- Performance: `xc_get_epg` now uses `select_related('epg_data__epg_source')` on all three channel fetch paths. Previously each request triggered 2 additional queries to resolve `channel.epg_data` and `channel.epg_data.epg_source`.
- Performance: `generate_m3u` now uses `prefetch_related` for streams when `?direct=true` is requested, eliminating N+1 stream queries (one per channel) on that code path.
- Performance: `EPGGridAPIView` (`apps/epg/api_views.py`) now uses `select_related('epg_data__epg_source')` on the `channels_with_custom_dummy` queryset, eliminating 2 extra queries per channel (for `epg_data` and `epg_source`) in the dummy EPG generation loop.
- `generate_epg` now uses `select_related('epg_data__epg_source')` on all EPG channel querysets
- `generate_epg` now issues a single cross-channel `ProgramData` bulk query. `.values()` returns plain dicts
- `xc_get_live_streams` no longer calls `ChannelGroup.objects.get_or_create(name="Default Group")` once per null-group channel
- Rewrote the M3U line parser as an `iter_m3u_entries` generator that owns the full per-entry state machine. Intermediate directive lines between `#EXTINF` and the stream URL are now handled correctly rather than corrupting the pending entry or being silently misassigned. A `#EXTINF` with no following URL is discarded with a warning instead of carrying over a `url`-less entry into batch processing. Attribute keys are normalised to lowercase during parsing (provider attribute names remain case-insensitive end-to-end). The `#EXTINF` attribute regex is pre-compiled at module load, and attribute lookups use O(1) `dict.get()` instead of linear scans — approximately 10% faster parsing on large M3U files.
- Added support for the `#EXTGRP` directive in M3U files. When a `group-title` attribute is absent from the `#EXTINF` line, the value from a following `#EXTGRP:` line is used as the group. An explicit `group-title` attribute always takes priority. (Closes#1088)
- Added accumulation of `#EXTVLCOPT` directives per entry. Options are stored as a list under `vlc_opts` inside the stream's `custom_properties`, available for downstream use (e.g. passing VLC-specific options to the player). This is for a planned future enhancement and can also be utlized with the API.
- Set `DEFAULT_PERMISSION_CLASSES` to `Authenticated` in the DRF configuration.
- Explicitly marked the HDHomeRun discovery endpoints (`DiscoverAPIView`, `LineupAPIView`, `LineupStatusAPIView`, `HDHRDeviceXMLAPIView`) and the version endpoint with `permission_classes = [AllowAny]` to document their intentionally public access now that the global default is `Authenticated`.
- Removed dead VOD URL routes: `VODPlaylistView` (playlist generation), `VODPositionView` (position tracking), and the class-based `VODStatsView` (replaced by the existing function-based `vod_stats` view).
- Removed dead `updateVODPosition()` API method from `frontend/src/api.js`, which called the now-removed position tracking endpoint.
fix: use psycopg2.sql for safe database drop and create commands
fix: Also check POSTGRES_SSL is true before skipping default POSTGRES_PASSWORD
fix: update usage comment to reflect correct script path
fix: improve cleanup logic to conditionally remove certificate directory
- EPG refresh tasks (`refresh_epg_data`) were being killed mid-transaction on large EPG sources. The `soft_time_limit=1700s` introduced in v0.21.0 raised `SoftTimeLimitExceeded`, a subclass of `Exception`, which was swallowed by the existing `except Exception` handler in `parse_programs_for_source`, leaving the database in a partial state with no logged error. The underlying cause is that the HTML entity preprocessing step added in v0.21.0 adds 2–10+ minutes on multi-gigabyte EPG files, pushing total task duration past the 1700s limit for large sources. `soft_time_limit` has been removed from `refresh_epg_data` and `time_limit` raised to 14400s (4 hours) as a true last-resort ceiling; the existing `TaskLockRenewer` daemon thread continues to renew the Redis lock every 120s for legitimately long-running tasks.
- HTML entity preprocessing (`_resolve_html_entities`) now performs a fast binary pre-scan before any file read or write. The pre-scan reads the file in 4 MB chunks without text decoding and exits immediately on the first non-XML named entity found. For EPG sources that contain no HTML entities — the common case — the full line-by-line read+rewrite pass (which takes 2–10+ minutes on a 2.5 GB file) is skipped entirely.
- Web UI stream preview (`FloatingVideo`) was calling `mpegts.createPlayer()` with all `Config` options (e.g. `enableWorker`, `liveSync`, `headers`) merged into the first `MediaDataSource` argument. mpegts.js only reads `Config` from the optional second argument; unrecognised fields in the first are silently ignored. As a result all player configuration was effectively the library defaults — worker offloading was disabled, latency management had no effect, and the `Authorization: Bearer` header (required for user identification) was never sent. Fixed by splitting into the correct two-argument call. Both `liveBufferLatencyChasing` and `liveSync` have been disabled, eliminating playback-rate fluctuations that caused audible stuttering on live streams. SourceBuffer cleanup thresholds were also relaxed from 10s/5s to 120s/60s to prevent frequent SourceBuffer pauses.
- Web UI stream preview now sends an `Authorization: Bearer` header with each mpegts.js request, identifying the logged-in user. Live channel previews initiated from the web UI now appear on the Stats page with the correct username rather than as unknown user.
- Connection cards on the Stats page now show the **username** of the connected user in a new User column (between IP Address and Connected). The username is resolved from the user store using the `user_id` stored in Redis client metadata; unauthenticated connections display "Anonymous". (Closes#766)
- `ip_address` and `user_id` were not included in the client info returned by `get_detailed_channel_info()` despite being available in the Redis hash. Both fields are now extracted and returned. (Closes#586)
