Inventu Viewer+ Software Updates

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Inventu Viewer+ Setups 2022F2

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Improved Support for Concurrent User Licenses, New Diagnostics Dashboard and Additional Fixes and Enhancements

Inventu Viewer+ Base Product and Components

(Version: 6.0.69 June 22, 2022)

FlyServer Emulation Service

  • Clustered sessions and user statistics / allocations further enhanced to enable better management of clustered servers.
  • For subscription renewals, the Inventu Viewer Emulation Service will detect a refreshed license avoiding the need for a service restart/downtime. This will occur within an hour of using the FVLicense tool to refresh the subscription, or with a Console port command provided to customers in instructions for renewing a subscription.
  • A new timeout for SSH Logon implemented which defaults to 1 minute for each phase (userID then password) so that an idle session that was never connected will timeout faster to keep sessions available. Set in the Host Configuration in Tuning: SSH Timeout for UserID and Password Entry.
  • List Console port command now includes Most sessions/users and uptime statistics in the returned XML
  • SSH Handler code hardened to prevent exceptions during multi-threaded impacts of stopping an active SSH session.
  • 3270 IND$File transfer receives were mis-handling the Telnet 0xFF escape character if in the received file data leading to incorrect data buffers and invalid file contents. Examples would be an XLS excel file received in binary mode.
  • ASCII screen scrolling was further enhanced to support rapid buffer receives from the host when the new “Scroll Cleared Screen Lines” Profile setting is active. Without the enhancement, additional screens buffered during rapid user “page downs” would not be sent to the client successfully.
  • Logging of buffers containing telnet 0xFF escapes that are part of unknown handshake sequences are now logged in the data folder even if tracing is not active.
  • During a service stop/restart, a new Event Log entry has been added so that the Diagnostics Dashboard events analyzer can differentiate from a controlled service stop and a crash or other termination. This also will log the maximum session/user activity during the execution of the service.
  • A number of Event Log entries were elevated to Error from Warning to ensure better use during diagnostics
  • SSH disconnect could cause rare thread race on the socket thread.
  • For ASCII protocols VTxxx, SCO-ANSI, XTerm added support for UTF-8 line/box-drawing characters. Not a full UTF-8 Unicode support—only the simple line-drawing characters also supported by the VT100+ emulations.
  • For clustered servers new internal detection of issues with free and active sessions and users (for user-based licenses). Internal repair functions implemented to re-build free and active linked-lists.
  • For clustered servers additional multi-threading protection implemented to address rare cases when a heavily loaded server resulted in damaged free and active session lists.
  • New session logging added to assist in diagnosing session issues with heavily loaded clustered servers, as well as standard servers.
  • For clustered servers with user-based licensing, if a server in the cluster was down or on hold, another server in the cluster that was allocating new sessions on behalf of the down server would mis-count each session as a new user session so that new users would not be able to connect.
  • User based licensing was not clearing stopped sessions from a user’s internal list in certain situations, resulting in reduced maximum sessions per user.

Diagnostics Dashboard (NEW!)

  • Access from the TaskBar Notification Icon context menu
  • New Administration tool for identifying active issues with the current Viewer emulation service and FVTerm.
  • New high-level Event Log analysis and display tool
  • Can save active diagnostic files and event log to a zip file for sending to Inventu Support
  • Can save and import active configuration components for backing-up or copying to another server to replicate a configuration—also for sending to Inventu Support if requested.

