This document contains details about the Adobe Connect 12.9 release, including release dates, technical requirements, upgrades, improvements, and known issues.
Overview
Adobe Connect enables you to create rich digital training, webinars, and collaboration experiences. For an overview of Adobe Connect, see www.adobe.com/products/adobeconnect.html.
Adobe Connect 12.9 is a minor release introducing new features, improvements to existing features, greater accessibility, and fixes to known issues.
Release dates
Adobe Connect 12.9 will roll out in the following phases:
Hosted services:
Upgrades will begin on 8th March, 2025. See Adobe Connect Downloads and Updates to determine the upgrade date for your account.
On-premise deployments:
A patch to upgrade to 12.9 will be available from first week of May, 2025 for on-premise customers.
Managed services:
Contact your Adobe Connect Managed Services (ACMS) representative, or private cloud provider, to schedule an upgrade.
What's new in Adobe Connect 12.9
Discovery of featured custom pods in room
Custom pods can be discovered and used directly within the room, just like native pods. Hosts can view and update available custom pods without separate downloads. Account administrators can enable this feature and control which custom pods hosts can install. This streamlines the process of using and updating custom pods, enhancing the in-room experience.
Room Search
The Room Search tool allows hosts to quickly find actions, permissions, and preferences within Adobe Connect rooms. Selecting a search result opens the corresponding menu or dialog. The search can be accessed using the keyboard shortcut Alt + Q (Opt + Q on macOS).
Content Alerts for PowerPoint and MP4 files uploaded to Share Pod
The Share Pod has been enhanced to proactively alert users to the discrepancies in their content post conversion/upload into the Share pod, with workaround suggestions where possible. The 12.9 release focuses on detecting key issues such as custom fonts not embedded in PPTX files, unsupported animations, slide transitions, and high bit rates in uploaded videos. This framework will evolve over time to address more content issues accurately.
Participant Profiles
The Participant Profile report provides a detailed overview of a webinar participant's engagement, including recent webinars attended, questions asked, polls answered, and resources downloaded. The report can be accessed by clicking on a participant's name in the Activity tab of the Engagement Dashboard.
Adobe Connect for Microsoft Outlook add-in
A new Microsoft Outlook add-in will allow hosts to easily schedule meetings using their Adobe Connect rooms directly from Outlook. Users can select from their existing rooms to add to their Outlook event and send out well-formatted invitations with room details, including the room link, audio conference details, pre-meeting diagnostics, and help. The add-in can be accessed at this link: https://appsource.microsoft.com/en-us/product/office/WA200008090?tab=Overview
- The add-in will be available to both on-premises and hosted customers.
- The add-in will be available to Outlook Windows/ Mac/ Web for both classic and new versions.
- Account administrators will be able to decide whether they want to allow users to access the Outlook Add-In. Please reach out to your IT administrator to make it available within your organization.
Improved login and homepage experience on Mobile Apps
The Adobe Connect mobile app version 3.9 includes several improvements:
- New Welcome Page: Options to sign in or join a session with a link.
- Sign-In Page: Users can sign in with their organization's Adobe Connect account URL and email/password. Single Sign-On (SSO) is supported.
- Updated Homepage: Signed-in users can view recently attended rooms across devices, connect their Microsoft 365 calendar, and save preferences.
- The Adobe Connect mobile apps v3.9 will be available in Mar, 2025. Exact dates to be communicated later.
Miscellaneous changes and fixes
- Due to numerous customer requests, the Step Away status, which was deprecated in the 12.7 release, is being reintroduced.
- The Backstage divider color and the mouse cursor color when hovering over the divider have been updated to improve accessibility.
- The default volume level for MP4 and MP3 files uploaded to the Share Pod has been lowered from 100 to 50 to address the issue of excessively loud playback.
- The video options menu button within individual video cells in the Video Pod has been relocated to the bottom right corner of the cell to ensure it remains visible when the "hide title bar" option is used.
- Third party library updates:
- JDK will be updated to ver 1.8.0_431
- Tomcat will be updated to ver 9.0.98
For more information on the new features and enhancements in Adobe Connect 12.9, see What's New in Adobe Connect.
System requirements
For the latest system requirements, see the Adobe Connect Technical Specifications page.
