TaskForce 2 Changelog

2024.6.1

Bugfix

Gateway IP address wasn't working in 2024.6 firmware having TaskForce connected to multiple subnets.

2024.6

New Features

RAID:

• Full automatic reassembly and imaging support of Synology NAS RAID.
• New Layout tab to visualize selected RAID configuration.
• Autodetection module: New Start LBA parameter to specify RAID offset used by autodetection (Gear button).
• Improved memory use and performance optimizations.
• Expand/Collapse buttons for RAID configuration and Partitions panels to improve UX.

Imaging:

• Improved capability to resume imaging in case of power or network connection loss.
• BitLocker volume GUID added to the imaging log.
• Post-hash mode with Segmented hashes creates a CSV file in addition to the performed verification.

Express Mode Imaging

• Port groups: Ability to image some ports to one folder with specific settings and other ports to another with other settings. Multiple groups supported.
• AFF4 added as selectable imaging target.
• New settings: Case ID, Organization, Investigator.

Logical Imaging:

• Wildcards (*, ?) support in file/folder filters.
• Check button enabled for reassembled RAID when autodetection is still running.

System-wide Btrfs support.

System-wide LVM (Logical Volume Manager) support.

Web API:

• Ability to use API when user management system activated.
• New POST call /login.
• New GET call /diagnose.

Diagnose - File System Stage:

• Added analysis of ext4/3/2, XFS, HFS+, HFSX.
• BitLocker volume detection with FVE Metadata blocks.

Case Management:

• New window to select an existing case to improve UX.
• New global setting ‘Set default values for all cases’: Fills in default values for Investigator, Organization, Location for all new cases.
• New global setting ‘Show empty case values in report header’.
• New global setting ‘Automatically create a sub-folder with the same name as target image file name’.

Many page headers now link to articles about using TaskForce from the offline manual.

Kiosk mode: The offline manual from the main menu opens in a dialog.

New Hints subsystem displays practical hints to expedite work with TaskForce based on behavior. Hints appear as notifications once, and all can be found in the hint list.

Improved handling of situations where source drive unplugged before starting a task.

Improved recognition of vendor-specific SMART attributes.

LEDs change their state when the firmware boots or updates.

New Blink LED operation for each port.

New Ethernet bonding mode for ETH1 and ETH2 ports.

Bugfixes

Unable to identify USB Seagate One Touch drives.

Imaging:

• Next imaging pass with reverse direction could not start if a source drive had bad sectors during the previous pass.
• Incorrect XFS partition size when its allocation group size was different during imaging partitions.
• Rare visual representation issue with the imaging map graph could result in empty gaps after multiple page refreshes.

RAID: Some exFAT partitions may not open in Partitions tab due to incorrect internal caching.

Diagnose:

• In Multi-launch mode, it could not start when one of selected drives is not detected.
• IDE drives with working Verify but non-working Read commands could be classified as degraded instead of damaged.
• ‘Unknown device’ in case report header for drives with corrupted firmware.

Web API: /start-image call could not find the built-in Damaged imaging settings.

Possible case report duplication after connection loss and recovery with a remote Work Folder.

Invalid behavior when attempting to start a task against a damaged device with zero byte capacity.

SMART: For NVMe drives, the start page had a description of ATA specification attributes.

2024.2

Bugfixes

Imaging to an E01/AFF4 file on a network share could fail if other software tried to grab the file lock.

Various USB hard disk drives failed to be detected.

Diagnose:

• Possible incorrect diagnostic result for damaged USB flash drives.
• Removed 12V current graph that was not actual for all USB drives.

2024.1

New Features

Verify segmented hashes - new task in the Other section. It helps check the segmented hashes in CSV file created during imaging for any type of target: E01, AFF4, raw image, drive.

System settings:

• Automatically create a subfolder using the target file name option.
  If enabled, the target image will be created in a subfolder of a selected target folder.
• Clear local and session storage button.
  Any settings or temporary data stored in Chrome for the TaskForce web application will be permanently deleted.

Clickable device header in a case report. It opens the device information page if the appropriate device or image is available.

Bugfixes

Failed to open E01 files created by UFS Explorer.

Logical imaging. Check > Download was not handling comas in a generated file name list properly, which broke CSV format.

Reports. Possible first blank page when selecting a report from the list to print.

Minor fix of Other > Customize taskbar and Browse Files compatibility.

2023.11

New Features

Customization of the Taskbar and Other page.

Bugfixes

Logical imaging:

• Task could freeze when imaging compressed files from APFS partitions.
• Rare case of “File was skipped due to reading” error with NTFS file system.

Kiosk mode didn’t work properly with HTTPS enabled.

Issue selecting USB work folder after booting without USB DB drive plugged into the DB port.

Slow (20 seconds) search for new TaskForce firmware when updating it over USB.

About 10 missing Chinese and Japanese translations.

2023.10

New Features

RAID:

• Automatic detection of unknown RAID 6 configuration.
• Full RAID 6 reassembly and imaging support.
• RAID 6 imaging speed is 40% higher than imaging of individual RAID members.
• RAID autodetection improvements for other RAID types.
• Maximum number of auto-checked configurations increased from 100,000,000 to 200,000,000.
• Advanced detection of partition types and display of device tags.
• MBR/GPT table information when hovering over the corresponding device tag.

Imaging:

• Check network speed test when selecting a folder for a target image. Click the three-dot button to see the test icon.
• Autosave of imaging progress to resume imaging in case of power or network connection loss.
• Storage. Ability to create multiple subfolders.
• Improved calculation of Estimated time left during imaging.
• Decreased frequency of Speed refresh when facing bad sectors.
• Detailed speed stats indicate more information when imaging to multiple files with identical names in different folders.

NVMe drives:

• New Status bar showing live drive state, including its temperature.
• Diagnostics. Added table of power states, PCIe generation, temperature levels.
• Device page. Added Critical and Warning temperature values.
• Wiping. New method Sanitize from NVM 1.4 specification.

Case management:

• Case contains a list of target images and drives used with a source drive.
• New setting ‘Allow non-unique case names’.
• Ability to delete device from case.
• New report ‘Device was added to case’.

Other > SSD Trim – new task that helps to notify SSD controller about unused blocks.

Other > View SMART. Apple PCIe and M.2 AHCI PCIe drives supported.

Global Settings. For the ETH1 and ETH2 ports, it shows the speed of the network connection.

Bugfixes

No access to network folder with underscore character in hostname.

Widely improved error-handling when someone accidentally unplugs source or target drive during imaging.

Imaging:

• Imaging could not start when the source was an image file with read-only permissions.
• Imaging could not start when a target drive was powered off.
• Unable to resume imaging after connection loss with network Work Folder.

Logical imaging:

• Some old HFS partitions failed to open.
• Resume button did not work for imported case with a logical imaging session created on another TaskForce.

RAID. Applying detected mdadm configuration was not removing Spare drive(s).

Wiping. Multi-launch mode. Format NVM method was mistakenly available for SATA drives.

Case management. Impossible to select the same case for the same Macbook after reconnection.

TOSHIBA MG08ACA16TE drives were not identified until the 2nd attempt.

Occasional error when formatting a target drive to Storage with exFAT.

UI issue on the home page. Blank space when running multiple tasks and scrolling down the page.

2023.7

Initial release