FVTerm Web Terminal Emulation

  • ASCII connections can now have all screens scrolled along with TTY style scrolling. This provides a large scrolling area in the terminal screen matching functionality of desktop emulators like Putty.  This is configured in the Advanced section of the Profile following the Scroll History Maximum Lines setting using the “Scroll Cleared Screen Lines” checkbox.
  • Added new setting to control scrolling for ASCII terminals—enables users to control whether a screen clear is scrolled or not—scrolling must be active in the Profile setting.
  • Updated the FVHealth.aspx and BalanceInfo.aspx load balancing components to use the HostConnection.availableLicenses instead of HostConnection.availableSessions so that load balancing in a user-based licensing will accommodate at-capacity situations better.
  • When a DeviceID or LUName is configured, the user can now include a Telnet/TLS port to connect to with the syntax LUName:port (example: AB22ZAZ:20992). This is for environments where users are given both an LUName as well as a host port for connection details.  The message has been tweaked (in all languages) to reflect the optional port entry.
  • AzureAD HTTP cookies can expire resulting in a blank userid in a connection—this is now detected so that a new AzureAD context can be acquired during connection. Usually this will not require the user to re-enter credentials.
  • Added new exception handler for the TermStart web service to protect against hacking / stack test attacks.
  • Implemented a number of fixes identified by penetration testing to further harden the FVTerm web application.
  • A regression was fixed with 5250 screens where an uncommonly used color for the background of a character cell would cause escape sequences appearing in the HTML instead of the color change.
  • Initialization of the websocket handler sometimes raced with the flyserver.exe service leading to incorrectly allocated structures.
  • New Web Server Security setting – Strict User Checking which defaults false and when checked/true, will validate active user identity with any reconnection to a session. In version 6.0.60 this was always on which can lead to “false negatives” in some browser and cookie management environments.
  • Websockets additional internal diagnostics and error recovery
  • Added exception handling for an IIS cookie decryption error caused by a cookie created on one server in a cluster then accessed in the other server when the first server has no more sessions.

Viewer MMC Console

  • New User-based Licensing support—can now right-click on a Server (User View) or a Cluster (All Users List View) and view active users. The view is grouped by user with each user’s active sessions displayed under the user’s ID.  For the Cluster, all users across the servers in the cluster are shown in alphabetic order.  Sessions for a user can be viewed like any other session.

ViewerLib API

  • Added a new property to the HostScreen class object: scrollClearedLines to help assist in the server-side management of this new VT/ASCII terminal profile option. The first implementation performed scrolling of cleared screens at the client, which then lost rapid screen sends by the host.  When scrollClearedLines is set true for an active HostScreen object, scrolling is managed in the service as well as the client.
  • Added new HostConnection readonly property- availableLicenses which is to provide better management of clustered servers with concurrent user This is used by the FVHealth.aspx load balancer inquiry instead of availableSessions which leads to inaccurate counts to be used when a server hits capacity in user-based licensing.  The new availableLicenses will return the session count for standard session-based licenses and return the user count for user-based licenses.
  • Cleared internal structure used in a number of commands that had rare negative impacts on results in the FlyServer service

Viewer Administration Console

  • Added “Most Sessions/Users” and “Uptime” statistics to the upper-right information area. Most sessions will provide the most sessions (or Users for user-based licensing) that were active at any one time during the current execution of the service

Viewer Taskbar Notification Tray Icon

  • Installer was incorrectly setting-up auto-start for this icon—it will now correctly auto-start when the server is restarted.
  • Re-aligned some of the menu items for the context/right-click menu
  • Added new Diagnostics Dashboard which is described in its own category

Profiles Mode Configuration

  • Profile: For ASCII terminal types a new Advanced setting enabling all screen data to be scrolled during a session.  This is configured in the Advanced section of the Profile following the “Scroll History Maximum Lines” setting using the “Scroll Cleared Screen Lines” checkbox.  Note that this is only visible if the Scroll History Maximum Lines setting is non-Zero.
  • Host Setting: when it is an ASCII type and SSH is selected, “SSH Timeout for UserID and Password Entry” is new. This defaults to 60 seconds and applies to each step.  If a user leaves a screen and doesn’t enter either the UserID or Password within the set time, the session is closed and available for another user.

Inventu Viewer+ Setups 2022C4

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Assorted Fixes and Enhancements

Inventu Viewer+ Base Product and Components

(Version: 6.0.60 March 29, 2022)