Upgrade paths for on-premise deployments
Here are the prerequisites for this release:
- From Adobe Connect 9.x, upgrade to Adobe Connect 12.8 before applying this patch
- From Adobe Connect 10.x, upgrade to Adobe Connect 12.8 before applying this patch
- From Adobe Connect 11.x, upgrade to Adobe Connect 12.8 before applying this patch
- From Adobe Connect 12.x, upgrade to Adobe Connect 12.8 before applying this patch
Issues resolved in server version 12.9
Issue Tracking Number |
Issue Description |
|---|---|
| 4152968 | Fixed an issue where closed captions displayed consecutive X characters when using a third-party captioning service. |
| 4153165 | Fixed an issue where the user timezone was not considered when calculating Peak Concurrent usage per day, leading to discrepancies in the count. |
| 4155006 | Whiteboard annotations will now appear on the page where they were initiated, even if another host switches to a different page while drawing. |
| 4157610 | Fixed an issue where annotations in the Share Pod were not visible in recordings when the Sync Navigation option was toggled multiple times. |
| 4158092, 4158879, 4160579 | Fixed issues where the recording failed to start. |
| 4158161 | Fixed an issue where the course/curriculum status displayed incorrectly. |
| 4158487, 4158503, 4158800 | Fixed issues where the meeting room was stuck on a white screen during loading. |
| 4159342 | Fixed an issue that caused custom pods to display an "Invalid Session" error message. |
| 4159399 | Fixed an issue where the layout did not update for a presenter when the host switched to a new layout. |
| 4159406 | Fixed an issue where the name of the attendee typing in the Notes pod stopped displaying with the 12.6 release. |
| 4159426 | Fixed an issue where the recording view time was not reported in some scenarios. |
| 4159462 | Fixed an issue where host messages in the Q&A pod (Send message to attendees option) were sent to all participants when a single participant was selected. |
| 4159607 | Introduced improvements to reduce the waiting time for setting up audio conferences for breakout rooms when using mixed audio (Telephony + VoIP). |
| 4159645 | Fixed an issue where the call health details did not appear when selecting the call health indicator in the desktop application. |
| 4160223 | The video camera will be turned off if it was turned on the room entry screen but the landing layout did not have a video pod. |
| 4160280 | Fixed an issue where the Uploaded Content tab for the meeting room in Connect Central listed only up to 20 items. |
| 4160664 | Fixed an issue where the Quiz reports failed to download. |
| 4160770 | Fixed vulnerabilities (CVE-2024-50379 and CVE-2024-54677) detected in 12.5.1 with an upgrade to Tomcat 9.0.98. |
| 4161054 | Fixed an issue where the recording did not stop after users exited the room. Recordings will now stop automatically one minute after all users have exited the room. |
| 4161335 | Fixed an issue where the recording was not editable if the recording name ended with a period (.) character. |
Client |
Criteria
|
Description |
|---|---|---|
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A) | Focus for the host will move to the new pod when they add a new pod to the layout. |
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A) | Visual headings have been replaced with heading tags in multiple dialogs. |
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A) | Labels are associated with form inputs in multiple dialogs. |
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A) | Table headers are now associated with the table in the Manage Pods dialog. |
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A) | The shortcut to switch between pods will be announced when the title of the first pod in the layout receives focus. |
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A) | Buttons within notifications will announce the context. |
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A) | Row headers are associated with the data cells in the evaluation results table screen in the Quiz pod. |
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A) | Focus will return to the mic options button when closing the Test Microphone dialog. |
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 2.4.6 Headings and Labels (Level AA) | Radio buttons on the Preferences > General tabs have been associated with their group label. |
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 2.4.7 Focus Visible (Level AA) | Increased the thickness of the visible focus for buttons in the menu bar. |
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 2.4.7 Focus Visible (Level AA) | A new button has been introduced to trigger the file upload dialog for custom room background uploads, previously triggered by selecting a radio button. |
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A) | Aria-labels have been defined for multiple options within the room. |
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A) | The expand/collapse states have been defined for the A/V selection combobox on the room entry screen. |
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A) | The selected layout in the Layouts Panel will be announced. |
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A) | When reviewing quiz results, the correct answer choice will be announced. |
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A) | Fixed an issue where the screen reader did not announce information about the question poster in the Q&A pod for questions posted by the participant themselves. |
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A) | The selected state of the Draw and Pointer buttons in the Share pod title bar will be announced. |
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A) | Radio buttons for multiple choice and multiple answer questions are now associated with the label text. |
| Web Client, Desktop Applications | 4.1.3 Status Messages (Level AA) | The "Link copied" alert on copying links in the Web Links pod will be announced by screen readers. |
| Web Recording Player | 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A) | Updated aria properties for various buttons when playing recordings. |
| Web Recording Player | 4.1.2 Name, Role, Value (Level A) | Fixed an issue where submenu options were not announced in the recording player. |
| Connect Cenral | 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A) | Data table headers have been defined for multiple tables across Connect Central. |
| Connect Cenral | 1.3.1 Info and Relationships (Level A) | "Allow Viewing" radio options are now associated with the group label on the Content > Set Permissions page. |
| Connect Cenral | 2.1.1 Keyboard (Level A) | The Create New and Saved Reports tabs under Reports are now keyboard accessible. |
| Connect Cenral | 2.1.1 Keyboard (Level A) | The focus will remain on the Home tab when switching tabs, instead of jumping to the Create button. |
| Connect Cenral | 2.1.1 Keyboard (Level A) | The first form field will receive keyboard focus on Create New room/event/content/folder pages instead of the Submit button. |
| Connect Cenral | 2.4.6 Headings and Labels (Level AA) | The instruction "*- indicates required fields" has been moved to the beginning of forms on multiple pages across Connect Central. |
| Connect Cenral | 3.2.2 On Input (Level A) | The Permissions button on Content > Set Permissions will announce that it launches a menu. |
| Connect Cenral | 3.2.2 On Input (Level A) | Updated aria-labels for the View All button on the Connect Central homepage to inform users about navigation to a new page. |
