# mediamtx v1.18.0

- Product: mediamtx (https://whatsnew.fyi/product/mediamtx)
- Vendor: bluenviron
- Date: 2026-04-26
- Version: v1.18.0
- Original notes: https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/releases/tag/v1.18.0
- Permalink: https://whatsnew.fyi/product/mediamtx/releases/v1.18.0

What's New is an index, not a publisher: every entry below links to the vendor's own release notes, which are the authoritative source. Entries are labelled where they are hand-curated sample data, pre-releases, or drawn from a secondary source such as a developer blog.

Reuse: the summaries, labels and curation here are © What's New. Quote freely with attribution and a link back; wholesale republication of the corpus is not permitted — terms: https://whatsnew.fyi/terms. The vendors' own release notes remain their publishers'.

---

- **added** — Track HLS sessions through cookies or query parameters to enable session inspection through logs, metrics and API, track outbound bytes more precisely, and reduce load on external HTTP authentication URLs
- **added** — Support serving streams with a CDN
- **changed** — Add a label after every listener opened message that mentions protocols of every listener
- **changed** — Embed TLS master keys into packet dumps when dumpPackets is true, in a format compatible with Wireshark
- **changed** — Use token as query parameter key to pass tokens, with legacy jwt query parameter key still supported
- **deprecated** — authJWTInHTTPQuery configuration and JWTs in query parameters
- **changed** — Expose token passed as query parameter to HTTP authentication
- **changed** — Return errors as JSON in playback API
- **fixed** — Prevent out-of-memory errors by imposing maximum size on body of incoming HTTP requests and responses
- **changed** — Improve metrics performance by using string.Builder instead of string concatenation
- **changed** — Add labels to metrics output to group metrics under visible, distinct labels
- **fixed** — Fix metrics filtering by type=rtmp_conns and type=rtmps_conns
- **added** — Add readerType attribute to path_readers metric to filter path readers by type
- **changed** — Use an enum for parsing metrics type
- **fixed** — Fix race condition in metrics when reloading configuration
- **changed** — Sort path readers in API
- **fixed** — Fix RTSP-over-HTTP tunnel request target in RTSP client
- **added** — Support Axis SRTP variant in RTSP client
- **changed** — Improve SDP parser compatibility with malformed connection information
- **fixed** — Support parsing RTSP responses with no status message

##### New major features

HLS

* track sessions (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/962) (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5683) sessions are now tracked through cookies or query parameters. This provides the ability to inspect sessions through logs, metrics and API, allows more precise tracking of outbound bytes, decreases load on external HTTP authentication URLs since they are now called once per session and not once per request.
* support serving streams with a CDN (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5696)

##### Fixes and improvements

General

* improve listener labels (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5635) add a label after every "listener opened on :XXX" message that mentions protocols of every listener.
* dump unencrypted TLS sessions (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5624) when dumpPackets is true, embed TLS master keys into the dump, in a format which is natively compatible with Wireshark.
* use "token" as query parameter key to pass tokens (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5647) the legacy "jwt" query parameter key is still supported.
* deprecate authJWTInHTTPQuery and disable JWTs in query parameters (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5648) This fixes a long standing security flaw. Even though it's a breaking change, few users should be impacted since this feature has been discouraged for some time.
* expose token passed as query parameter to HTTP authentication too (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5649) this allows to parse tokens coming from RTSP and RTMP without additional effort.
* playback: return errors as JSON (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5656) this is aligned with all other HTTP-based services.
* prevent out-of-memory errors (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5674) impose a maximum size on body of incoming HTTP requests and responses.
* metrics: improve performance (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5663) use string.Builder instead of string concatenation
* metrics: add labels to the output (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5687) group metrics under visible, distinct labels.
* metrics: fix filtering by type=rtmp_conns and type=rtmps_conns (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5689)
* metrics: add readerType attribute to the path_readers metric (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5690) this allows to filter path readers by type.
* metrics: use an enum for parsing metrics type (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5692)
* metrics: fix race condition when reloading configuration (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5693)
* docs: add scaling page (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5695)

API

* sort path readers (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5691)

RTSP

* client: fix RTSP-over-HTTP tunnel request target (https://github.com/bluenviron/gortsplib/issues/1041)
* client: support Axis SRTP variant (https://github.com/bluenviron/gortsplib/issues/1033)
* improve SDP parser compatibility with malformed connection information (https://github.com/bluenviron/gortsplib/issues/1025) 
* support parsing responses with no status message (https://github.com/bluenviron/gortsplib/issues/1043) (https://github.com/bluenviron/gortsplib/issues/1050)
* client: don't block RTSP-over-HTTP tunnel startup on POST response (https://github.com/bluenviron/gortsplib/issues/1047)

HLS

* return JSON with error message in case path conf is not available (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5655) this behavior is aligned with WebRTC one.
* improve muxer performance (https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/issues/5660) use a mutex instead of a channel to get current instance.
* fix running linter when there are unstaged git changes (https://github.com/bluenviron/gohlslib/issues/336)
* client: use redirected URL when reloading playlist (https://github.com/bluenviron/gohlslib/

_[Truncated at 4000 characters — full notes: https://github.com/bluenviron/mediamtx/releases/tag/v1.18.0]_