Kollaborate Server 2025.3.1 - major storage and backend overhaul, encoder simplification and new permissions

Kollaborate Server 2025.3.1 and Kollaborate Encoder 2.0 have been released, with major changes to our self-hosted workflow platform for video professionals.

Storage overhaul

We've significantly changed how we store files on disk in this version. Files are no longer stored according to the project they reside in, meaning they no longer need to be moved around when moving files between projects. This has the most benefit on the cloud, but will also speed up large transfers for self-hosting too. The two versions are designed to co-exist - all new uploads will use the new format and existing files will remain in the old format but will be upgraded if moved between projects.

This does of course make it harder to downgrade to an older version, so we have provided a tool in the Admin Area to downgrade your files to the older format before reverting back to an earlier version.

More backend modernization

We've continued the work of moving away from our older PHP-based backend. In this release, file deletion, file moves, combining / splitting versions, removing proxies, and removing original files were rewritten on the new backend.

Removing original files also has the added benefit that it is no longer destructive. Instead of immediately permanently deleting the original file, it now gets split off and trashed. Although it's no longer possible to restore it back as the original file, it can be restored as a separate file if needed.

Encoder simplification

Kollaborate Encoder is much simpler to set up in this release, as it no longer requires direct access to your storage volume. This means that you no longer have to share the volume as a network volume between both servers. It will now coordinate file transfers with the web server.

New permissions

You can now control whether or not the user can leave comments on a file, so you can choose to have a user be able to view comments but not add their own.

Other changes

• Color Scheme - Added a new option for the active tab background color
• Upload Workflows - Support for "doesn't contain" as a match option
• Admin - Added an option to disable disk size checks. This is for situations where the host OS doesn't communicate the correct file size of the storage volume to the Docker container (most often occurs on macOS).
• Admin - Fixed issue preventing software update notifications from working
• More descriptive error message if session Redis URL is not set
• Sharing - Fixed an issue where links with an empty password could not be accessed, even if "require password" was off
• Player - Make full-screen overlay use page's background color
• Team - Fixed a crash if the project was not found
• Print Comments - Fixed an issue where settings in the Export dialog would not be taken into account
• Player - Fixed an issue where the CC button would not be highlighted when enabled
• Fixed several issues causing problems when upgrading from a very old version
• Sharing - Fixed an issue where clicking a user's name would produce an error page
• UI - Fixed an issue where TimecodeInput wouldn't work with drop frame timecode
• Workflows - Fixed an issue where users may not be able to approve files in the project root if they were non-admins added to another department
• Projects - Fixed an issue where deleting a template project would not remove it from the list
• Emails - Prevent digest emails from showing files that have been deleted
• Player - Update the workflow dropdown when approving or rejecting a file
• Projects - Fixed a crash when trying to modify a project that had been deleted
• Player - Don't show users who can't access that department in the Unviewed section of the player
• API - Don't allow comments to be inserted earlier than the start timecode
• Team - Fixed an issue where activation link checkbox wasn't working
• Projects - Fixed user count in table being inaccurate
• Workflows - Fixed an issue where users would be unable to approve a file
• Email - Fixed an issue where shared links might have their URLs corrupted
• Player - Fixed an issue preventing large files being attached to comments
• Files - Align titles irrespective of whether the file is unviewed
• UI - Fixed an issue where some icons would not adopt the page's text color
• Files - Fixed an issue where thumbnails may show file duration 1 second longer than it really is
• Fixed an issue where folders created by the new backend could have the wrong owner
• Fixed various issues with information not being copied across to aliases
• Timecode - Fix issue where comment timecode would drift over time
• Minor bug fixes, tweaks and optimizations

Kollaborate is an essential cloud workflow platform that allows you to share files with clients and team members while integrating with Digital Rebellion apps and services. Kollaborate Server allows you to host the platform in-house on your own servers and storage. To find out more, see the Kollaborate Server overview or register for the free cloud trial (Server trials are available on request).