FlyServer Emulation Service

  • Session management improved to avoid issues with high-volume, rapid connections and disconnections– particularly improving clustered servers with SSH.
  • The TN5250 IBMi MNUBAR field type and drop-down is now supported, with proper highlighting, cursor styling and click support. This now makes this simulated drop-down menu option for the IBMi / AS400 platform more useable with mouse-only operation.
  • ASCII protocols like VT220 had columns for “normal” and “wide” hard-coded to 80 and 132. These settings will now utilize the Normal and Alternate columns and rows as defined in the configuration.  This allows applications that work best at “always” 132 columns to be setup that way—note 2022C3 had a regression for certain VT buffers resulting in the cursor positioning at row 1, column 1.
  • Custom ASCII keys processing that reads the c:\program files\inventu\viewer\definitions\terminfo.txt file had a bug in regards to the DELETE (“dch1”)  The dch1 was not processed, thus only the internal DELETE (0x7f) would ever be used regardless of the Terminfo definition.
  • TN5250 Device Printing would break if more than one print job is sent together. A header value differentiating a short header as a separator instead of the end of the full job was not being utilized.  Fixed in this build.
  • TN5250 Device printing had a 2 byte gap in the response buffer that could cause the IBMi Print Writer to stall if a telnet escape (0xFF) was randomly sent. Fixed in this build.
  • For the ASCII fpcwin terminal type, added support for delete and insert line protocol orders.
  • Admin Console passwords can now include special characters which in prior versions could break the sign-in process.

FVTerm Web Terminal Emulation

  • For localhost (on the server) FVTerm sessions, there is now a magnifying glass shown in the icon action bar to the far right. When this is clicked, the cursor on the emulation screen area is changed to a magnifying glass and can be positioned over any element on the screen.  When positioned, a status area will display the active terminal emulation class (like ST0) which then can be used in a CSS file to know which colors to change when wanting to customize a new or existing CSS file.
  • The AttrStyles.html page was tweaked to better support refreshing a both standard and non-standard CSS files as the CSS is changed while customizing colors.
  • Added ability to Clipboard-Paste multiple rows in an ASCII environment so that each row sends a Carriage Return…was sending a TAB.
  • The fvterm/cluster/BalanceInfo.aspx request was improved so that if a solitary server is involved the same information will be returned for available sessions.
  • The Delete key was hardcoded for VT/ASCII terminal types to ESC[3~ which works for some VT protocols but then cannot be changed at the server using TermInfo.txt for other protocols. Fixed to send a “delete” key, which is then translatable.
  • AzureAD internal code was not setting the correct value to work with multiple redirect URI values in the AzureAD Application definition. As a result, if more than one redirect URI was defined, Azure AD would always redirect to the last URI defined instead of the referrer of the signon request.
  • AzureAD timeouts on a user sign-in would cause the wrong message “No Sessions Available” when it was due to a missing userID when the license if for concurrent users. This message is fixed for other environments where user identity isn’t setup correctly and concurrent user license is in effect.  For AzureAD, it will now detect a blank userID and force another login so that users will see “Your AzureAD Signon or other Connection Status has Expired–Please Click Here to Re-Logon to AzureAD” (translated to user’s active language if not English).
  • For non-AzureAD servers that have a concurrent user license but a connection has not been identified (check the web server settings for identification)—the “No Sessions Available” will now instead display “’Connecting Requires User Identification and User Identification is missing…Please Close Browser and Try Logging In Again…” (translated to user’s active language).
  • File Transfer Icon was displaying for environments and protocols where it shouldn’t have. Workaround was to add the xferIcon to the hidden icon list in the View configuration but this version now will prevent the File transfer icon from displaying.
  • For users with TN3270 connections and a license including the IND$File transfer, the first click of the xferIcon would not work due to a timing issue loading backing javascript files. Now fixed.
  • Websocket handler in heavy ASCII loads and network packet drops could cause session switches between users. This was very rare and dependent on network and user actions.  User identification is now used to prevent the “switch”.  Other measures were also taken to avoid the switch occurring (two preventive measures implemented).
  • Additional logging for WebSockets implemented as additional diagnostics on how the session switches could occur.
  • File Transfer Icon was displaying when it shouldn’t (work-around was to Hide it using View settings).
  • Added optional logging of user session cookies when options are set to enable users to reconnect to an active/abandoned session.
  • Sometimes a user would get a timestamp attached during connection to a new session as displayed in the console for a session. This has been corrected.

InventuSSO Connection Framework

  • Added the ability to implement a credentials mapfile between the identity framework and host userID’s. This makes the host userID and optionally passwords something the user never sees.  For new implementations where existing identity can be mapped to new host userid/PW.
  • Added UserNameTrimChar to enable the removal of the @domain.ext if a user name is an email address and the credentials map file is indexed without the @domain.ext.
  • Recognition can now be relative to cursor location in screens, so that ASCII teletype style prompts can be easily recognized on any row or colum.

