What's New in BigBlueButton 3.0.23

Version 3.0.23 brings significant improvements to breakout rooms, along with several security fixes and client enhancements. Administrators are encouraged to update to benefit from these changes.

Breakout Room Improvements

Multiple fixes and features improve the breakout room experience:

  • Fixed a race condition when a user joins a breakout room.
  • Users are no longer automatically re-assigned to their last breakout room.
  • User activity is now only stored for the main meeting, not breakout rooms.
  • Refactored moderator vs viewer permissions in breakouts.
  • Moderator-only functionality is no longer shown to viewers.
  • The webcam background URL is now available in breakouts.
  • Temporarily disabled breakout audio transfer UI when using LiveKit.

Security Fixes

This release includes several security fixes that are embargoed and will be publicly disclosed on March 24, 2026. The fixes address vulnerabilities in areas such as polls, SQL queries, presentation download URLs, chat character settings, and API controller methods. Administrators are strongly advised to update to ensure their instances are protected.

Client and Core Enhancements

Additional improvements across the HTML5 client and core components:

  • Fixed video preview and audio modals opening even with lock settings enabled.
  • External video URLs are now trimmed of spaces, and the label updated to remove unsupported platforms.
  • Whiteboard Ctrl+D shortcut now works consistently.
  • Locale override setting is now effective in the guest lobby.
  • Improved visual hierarchy and UX of the guest lobby screen.
  • Time sync recalculation when a new minimal RTT is available.
  • Talking indicator no longer appears behind webcam area in custom and smart layouts.
  • Session details no longer close when a user talks.
  • Whiteboard slide zoom state is now scoped to presentation ID.
  • Reworded "You have been banned" message.
  • Space bar key problem on whiteboard fixed.
  • Additional checks in polls.
  • Enforced max custom poll and chat min-max character settings on Akka.
  • Fixed detection of system sender in breakout recordings.
  • Avoided short cuts in audio processing.
  • Bumped bbbevents to 2.0.3.

Packaging and Configuration Updates

  • Require Redis for bbb-export-annotations service.
  • Updated LiveKit server to v1.9.11 and LiveKit client to v2.13.2.
  • Updated GitLab CI to Go 1.26.0 and NodeJS 22.22.0.
  • Added firewalld support to apply-lib.sh.
  • Avoided bbb-conf noise on empty bigbluebutton.properties.
  • Added warning for retired bbb-web properties: insertDocumentBlockedHosts and insertDocumentSupportedProtocols have been renamed.
  • Various dependency updates via Dependabot.

This release brings a wealth of improvements, particularly for breakout rooms and security. We thank the community for their contributions and reporting.