SparkBox 1.6.496: Nvidia hardware transcoding arrives — and the support backlog hits zero
Posted by tomspark
Second release today, and it's a milestone: every single item in the support backlog is now fixed, answered, or verifiably not a bug. Tom set the bar at clearing all of it — this is that release. Nvidia GPUs finally do the work. If your box has an Nvidia card, set Hardware Transcoding to nvidia in Settings → Media and Jellyfin, Tdarr, Emby, Plex, ErsatzTV and Immich all use it. Missing the driver or the container toolkit? Apps keep working on CPU and sudo sparkbox doctor tells you exactly which piece to install. GPU transcoding stops vanishing after updates. A long-standing hole meant a nightly update or a dashboard-triggered restart could quietly drop GPU access until a reboot — if your transcoding has felt mysteriously slow lately, this one's for you. The box now detects the GPU straight from the kernel, so updates can't forget it. The scary installer message that lied. On some NASes (Synology especially), installing ended with 'Release is not authentic. Do NOT retry' when nothing was wrong with the download at all. The installer now tests its own tools first, rules out a stale download-cache, and only raises that alarm when it's real — and it shows the actual error, so if you do hit it, support can actually help. Doctor got sharper. It now checks whether Plex can really reach plex.tv (the invisible reason claim codes kept failing), tests the exact path Tailscale uses to deliver your phone's connection to your apps, and covers AdGuard's port-53 conflict the way it always covered Pi-hole's. Honesty, everywhere else: the red Radarr/Sonarr 'downloads folder does not appear to exist' warning heals itself; sudo sparkbox passwords no longer cuts off halfway through its list; backups stop quietly swelling (statistics history, scratch space and logs stay out — and the Backups screen now says so); a filling disk or an expiring certificate can reach your phone; the storage donut finally shows a Backups slice; Windows (WSL2) boxes say upfront that their addresses only work on that PC; and Tdarr can put its transcode cache on a fast SSD (a Legend request). Also: marketing emails now stop after a refund, and the unsubscribe link asks for one confirming click instead of firing when a mail scanner merely previews it. Plus security improvements. Update: Settings → Updates → Update SparkBox (or sudo sparkbox upgrade over SSH). Full list: https://tomsparkbox.com/changelog