ViewerLib API

  • Connect was failing with a generic message (session not available) if the userID was missing and the active license is for concurrent users. Now has a warning that there is no active user identity.

Inventu Viewer+ Setups 2022A3

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Thai Language, Graphical Printing for TN5250, New ASCII Terminal Type, Selective Redaction of Sensitive or Private Screen Data and Many Fixes and Enhancements

Inventu Viewer+ Base Product and Components

(Version: 6.0.52 January 15, 2022)

FlyServer Emulation Service

  • Added Thai Language support with new codepage and translation logic including output in Trace files and console terminal emulation
  • 3270 and 5250 Device printing will now support transparent SCS/PCL output being directed through a PCL-to-PDF solution as with existing ASCII protocols. In test with 5250 environments.
  • 3270 Device printing improved to include TLS connected printers as well as better division of print jobs, suppression of an extra page at the end of a report and other fixes.
  • Added support for a new terminal type, FPCWIN which is active in a number of legacy installations, including some major organizations. FPCWIN is used with the ABW terminal emulator in Alpha Base Metropolis DBA applications.  This makes Inventu Viewer+ the only web terminal emulator that can connect to Alpha Base Metropolis applications with compatible colors, highlighting and user interface.
  • For clustered servers in a load-balanced environment, a new configuration option will reply to Health-check requests with specific HTTP response codes (such as 503-busy) instead of a different text string. This provides far better compatibility and integration for most load balancers for purposes of putting the server on hold to enable maintenance in a 24x7x365 environment.
  • Continued improvements in TLS handshaking to increase number of compatible host environments and supported levels up to 1.3
  • When tracing to individual session files, printer sessions will now have their own trace file with a “P” appended to the file name root. This enables better reproduction in the Inventu development lab of any device printing issues.
  • VT220+ keyboard handling, scrolling and other details were enhanced as well as compatibility for managing default 8-bit mode.
  • Slight improvement in cursor handling in TN5250 environment where the host sets if the cursor should move or not on display of a screen
  • Custom ASCII keys processing that reads the c:\program files\inventu\viewer\definitions\terminfo.txt file had a bug in regards to the ENTER (“cr”) and NEWLINE (“nel”) definitions. This affected terminal types “wyse50”, “wyse60” and “fpcwin”.  The “nel” was being processed as the ENTER while the “cr” was not processed.  This resulted in the typical NEL of CRLF (carriage return & line feed) being sent for each enter key.  Fixed in this release, the “nel” is [newline] and the “cr” is [enter] as it should be.

FVTerm Web Terminal Emulation

  • Added 2 new Fonts – IBMPlex Mono and Thai Tlwg Typist (for support of Thai codepage sessions).
  • Javascript support for TN3270 enhanced colors inside entry fields integrated with the core enhancements in ViewerLib API to deliver support for colorized text without attribute bytes. For mainframe programmers working with colorized languages in the ISPF editor, these now display with syntax-based colors instead of simply yellow.
  • Device Print jobs were not always printing when ready—which would bunch multiple print jobs together.
  • Device Print Jobs that were delivered faster than the user requested a print or save-as-PDF were getting lost due to the same printing iframe being re-used by new jobs.
  • The Thai language was added as a selectable language for the web client for prompts, messages and other client-side UI elements.
  • If the new Clipboard Copy Mouse Activation is set true holding the left mouse button down for ½ second will activate the yellow crosshair cursor for drawing a box and copying a rectangle’s contents to the clipboard.
  • When using Windows Security and a domain-joined server, some Client-Side Macro definitions were breaking the display of available macros due to an un-escaped backslash in the macro location. Fixed in this release.
  • ASCII terminal types data entry broke when the “[“ (left square bracket) was entered, as this was being interpreted as the start of a keyboard mnemonic like “[tab]”. Now fixed.
  • Added support for the FPCWin protocol environment, including clickable line 25 status area.
  • Fixed a regression that was preventing the userid from being passed in the terminal start URL.
  • Two security issues were addressed in FVTerm executables related to older versions of Internet Explorer being vulnerable to an “echo back” of large posted values containing script.
  • The Reset Keys in the Settings was not clearing individual user’s keyboard overrides, making it difficult to reset when the defaults were updated.
  • Input fields in TN5250 and TN3270 environments that extended past one row (multi-row input field) were not having blanks properly stripped at entry time. One issue that was highlighted by this bug was entering a command on the 3270 “Tubes” multi-LPAR switching screen-the command would only work if all blanks were manually removed in the web browser prior to pressing enter.
  • Added two new ASCII CSS files specifically for fpcwin – SCStyleFP.css (gray) and SCStyFPBlk.css (black).
  • Keyboard handler in Javascript was ignoring Unicode characters with values above normal ASCII range making data entry only possible with the clipboard.
  • In some field situations, a data entry error message was hidden partially by any other entry fields immediately below the field with a keying error (such as “numeric entries only”). Fixed in this release.
  • The BtnConnect tray icon was not registered in an internal list for tracking which icons had been hidden in the configuration for a View – this prevented the BtnConnect from being hidden when desired. Fixed in this release.

