VortX 0.5.1: Apple TV Profiles, History Import and Smoother Sync

Build 268. VortX 0.5.1 fixes profiles that never finished loading on real Apple TV hardware, brings in watch history saved by older VortX versions where it can be merged safely, and includes everything from 0.5.0 Beta 6. These Apple packages are built locally from the tagged source. This is the Latest release, so the download links on vortx.tv serve it. The automatic-update feeds are unchanged.

Fixed

• Apple TV profiles never loading. On a real Apple TV (not the simulator), VortX tried to keep your profiles in a storage location tvOS does not allow apps to create, so profiles never finished loading. Home showed "Waiting for this profile's acknowledged account and Continue Watching settings", Library kept spinning and nothing opened. Apple TV now keeps this data where tvOS allows it. If tvOS ever clears that space to free up storage, VortX simply reloads your account from the cloud.
• History saved by older VortX versions. Older versions, such as an Apple TV still on 0.4, save watch history in an older format. Some of those changes could not be merged, and one such change blocked the rest. VortX now merges the changes it can safely place in time, such as watch progress and newly watched titles, and sets aside only the rest. Newer progress from your current devices is never overwritten by older data.
• Trakt and SIMKL caches on Apple TV. These now use the same allowed storage location instead of silently failing to save.
• Clearer diagnostics. If profiles cannot load because of a system error, the diagnostics log now names the error type, so it can be fixed quickly.

Included from 0.5.0 Beta 6

• Profiles that would not finish loading and Sync Now failing on iPhone, iPad and Mac.
• Playback no longer uploads your whole account every few seconds. Watch progress syncs 15 seconds after you pause or stop, or at most once a minute while you keep watching.
• Resuming after a long pause no longer waits before restarting the stream.
• Player controls respond to a single tap on iPhone and iPad, and use your profile colour while staying readable over bright scenes.
• Apple TV catalogs, details and trailers keep loading when one add-on returns a broken response. Thanks to xdavcop for the detailed report (#261).
• Discover on iPhone no longer wraps into "D / is", and the Mac no longer keeps asking for Keychain access to its installation key.

Update every device you use. Once a device on 0.5.1 saves to your account, older VortX versions can no longer upload to it. They keep their local data and playback, but need updating to sync again. Apple TVs that are still on 0.4 should update so their watching syncs again.

Known issue. Connecting Trakt or SIMKL is not available in these locally built packages. It will return in a following update.

Android. This release is Apple only. VortX is Apple first, and the Android APK is an early technical preview rather than the finished app, so expect missing features and rough edges there.

Please test

• Apple TV: open VortX and pick your profile. Home, Library and Continue Watching should load, and your recent history should appear.
• On any device, Sync Now should succeed, and a change on one device should show up on the others.
• On Apple TV, pause for more than a minute, then press Play: playback should resume within a couple of seconds.

Install

Mac (.dmg). Download VortX-macOS-v0.5.1.dmg, drag VortX into Applications, then clear Apple's one-time quarantine: open it once, click Done, then System Settings > Privacy & Security > Open Anyway (or run xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/VortX.app). The Mac app is for Apple silicon, needs macOS 14 or later, and is ad-hoc signed rather than notarized. macOS may ask for your password so VortX can use its saved sign-in information in Keychain after replacing the app; approve only a prompt that names VortX, and do not delete Keychain entries or sign out to get past a sync error. Step-by-step guide: Install on Mac.

iPhone, iPad, Apple TV (sideload the IPA). The IPAs are unsigned, because VortX is open-source and distributed outside the App Store with no Apple Developer ID yet, so you re-sign them yourself with Sideloadly, AltStore / SideStore, or Signulous. No jailbreak. Use VortX-iOS-v0.5.1.ipa for iPhone and iPad. On Apple TV, VortX-tvOS-v0.5.1.ipa is VortX TV with Top Shelf, and VortX-tvOS-lite-v0.5.1.ipa is VortX TV Lite without it; both need tvOS 18 or later. Step-by-step guide: Installing on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV.

These packages were built locally from the tagged source rather than by the GitHub Actions workflow. SHA256SUMS-v0.5.1.txt lists a SHA-256 checksum for each file so you can confirm your download is intact.

vortx-platforms: apple