🐑 sheepChat 1.12.3
A cumulative update since 1.11.5. The headline is moderation: mute, ban and ignore now stick to the viewer account rather than a changeable nickname, a ban also stops speech, message removal reaches every window and the OBS widget, and platforms show what a moderator did. Plus built-in auto-update, premium lifelike voices, a command palette with customizable hotkeys, reworked polls and nearly twice-faster startup.
Viewer mute, ban and ignore
A restriction now sticks to the account, not the display name. Renaming no longer lifts a ban or mute, and an unrelated viewer with the same name is no longer hit by it.
A ban now also stops speech, and a mute cuts the reading off immediately — but only for the muted viewer; someone else's phrase is no longer interrupted.
Message removal now reaches every window and the OBS widget — including a message that had not been rendered yet, and a widget that reconnected after a dropout.
Ignore and mute now also cover text inside events — a donation message, for example.
Ignore can finally be lifted by command — by voice, from the command palette or with a hotkey; previously only by editing the list in settings.
Restrictions work from the very first message after startup, and one corrupted list entry no longer breaks mute and ban for everyone.
Moderation on platforms
YouTube and VK now show that a message was removed instead of it silently disappearing; GoodGame reports bans, timeouts and unbans — with the reason when the platform sends one.
A moderator clearing the chat now really clears the feed, including for your stream viewers in OBS.
Incomplete moderation data is no longer guessed at: Kick still removes the viewer's messages, and GoodGame no longer confuses a timeout with an unban.
Auto-update and installation
Built-in auto-update. sheepChat updates itself: when a new version ships it offers to update and downloads only what changed, not the whole distribution.
One permanent link for install and updates — the app downloads and installs everything itself.
One-click update — the update module updates itself when needed and does not ask a second time.
Updates work fully on Linux: the new-version notice at startup and the Update Center in the menu and in the About window. Linux also gets an installer in a .tar.gz archive — the file stays runnable straight out of it.
Installation is more resilient to antivirus software: a brief file lock no longer aborts the update.
Startup
Nearly twice-faster startup — about 1.9 seconds instead of 3.5.
If startup fails, you now see why: a window with the cause and buttons "Restart", "Close", "Open logs folder" instead of a silent hang.
Fixed the "endless loading screen"; problematic audio hardware no longer stalls startup.
Command palette and hotkeys
Command palette. Press the tilde key in settings to search app actions and settings tabs — type a couple of letters and hit Enter. Search handles the wrong keyboard layout and asks for anything missing (which channel, for example).
Any action can get its own hotkey. The "Hotkeys" tab: assign combinations by clicking, reset to defaults, or unbind. Conflicts can't be created.
The "Ignore viewer" and "Mute viewer" commands now also work when several channels are connected — the command asks which one to use.
A refused command is now visible: the palette keeps the reason on screen, while a hotkey or tray item shows a notification. Replies come in your interface language.
Polls
Polls are no longer tied to an open window — closing the window no longer resets the votes.
The OBS widget doesn't hang and honestly shows "No poll running" when there is none.
Setup errors are visible right away: missing options or platforms — the app tells you at startup instead of staying silent.
Counting is fixed: case no longer matters, "12" goes to option "12" not "1"; an option with an empty command no longer swallows all chat messages.
Polls can be controlled by hotkey and palette; an accidental restart doesn't wipe already-cast votes.
Text-to-speech
Premium lifelike voices for chat and event narration (available after signing in via Steam). Synthesis is more reliable: the app recovers from failures on its own and doesn't go silent for long.
Volume 0 finally means silence — zero on the slider was replaced with 100%, so a viewer you wanted silenced was read at full volume.
A stray empty row in the allow list no longer switches on "read only selected viewers" and silences the whole chat.
"Assign a voice" from chat now works right after startup, keeps the personal volume you set and no longer creates a second entry for the same viewer.
Platform chats
TikTok: duplicates removed — messages and events (subs, gifts, joins) no longer double up. Twitch: the chat is resilient to connection drops and recovers messages missed during the drop.
OK.ru no longer falls into a crash-and-reconnect loop; Steam and YouTube no longer hang silently on "Connecting…"; VK Video explains what it is doing instead of a frozen status check.
Messages written while the connection was down are delivered exactly once — nothing lost, nothing read aloud twice (OK.ru, Picarto, Trovo, GoodGame).
Rutube now explains clearly why a chat is unavailable.
OBS widgets
Chat widgets no longer lose messages during a brief connection drop and don't show duplicates; after reconnecting they catch up on removals they missed.
Nicknames wrap by words, as they do in the app; a double click removes exactly the message you clicked.
Widgets now receive only their own settings, not the app's entire settings set.
Settings
Opening the settings window no longer rolls back a ban you just applied and no longer wipes the row you are filling in.
Empty rows are no longer saved into lists, a new row gets your channel's platform, and a channel of a discontinued platform no longer disappears on save.
A failure while filling the window is now reported — previously "Apply" in that state could write empty settings.
A setting changed right before the app closes is no longer lost. OBS widget links update when the port changes, and hints and notifications are tidier.
Interface
The interface language is detected from the system on first launch.
The status bar no longer shows already-disabled channels, and "Always on top" no longer switches off when you close a second chat window.
The app log no longer grows without bound — capped at 10 MB with the previous file kept.
Privacy
Stronger data protection: the app log no longer collects the content of other people's messages or paths to your files, and less unnecessary information ends up in the support archive.
Linux
Minimum requirements raised to Ubuntu 24.04 / Debian 13 (and newer) — for more reliable operation of the app and auto-update.
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The update is rolled out to Default (stable), Beta and Nightly — 1.12.3 everywhere. There is also a new Legacy channel with the previous stable 1.9, for those who need exactly that one.
How to switch channels: Steam → right-click sheepChat → Properties → Betas → pick a channel from the list.
Thanks for being with us! If something behaves oddly, drop us a line — we read every report and fix them.