InventuSSO Connection Framework

  • Guaranteed Logoff Scripting:  added integration with the new FlyServer-to-FVTerm session close event framework. If a Host definition includes a Screen that defines a WhenState=Logoff, any host sessions started will be registered with the FlyServer service for assured execution of the Logoff script at disconnect time.
  • Updated the DisconnectingEx method to support setting-up and calling the script execution engine with the state set to “Logoff” if the active host has any WhenState=Logoff sections.
  • Added a new setting for the Host definition: MaximumLogoffScreens which provides the ability to control how many screens will be processed during a Logoff script. This avoids potential runaway scripting that is stuck on a single screen while trying to logoff.
  • Selective Screen Data Redaction: Added new support for utilizing InventuSSO to manage redaction of specific screen data based on the active state. The Redact action can specify a number of different redactions based on screen row and column (field based or length based), label or data text search, rectangular area or regular expression search.  Redaction can be specified at any time.  A simple example is to redact any Social Security Number displayed while the redact state is active.  The redact state and target filter set can be set at the start of a session based on the device type or user security profile.
  • Added a new global setting, RedactionCharacter, which allows setting the character used when redacting screen data. Default is a blank but can use this to set as an asterisk, for example.
  • Added a new session variable “MobileDeviceActive” which is set to “true” by the framework if the connected device is a phone or tablet. Example is to activate a redaction state if the user’s session is on a mobile device.
  • When a session ended, the internal tracking dictionary was not cleaning-out the session’s values, causing a small memory leak in the FVTerm v4.0 Application Pool process
  • For dynamic Device ID generation (based on userid adding integer) there were problems with re-use of numbers so that the counter for a userid was growing when it should not. This has been rewritten for better reliability.

ViewerLib API

  • Added support for TN3270 Enhanced non-space-occupying color attributes inside of entry fields. Prior releases supported 3270 color changes in protected (non-entry) fields but not in entry fields.
  • Extended the HostConnection.startDevicePrinter method with an additional environment variables parameter. This enables the FVTerm application to specify many optional telnet printing handshake values supported by the IBMi/AS400 operating system.  These values are managed for each Profile with new configuration settings when the device printing feature is licensed.  This is necessary to support graphic print merging supported by Host on Demand and IBM Personal Communication terminal emulators.
  • Added a new HostConnection String Property: hostTerminalType which will provide to the caller the active terminal type used for the active session.
  • Added a new HostConnection static event handler: sessionEvent which is a standard .NET event that can be subscribed to. A session event calls a method with a single parameter of SessionEventArgs class object which is has a string property “type” and string property “sessionKey” for the session that the event applies to.  At this time “closing” is the only type driving any events, but now that this pathway for system-level events is in-place, additional event types may be implemented in the future.
  • Added a new HostConnection session property: needCloseEvent which controls if a service-caused session close (timeout or administrator action) will trigger an event in the active client such as the FVTerm application. Set to true to ensure a close event, then set to false once any logoff activity has completed and it is time to truly close the session.
  • Added a new HostConnection static method: ClearServiceEvents() which should be used at shutdown of a process that has subscribed to the HostConnection.sessionEvent. This is needed to cleanup tracking structures in the FlyService process for each process that has registered for session events.
  • Added new static method to HostConnection – FindSessionDeviceID which will return the sessionKey of any active session with the provided DeviceID/LUName.
  • Minor enhancement to the streaming HTTP protocol for screens to reduce the size of packets sent for 3270 enhanced color attributes.

