What is new in the SNIP 3_13_00 release – released November 29th, 2023
(updating the prior release of 3_12 issued on October 30th, 2023)

This is the next production release of SNIP following the Rev 3_12 release.  This release contains both major and minor improvements in response to user requests.  This release supports both 32-bit and 64-bit installations on all Windows Platforms from Windows 7 to the current editions.

It is recommended that all Windows SNIP installations now update to using this release. You must do this is you wish the Google Map display functions to again work.

Changes in this release include

Map and Google API

The SNIP internal document viewer (a web engine call Chromium) has been updated as well as the Google API revision used (now at rev 3.53). Unlike most software vendors, Google does not provide any Long-term support (LTS) release for the Map API, which was responsible for creating this problem.  This release of SNIP now also allows selecting which API revision is to used, a defensive mechanism should the problem occur again.  We are taking steps to also support the use of OpenStreetMap (https://www.openstreetmap.org) in SNIP in future releases.

Enter IP values and Ranges

A new dialog box simplifies entering single IP values or entering more complex ranges of IP values than the prior ranges of only a x.x.x.*  style.  This feature was requested by deployments who wished to be able to block arbitrarily large public and private IP ranges.  The dialog can be used to enter both temporary and permanent IPs to be blocked / banned and also for any IP that are to be exempt from the banning process.   The dialog is described in more detail in this article.

Misc. improvements

• In the Rev 3.12 release some SNIP Lite model deployments could not link to a simple “point map” of the base station from the general STATUS report page. This has now been corrected.  [Basic and Pro models of SNIP produce a more elaborate map images.]
• Various reports now show IP ranges as a two line entries in the tables when a range is used. This was changed to align report formats with the new IP dialog described above.
• When refreshing a “pretty” map (a map with various radius circles showing the coverage areas), the refresh button did not always produce a new updated map. This has now been corrected.
• The automatic detection and sending of an email warning for a monitored base station going offline was found to have an error in the string matching logic. The small direction icon arrows shown next to the name interfered with correctly detecting the desired base station.  This has been corrected.
• The readability of NTRIP user agent strings in some reports has been improved to use non-breaking spaces in various places when displayed.

How to Update…

Updates to SNIP are always free and easy.  Your Caster will be offline about 3 minutes.  From within SNIP, simply use the menu item Help ⇒ Check for Updates…   Your update will be downloaded from our secure servers and then you will be asked to allow SNIP to restart and update itself.  On some Windows 10 systems you must also manually exit the current copy of SNIP to update.  It takes under three minutes to do and have your Caster back on-line. That’s all there is to it!