The GStreamer team has released a new bug-fix update, 1.26.9, of its cross-platform open-source multimedia framework for the stable 1.26 series.
The release improves the stability of playbin3 and decodebin3, along with fixes for HLS and DASH adaptive streaming clients. Ancillary metadata handling has been refined for AJA playout and Blackmagic Decklink capture cards. The gst-play-1.0 tool once again reports missing plugins, restoring behavior relied on for troubleshooting.
On macOS, the update resolves a potential crash during audio device probing and improves video decoding stability. The NDI source fixes audio corruption affecting non-interleaved streams with stride padding. The gtk4paintablesink element now includes a property that allows users to fine-tune reconfiguration behavior during window resizing.
New media-related additions include SMPTE ST291-1 ancillary metadata RTP payloaders and depayloaders, as well as ST-2038 metadata combiners and extractors. Hardware-accelerated encoders provided by the VA-API “va” plugin are now supported in webrtcsink. The spotifysrc element has been updated to use Spotify’s extended metadata endpoint, restoring full functionality.
The release also includes fixes for cross-compiling Python bindings and improvements to the Cerbero build system, such as support for Visual Studio 2026, reliable building on non-C: drives, and shipping the svtjpegxs plugin on Windows. Additional bug fixes, memory leak corrections, and build reliability improvements are included throughout the stack.
For more information, see the announcement. Binaries for Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows are expected to be available soon.