Configuration Admin Web Page

  • Added CP1160 (Thai) as a code page for 5250 and 3270 hosts and profiles
  • Added “IBMPlex Mono” and “Tlwg Typist” as new options for default font on a profile.
  • Added new Clipboard Copy Mouse Activation option for Profiles under User Interface.
  • For clustered servers, a new Web Server page advanced setting “Server Unavailable Response Code” has been added. This controls the behavior of the “FVHealth.aspx” URL used for load balancer inquiries.  The default is 200: Text sent with Status–which is HTTP OK and has been the existing behavior; this option returns status as text information and requires a load balancer to parse/search the text.  A preferred option for most load balancers is the new code 503: Server is Busy, which has far better compatibility and reliability than the returned text string.
  • For ASCII connections, a new terminal type “Flip PC Terminal” has been added which has a terminal type of “fpcwin” matching the emulation of the ABW Terminal Emulator for in Alpha Base Metropolis DBA applications.
  • For ASCII terminal types, the Profile and Host definitions will now offer control of the default “bit” level for VT220+ terminal types. The default has been 7 bits but in some environments the default should be 8 bits so the “For VT220+ initialize protocol in 8Bit mode” Boolean value can now be checked.  Note that new ASCII connections with VT220+ types will have 8 bit mode checked automatically when these types are selected.
  • For ASCII terminal types, only a web.config setting was properly supporting “Click Terminal Command” which supports the web client being able to click in the terminal area and have the row/column coordinates sent to the host (when supported). The Profile setting for this is now integrated as well as having been enhanced to support new row/column types for the FPCWIN terminal type.
  • A new checkbox “Keep Alive on Browser Close” will prevent a session being stopped when the client closes a browser or browser tab without explicitly closing the session with the icon. This is for environments where the durability of user sessions is more important than freeing-up unused sessions.
  • For ASCII terminal types, the “bell” protocol character currently plays the “alarm.mp3” file found in the FVTerm folder. In the Advanced Profile section administrators can now control with the “Bell Sound File” property.  The name of the mp3 file for a particular profile can be changed as well as a new option by simply setting the file name to “silent” which will prevent any sound when a bell is received on an active session.
  • For TN5250 profiles when the Printing Feature is licensed, a new setting “5250 Printer Environment Variables” is now available, including a modal dialog editor for setting a number of optional TN5250 telnet handshake environment variables. These include IBMMSGQNAME, IBMMSGQLIB, IBMFONT, IBMTRANSFORM, IBMMFRTYPMDL, IBMPPRSRC1, IBMASCII899, IBMWSCSTNAME and IBMWSCSTLIB.
  • For TN5250 and TN3270 connections an additional Thai Codepage has been added—“CP838 (Thai)” added to existing CP1160 (Thai) which is CP838 with Euro.

Recorder 2.0

  • The Recording Viewer has added a new modeless dialog: “Developer Assists” which initially supports generating Recog statements and Redact actions for the InventuSSO scripting. When the Developer Assists dialog is open, each selection with the mouse in an active screen will send the parameters of the mouse swipe to the dialog and generate a number of statements based on the location (row & column) and other attributes of the swipe.

Installer IVSetup64.exe

  • During installation the FVTerm web.config will have the new IBMPlex Mono and Tlwg Typist fonts added if not defined.
  • During installation the FVTerm web.config will now have clientCache settings to improve network performance by avoiding browser requests for static content already cached.
  • For new installations, added the new fonts and the cache settings to the default installed web.config
  • Added new CSS files for FPCWin terminal emulation
  • On new installation will now activate the Windows Component IIS Integrated Windows Authentication to avoid issues when administrators select this in the configuration page without the Windows Security available…
  • The distributed web.config now has a security exclusion for the FVHealth.aspx page so that a load balancer can access without credentials or security logon.

Original Recorder and Viewer

  • The original screen recorder and recording viewer (loaded from the Admin Console) has not been updated for a long time. Since the underlying Internet Explorer engine has changed that it utilizes as an HTA application, it has a number of issues.  Many have been mitigated in this release but the Recorder 2.0 is still recommended for both recording and viewing recordings.

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