# 1.4.4

## Improvements

* `:stream` plugin: response will now be partially buffered in order to i.e. inspect response status or headers on the response body without buffering the full response
  * this fixes an issue in the `down` gem integration when used with the `:max_size` option.
* do not unnecessarily probe for connection liveness if no more requests are inflight, including failed ones.
* when using persistent connections, do not probe for liveness right after reconnecting after a keep alive timeout.

## Bugfixes

* `:persistent` plugin: do not exhaust retry attempts when probing for (and failing) connection liveness.
  * since the introduction of per-session connection pools, and consequentially due to the possibility of multiple inactive connections for the same origin being in the pool, which may have been terminated by the peer server, requests would fail before being able to establish a new connection.
* prevent retrying to connect the TCP socket object when an SSLSocket object is already in place and connecting.