

Minimum bandwidth requirements: We cannot guarantee that Flix will work if your internet speed is below 4 Mbps. For the optimal experience of Flix, we recommend using an internet speed of or above 16 Mbps.

Note:  Flix Server is currently not available on Windows. Other operating system versions may work with Flix, but have not been fully tested. If you have any problems with a particular operating system, please contact the Foundry Support Team here.

Flix Client

Mac

Big Sur (11), Catalina (10.15) or Mojave (10.14)

1 GB of RAM

Windows

Windows 10

An Intel Pentium 4 processor or later that's SSE2 capable

1 GB of RAM

Note:  Flix Client is currently not available on Linux. Other operating system versions may work with Flix, but have not been fully tested. If you have any problems with a particular operating system, please contact the Foundry Support Team here.

Third-Party Application Support

Applications

Supported Versions

Adobe Photoshop

CC 2019, CC 2020, 2021

Adobe Premiere

CC 2019, CC 2020

Avid Media Composer

2018, 2019, 2020

Toon Boom Storyboard Pro

7, 20

Note:  Older versions may work, but they haven’t been fully tested with Flix 6.5, so they cannot be listed as officially supported.
If you have any problems with a particular application's version, please contact the Foundry Support Team here.

Upgrading to Flix 6.3.7

This update requires end users to upgrade Flix Client to version 6.3.7.

From Flix 6.3.5 or 6.3.6

DB upgrade (v28 -> v29) - see Upgrading Flix for more information.

Photoshop Plugin update - see Manually Installing the Photoshop Plug-in for End Users for more information.

From Flix 6.3.3 or 6.3.4

DB upgrade (v26 -> v28) - see Upgrading Flix for more information.

PS Plugin update - see Manually Installing the Photoshop Plug-in for End Users for more information.

From Flix 6.3.0, 6.3.1, or 6.3.2

DB upgrade (v25 -> v27) - see Upgrading Flix for more information.

PS Plugin update - see Manually Installing the Photoshop Plug-in for End Users for more information.

From a pre-6.3 version (e.g. 6.2.2)

DB upgrade ( -> v27) - see Upgrading Flix for more information.

Asset migration is recommended, but not required.

Note:  Although not required for 6.3, we recommend performing the asset migration eventually, as future minor (e.g. 6.5) and major (e.g. 7.0) releases may not support assets stored outside of show subdirectories.

PS Plugin update - see Manually Installing the Photoshop Plug-in for End Users for more information.

Server configuration changes - see Server Configuration for more information.