What's new with WhatPulse?

Another round of pages has made the jump to the new website look! You’ll now find the updated design on:

• All leaderboard pages (keyboard/mouse, network, uptime, referrals)
• Teams and Countries leaderboards, and their profile pages
• About, Privacy Policy, Grand Totals page, and other misc pages

With these updates, most of the public-facing stats are now polished up. Only a handful of pages are left before the full site is refreshed.

We’ve just moved another batch of dashboard pages to the new website design! You’ll now see the new layout on:

• Computer & Profile settings
• Applications overview
• Online Backups
• Heatmap settings
• Weekly Reports archive

With these done, about 80% of the dashboard has now made the switch. The entire dashboard will be done in a few weeks - then the public statistics pages are up next.

This update brings a few quality-of-life improvements, bug fixes, and under-the-hood changes to improve stability and future compatibility.

🪄 Improvements

• The setup wizard now has its own window, making the setup and main interface simpler.
• The Geek Window stats %TotalDistance% and %TotalScrolls% now reflect account totals correctly, not just the current computer’s stats.
• The network time series for computers with multiple interfaces has been fixed to sum the data correctly, ensuring accurate historical data. This applies to the time series currently used in the Discord leaderboards.
• Fixed a few memory leaks when opening the main window repeatedly, which will slightly reduce memory usage over time.
• Fixed a few possible crashes when exiting WhatPulse with the main window still open. You were closing WhatPulse anyway, so these weren’t really a problem—but still worth fixing.

WhatPulse Professional updates

• Improved compatibility for Nuance PowerScribe.
• Streamlined the Professional interface by removing buttons that only apply to the Community version (such as share buttons, online profile link, change password, etc.).
• Clicking "Open Online Stats" now takes you to your Dashboard for a more integrated experience.
• The release notes link now points to the new whatpulse.pro/releasenotes page when there's a new version.

WhatPulse 5.10.1 is a patch release for 5.10, mainly fixing an issue where the app's database log file was growing a "bit" too much on some computers.

🔧 Improvements

• Re-enabled sending bug reports with incidents (only if the "Send bug and usage reports" option is enabled). This was disabled for a few releases while we got our backend up and running again, but we can now learn more about issues WhatPulse encounters outside of internal testing and beta periods—which will help us squash more bugs!
• Removed a few unnecessary logging statements that were filling up the log file.
• Updated the embedded SQLite3 version to improve performance and reduce the size of the database log file.
• Improved a few German translations, thanks to Cheesesus.

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Updated Qt to 6.9.1, which fixes an error on Windows 10 version 1607 and earlier (from 2016) related to "Qt6Core.dll". Even though WhatPulse still works, please consider upgrading your Windows version anyway.
• Fixed a crash that could occur in certain scenarios with slow internet connections.

🚀 New

Multi-display mouse heat map support

Mouse clicks are now tracked per screen, so you can view heat maps across all your monitors or zoom in on a specific one. Heat map rendering also got a visual refresh.

Application Activity chart scrolling

You can now scroll beyond the default 24-hour view in the application activity chart, making it easier to look back in time.

Dark theme update

The dark mode has been refreshed to match the new WhatPulse website design—cleaner, sharper, and easier on the eyes.

🔧 Improvements

Separate internet traffic counting

WhatPulse now distinguishes internet traffic from local traffic. The UI update to show this is coming later, but exports already include it.

Full PCAP restored for network stats

Network tracking is now more accurate after dropping unreliable OS counters and returning to full packet capture. We also increased the packet buffer to 256MB, enabled immediate mode, and improved NIC buffering across platforms. This allows tracking up to 8 to 10Gbit/s of traffic.

Database loading and reliability

The app loads faster and handles large data better thanks to a new database engine, smarter integrity checks, and a larger cache. It now checks for database structure issues weekly and can auto-recover from corruption.

More

• Game controllers: Controllers from Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, 8BitDo, and others now map correctly. Buttons no longer show up swapped or missing—WhatPulse detects the controller and applies the right layout automatically.
• Keyboard heat map: Apps are now grouped more logically (preventing duplicates), and tooltips show the full app paths.
• More readiness checks and state tracking were added to avoid duplicate events and rare startup crashes after waking from sleep.
• Network requests now have timeouts and the app resets its busy state if a request hangs.
• WhatPulse now runs on Qt 6.8.3 on Windows and macOS for improved stability and access to new platform features.
• Linux: Improved theme detection, fixed dragging on GNOME, corrected toolbar button placement, and added display detection for mouse tracking.

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Windows: Fixed an issue where some installations triggered a UAC prompt during update checks.
• Fixed an issue where deleting a local profile added its stats to the global total (duplicating the stats).
• Fixed a visual issue where the update didn’t appear to complete if there was also an update to the MaintenanceTool (the updater). A manual restart was required to see the new version.
• Mouse details page: fixed lingering mouse button data when switching time ranges, even if the new range had no data.
• Clicks on the coordinates 0,0 have been exiled for good. No more mouse heat map only in the top left corner.
• Uptime chart no longer stretches the Y-axis when there's no data for a day.
• Fixed a styling issue where startup error messages were unreadable if the app failed badly.
• Fixed network time series on systems with multiple adapters—data is now grouped by hour/day correctly (feature not yet used in the app).
• Fixed the Swagger interface so the HTML renders properly instead of returning only JSON headers.

• 🐞 Heat Map Fix: Resolved click coordinate tracking issues affecting Windows 10 users with certain mouse hardware (mostly trackpads).
• 🐞 Numpad Detection Fix: Fixed numeric keypad input recognition affecting Windows 10 users.
• 🆕 Numpad Enter Support: Restored the numpad Enter key in the heat map display on Windows.

