VortX 0.5.6 beta 2: Safer Profiles, Playback Recovery and Lighter TV Updates

Build 276. This beta fixes more cases where older profiles could not open, stops the player getting stuck in repeated recovery after a seek, and cuts unnecessary work during Apple TV playback. It also updates intro and credit detection, fixes control auto-hide behaviour and makes switching profiles safer for Continue Watching and Watch Stats.

Fixed

• Older profiles that would not open (#262, #265). Some saved profile display settings could be rejected during import even though they were valid older values. Those values are recognised without rewriting the original saved data. Recovery also distinguishes a missing saved copy from one that could not be read, so a read failure does not give the app permission to replace it with an empty account. This addresses the identified import and recovery failures, not every possible sign-in or sync problem.
• The player recovering again and again after skipping credits or seeking. Two recovery paths could each retry the same failing part of a video. They now share a retry limit, so one cannot keep restarting what the other has already tried. An unfinished episode keeps its resume position and is not marked watched or advanced to the next episode to hide the error. A source that ends before the video is actually finished can still fail; this change stops the recovery loop, not the remote source ending early.
• Player controls staying on screen. The auto-hide timer now follows the current interaction rather than an earlier one. Covered playback preparation also runs away from the main interface thread, reducing work that competes with taps and remote input.
• Intro and credit timings (#266). Apple and Android now use IntroDB's v4 API. A late response for the previous episode cannot replace the current episode's timings. Apple TV also applies timing updates to the matching episode, and Android checks cached results before using them.
• Switching profiles while history or statistics are loading. An older Continue Watching import or Watch Stats calculation keeps the profile it started with. Finishing that work cannot publish its results into a different profile or clear a newer import's loading state.
• Mac playback-server shutdown and recovery. Quitting waits for the playback server started by that app to shut down, and restart attempts are limited. A server that fails to stop is reported instead of silently starting more copies.

Changed

• Less repeated work while watching on Apple TV. Up Next checks that cannot show anything yet stop before sorting and building the episode list. Decorative seeking updates also do less work. These are targeted reductions, not a claim that every player-control delay is resolved.
• Lighter Home, catalog and history updates. Home reads its hidden-section settings once when building its rows, and catalog sorting reads the saved order once per operation. Watched-history imports reuse repeated evidence and avoid redundant retry checks without dropping pending history. Discover listens more narrowly for the changes its screen needs.
• More consistent controls. Shared glass and Effects Off rules, disabled buttons and Mac text colours are more consistent across the updated controls. This is not a complete visual redesign.

Android

Android gets the IntroDB v4 update, matching-episode response handling and cached-result checks.

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

Please test

• Open the app with your existing account, especially if profiles failed to open on 0.5.5. Check that your profiles, add-ons, settings and history are present. If it still fails, export diagnostics; do not reset your account or delete Keychain items as a workaround.
• On Apple TV, bring up the controls during playback, seek and use Skip Intro or Skip Credits where available. Check whether controls appear promptly and hide after you stop interacting. If there is still a delay, include your Apple TV model and a fresh diagnostic export in the report.
• If a stream ends early, check that recovery does not keep reopening the same failing point and that the episode has not been marked watched or advanced incorrectly.
• Switch profiles while Continue Watching or Watch Stats is loading, then check that each profile keeps its own results.
• On Mac, check control auto-hide and normal quitting after playback.

This is a prerelease for testing, not a replacement for stable 0.5.5. The full Swift 6 migration and wider performance cleanup are not finished, and smoothness still needs testing on real devices. Profile recovery cannot restore an encryption key that has already been lost. Stable update feeds and download redirects are unchanged.

Install

Mac (.dmg). Download VortX-macOS-v0.5.6-beta.2-ci.dmg and drag VortX into Applications. If macOS blocks the app downloaded from this official release, use System Settings > Privacy & Security > Open Anyway, or run:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/VortX.app

The command removes the download quarantine flag; it does not notarize the app or change its signature. 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. Step-by-step guide: Install on Mac.

iPhone, iPad, Apple TV (sideload the IPA). The IPAs are unsigned and need to be re-signed with a compatible sideloading tool or signing service, such as Sideloadly, AltStore / SideStore, or Signulous. No jailbreak. Use VortX-iOS-v0.5.6-beta.2-ci.ipa for iPhone and iPad. On Apple TV, VortX-tvOS-v0.5.6-beta.2-ci.ipa is VortX TV with Top Shelf, and VortX-tvOS-lite-v0.5.6-beta.2-ci.ipa is VortX TV Lite without it; both need tvOS 18 or later. Step-by-step guide: Installing on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV.

Android phone, tablet and TV. VortX-0.5.6-full-mpv-universal.apk includes VortX Player. VortX-0.5.6-play-media3-universal.apk is the Media3 variant. Each APK contains both the phone and the Android TV interface. Choose the variant you already use so it installs over your current version. The Play bundle is also attached for its distribution workflow.

All seven packages are built by the public release workflows from v0.5.6-beta.2. SHA256SUMS.txt lists the package checksums, and VortX-Hosted-Direct-Beta-Provenance.json records the source, build and package verification details.

Release verification. These are the unchanged packages from the successful beta 2 builds. Their final checks use a separately reviewed recovery verifier for a CI receipt-format mismatch. The original automated receipt check remains affected; its producer fix is reserved for beta 3. The attached provenance records the recovery verification separately from the app's build source.