After an unplanned and extended hiatus due to personal struggles, I’m excited (and honestly, relieved) to officially announce that full support for QuickBox will resume on April 5, 2025.
And yes, I know today is April Fools’ Day, but I promise you… this is not a joke. The timing may seem oddly poetic, but it’s real, and it’s happening… finally.
I want to start by personally apologizing for my extended absence and the lack of support during that time. Life threw more at me than I expected, and unfortunately, it meant putting QuickBox – and this amazing community – on hold. That was never the plan, and I know it left many of you hanging. For that, I’m truly sorry.
But now… I’m back.
Not just back in name – but fully back in action, with my sleeves rolled up and a clear plan to bring QuickBox forward in a way that’s more manageable, more connected, and more exciting than ever before.
What’s Changing: Focused, Streamlined Support
Going forward, all support will be centralized exclusively through the QuickBox.IO Discord. This is an important shift to keep things sustainable – for both you and me.
Why the change?
- It gives us one clear place to chat and solve problems
- It removes the stress of juggling email, tickets, and random DMs
- It frees up more of my time for development and improvements
- The website will now act primarily as a documentation and update hub
QuickBox is a solo effort – just me – and keeping support clean and contained is key to making this work long-term.
Introducing: What’s Streaming Dashboard (WSD)
One of the first big features launching with my return is the What’s Streaming Dashboard – a powerful, real-time tool for monitoring and managing what’s happening on your server.
Supporting Emby and Jellyfin, the WSD gives you more control and visibility than ever.
But let me be transparent about something:
For the better part of a year, through late nights, way too much coffee, and the small gaps between real-life obligations, I’ve been deep in the dungeon quietly building this dashboard. While I couldn’t maintain the day-to-day consistency required for proper support during that time, I was far from idle. Coding gave me something I could pick up in bursts – something I could work on, step away from, and return to without completely breaking flow.
A special shoutout and huge thanks goes to mophawka – for his valuable insights into what features are truly needed on heavy-use streaming servers, and for graciously allowing me access to one of his very active environments to test WSD in real-world conditions. You, sir, are an incredible human. Your feedback, patience, and support (especially through my scatter-brained, sleep-deprived testing phases) meant the world and helped shape this into something I’m really proud to share with the community.
This feature wasn’t rushed. It was built over time – with care, with intention, and with the goal of making server visibility and control something you actually enjoy using.
Core Features:
- View all active streams in real time
- See bandwidth usage per user/session
- Get details on currently playing titles
- Track recently watched movies and episodes
Control & Automation:
- Automatically clean up old Emby/Jellyfin transcode files
- Auto-detect paused/idle streams and notify or stop them
- View logs of which users were warned or disconnected
- Pause, stop, or notify users manually from the dashboard
- Send mass notifications to all active users with a single click
And So Much More To Come!!!
Powered by the WSDaemon
WSD is backed by the WSDaemon (qbwsd.service), a background service that handles all the automation.
The daemon works behind the scenes to:
- Monitor stream activity continuously
- Detect and respond to paused or idle sessions
- Send automatic warnings and disconnections based on thresholds
- Maintain logs so you can always see what happened and when
This takes the heavy lifting off your plate and makes sure your server stays clean and efficient – even when you’re not watching it like a hawk.
What’s Ahead: Updates, Fixes, and Upgrades
Even during the hiatus, I still carved out time to push essential updates to QuickBox. Now that I’m fully back, I’ve got a long list of enhancements and fixes lined up, including:
- Core updates to improve system speed, compatibility, and flexibility
- Refreshes to the application stack, syncing with their upstream projects
- Squashing bugs that have been reported (and some that haven’t)
- General polish to make QuickBox smoother and smarter to use
This isn’t just a comeback – it’s a level-up.
Moving to GitHub for Feature Requests and Bug Tracking
To make the project more open and efficient, I’ll be syncing the public QuickBox infrastructure to GitHub. This is a big shift that will:
- Bring feature requests and bug reports into a single, trackable space
- Let you follow updates and contribute ideas directly in the repo
- Improve redundancy and transparency for the entire codebase
- Reduce the chaos of manually tracking reports from 10 different places
The more feedback and issues come through GitHub, the more I can focus on what matters most:
writing code and helping users – not chasing forum posts, old messages, or scattered tickets.
A Personal Thank You
If you’re still here, still using QuickBox, or even just reading this – thank you.
I know this project means a lot to many of you, and it means a lot to me too. Your support, patience, and kind messages over the past year and a half have helped keep this alive. I’m here now, and I’m all in.
Support resumes April 5.
QuickBox is back.
Let’s build what’s next… together.
❤️
~ JMSolo
Why April 5 and not today?
This isn’t four days of me sitting idly by, this is four days of finalizing infrastructure, syncing the codebase to GitHub, and getting all the pieces in place to ensure that when support returns, it does so with clarity, consistency, and a stronger foundation moving forward.