New: 🎮 Gamepad support

Gaming clicks just leveled up! Button presses on gamepads now count toward your click stats. You can see the usage of individual gamepad buttons (A, B, L1, etc.) on the details page of the mouse stats.

Additionally, WhatPulse now distinguishes between multiple mouse buttons. Left, Middle, Right, and Other are still tracked, but you'll also see "Button x" labels for any additional buttons we can identify.

New: ⚙️ A new input engine for Windows

Faster, more secure, and more efficient—plus better support for devices like gamepads! Previously, greedy apps and games (like GTA) could block WhatPulse from detecting inputs, meaning your gaming session wasn’t counted. Not anymore!

🆕 Other Exciting Features

• Redesigned submenu: Navigation is now clearer, making it more obvious when a tab has multiple pages.
• New titlebar: The main window features an updated titlebar displaying useful information, including your WhatPulse Premium status.
• Keyboard shortcuts: You can now close the main window using Cmd + W (macOS) or Ctrl + W (Windows & Linux) for quicker navigation.
• Total column for network tables: Easily see the total data sent and received at a glance.

🚀 Performance & stability improvements

• The WhatPulse app interface is now 1200% faster (yes, we tested it), thanks to extensive optimizations. Opening the app and interacting with it is significantly smoother.
• Auto-pulsing has been reworked to handle internet disconnects more gracefully. It now retries exponentially (2 min, 4 min, 8 min, etc.), continuing hourly instead of disabling auto-pulse.
• A new stats collector monitor ensures continuous data collection, even after online backups, computer sleep, or other interruptions.
• Windows sleep/wake event handling improved, ensuring data collection resumes properly after waking up.
• Windows watchdog service enhanced for more consistent performance across Windows versions.

 macOS specific enhancements

• Tracking for applications in /Library, where many modern helper apps reside, and special support for Cryptex volumes - the place where apps like Safari live these days. This also means Safari stats are now counted on the website.
• Full support for Apple's latest macOS (Sequoia) release, and WhatPulse now recognizes the 2024 line-up of new Macs (i.e. the Mac Mini M4).
• Improved macOS app vendor identification, now used on the website.
• Corrected app icons for certain macOS applications.
• Improved network interface detection, preventing misidentification of Wi-Fi adapters as Ethernet.

🛠️ General improvements

• Advanced Raw Input Toggle: Older computers experiencing latency with raw input can now disable it, switching to a lower-precision method.
• GeoIP.dat file updates optimized to download only when necessary.
• Improved Windows version detection for better accuracy.
• Higher-resolution app icons now uploaded to the website.
• Gradual reduction of authorization checks for smoother logins.
• If NPCAP wasn't installed, updates won't nag you about it anymore.
• WhatPulse Professional now disables auto-updates so organizations have full update control.

🐛 Bug fixes

• Fixed a crash on quick navigation after launching the app.
• Fixed application paths longer than 129 characters.
• Geek Window settings no longer save excessively when moving labels.
• Improved error handling for WhatPulseMaintenanceTool issues.
• Translated tray icon tooltips.
• Profiles toggle removed from tray menu for non-Premium users.

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Some of the updates in v5.8.1 didn't get into the release. This is a re-spin, with the actual changes mentioned for v5.8.1. 😅

🎉 New Features

• Added filtering on Profiles when exporting data via the Export Wizard.

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Fix not updating the mouse details page button clicks and distance (issue started in v5.8).
• Fix showing old text in the Geek Window. On macOS this looked like a shadow of the text, on Windows it was clearer.
• Fix possible crash on malformed network traffic, only found in a virtual machines under certain situations.
• Fix the floating 'Start backup' button that could appear when Premium was being activated.

🎉 New Features

• Introducing Profiles! You can create profiles to group and keep track of stats during a specific time. For example, keep track of how much you're gaming, how many keys you pressed on a project, or working for a client.

• Create & manage profiles under the Settings tab and Profiles section.
• Activate and deactivate profiles in the tray menu.
• Filter profile stats when analyzing stats by selecting the profile in the top-right dropdown.
• Setting to automatically deactivate an active profile when your computer shuts down or goes to sleep.
• Setting to change the color of the WhatPulse menu icon to show that a profile is active.
• Integrate automation to activate and deactivate profiles using the client API to enable our Stream Deck plugin to physically turn profiles on and off. (Stream Deck plugin update coming soon!)
• Show the current active profile in the Geek Window using the %CurrentProfile% variable.

Note: Profiles is a WhatPulse Premium feature.

• To improve developer experience, we added an OpenAPI specification to the Client API, and http://127.0.0.1:3490/ is now using Swagger UI.
• Windows: Add an option to install for all users on the computer.

📈 Improvements

• Added a feedback notification when settings are saved, so you're 💯 sure they are saved.
• macOS: Improve network interface detection. Sometimes with computers with multiple interfaces, the last interface wasn't detected properly.
• macOS: Updated the Apple computers model database to recognize the newer models.
• Be more verbose about why connections are rejected from the client API in the HTTP responses. Also, add the dual stack localhost address by default (::ffff:127.0.0.1).

🐛 Bug Fixes

• Fix translating dates inside the facts.
• Make sure all updating the Geek Window transparency has immediate effect on all Windows versions, there were some versions where this didn't work and you had to restart WhatPulse for the transparency to take effect.
• Prevent the real-time network traffic graph to draw funky backtracking lines by clearing the data when it's not being updated, or the chart united (bits vs bytes) are changed.
• Windows: Fixed application metadata discovery (version, vendor, etc.) on some Windows versions.
• When ignoring an application in the uptime tab, the client asked whether you wanted to reset the Geek Window to its defaults. This fixes that misplaced message.
• Skip npcap installation when WhatPulse is being installed via the command-line. Otherwise it would still pop up a GUI for the NPcap installer.