Important: Starting August 5th 2025, Appstore app submissions must be built using Kepler SDK v0.20 or newer, or the submission will be rejected.
This release has no updates to the installed SDK itself, but there are many OS level improvements and bug fixes. Key improvements include:
- Media playback: Improved video playback stability across streaming apps with fixes for freezing issues, improved Bluetooth audio integration, support for fully encrypted H.265 content playback, and better handling of display resolution changes during content playback.
- User interface and navigation: Improved Live TV experience with favorites functionality, better focus handling during long-press actions, and eliminated unwanted screen flashes during app navigation. Improved display setting persistence and resolution management across different display types.
- System stability: Implemented database size management for Live TV channels, migrated
KeplerCompatibilityto system-bundled library, improved thread synchronization for animation rendering, and build tool validation for better compatibility checks during development.
This release requires OS 1.1 (201010441350) on your Kepler Fire TV Stick, which is compatible with the Kepler SDK v0.20. You can check your device software version by navigating to My Fire TV > About.
To validate, run kepler -v and you should expect that version 0.20.3494 is returned.
OS improvements and bug fixes
- Added support for fully encrypted H.265 content playback, resolving video streaming issues with certain encrypted content.
- Added a database size limit (200MB) to prevent excessive storage growth from Live TV channel data, providing stable performance while supporting over 2000 channels across streaming providers.
- Added URI for content image in Recommendation Manager API.
- Moved image download processing for content recommendations from client app to service process, optimizing system resource usage and improving performance.
- Fixed an issue where adding programs to Favorites from the Live Tab’s On Now row caused inconsistent behavior. Programs would disappear from On Now, redirect to the app home page, or appear in incorrect channel rows.
- Fixed an issue where focus shifts during long-press actions prevented subsequent button presses from registering correctly.
- Fixed a stability issue causing app crashes during Live TV channel switching on Fire TV devices.
- Fixed an issue where a background app incorrectly flashed on screen while navigating between different apps or content screens in the launcher.
- Fixed an SQLite database crash compatibility issue when using the
@amzn/expo-sqlitepackage. - Fixed a critical playback issue where video froze across multiple streaming apps while audio/subtitles continued, eventually leading to app crashes and system-wide playback failures.
- Fixed a thread synchronization issue that sometimes caused deadlocks between animation rendering and surface presentations due to conflicting display connection states.
- Fixed an issue where a black screen is shown after waking from sleep when switching between displays with different resolutions (4K to 1080p), requiring device reboot to restore normal display output.
- Fixed a window geometry rendering issue where hiding and showing 1080p child windows incorrectly resumed at quarter-screen size, initially observed during ad-to-video transitions.
- Fixed an issue where custom display settings (resolution, color depth, and color format) were not persisting after device reboot, reverting to default “Auto” configurations instead of maintaining user-selected values.
- Fixed an issue where pressing volume buttons during Video playback with connected Bluetooth audio devices incorrectly exited video playback instead of showing volume controls.