SparkBox patches — Sun Oct 18, 2026
Posted by Chris
SparkBox releases shipped on Sun Oct 18, 2026 (UTC), in order, newest at the bottom. This thread is updated as releases land during the day. Update from the SparkBox dashboard, or run sudo sparkbox upgrade on your SparkBox host. Legend boxes get every release the day it ships; free boxes get it after it has run there for a week. If a problem remains after updating, submit a private support ticket or reply below with the app name, what you expected, and what happened instead. Earlier days: Sat Oct 17, 2026 · Fri Oct 16, 2026 · Thu Oct 15, 2026 · Wed Oct 14, 2026 · Tue Oct 13, 2026 · Mon Oct 12, 2026 · Sun Oct 11, 2026 v1.6.966 — Your backups are now private to SparkBox - Backups: the backup files SparkBox makes (with sudo sparkbox backup, and in the dashboard's Backup Center) hold your settings and the passwords SparkBox made for your apps. Until now any other account on the box, and any app that can see the SparkBox folder, could open them. New backups are now readable only by SparkBox itself (and, when you save one to your own drive with --dest, by you), and backups already in the SparkBox backups folder are locked down the next time the dashboard starts. Backup Center still lists, downloads and restores them as before. Nothing to do; if copying a backup off the box now says permission denied, copy it with sudo cp. v1.6.967 — Internet-facing boxes now say loudly when a security update is waiting - Security: if your SparkBox was set up to be reachable from the internet (for example on a VPS) and a security fix has been released that it doesn't have yet, the dashboard now shows a red "Security update needed" banner at the top of the Overview with an Update now button, and if you have notifications turned on, sends you one notification about it. The banner goes away once the box has updated. Boxes on a home network are not affected. If the box is too old to update from the dashboard, the banner tells you the one command to run instead. - Privacy: the anonymous update report your box sends after an update now also says whether the box is set up as internet-facing or home. It carries nothing that identifies the box, and it lets us check that security fixes really reach the boxes that need them most. v1.6.968 — Hold an app on its version, pause your own changes, and catch typos before they're saved - Updates: when an app update is waiting, the Updates page now shows which version it moves from and to, and a Hold button next to Update. A held app stays on the version it runs now and skips that update, including automatic updates. The hold ends by itself when a later SparkBox release moves the app to a newer version, or when you press Release hold. The page reminds you if an app has been held for more than 30 days. A few updates that every SparkBox needs can't be held. - Your own changes to an app (Settings → Your box → overrides, in the Classic dashboard) now have Pause my changes: the app restarts with SparkBox's own settings and your override is kept, so you can check whether it is what's causing a problem, then resume it or remove it. The checkup lists paused overrides, and Tom AI suggests pausing first. - Install forms: a setting can now say what it expects (a port, a server address, a web address). The form tells you right away when a value doesn't fit, and the box refuses it too, so a mistyped value never reaches your settings file. The Usenet server and port fields are the first to use it.