diff --git a/CHANGELOG.md b/CHANGELOG.md
index 5b49bb5e..19a982e4 100644
--- a/CHANGELOG.md
+++ b/CHANGELOG.md
@@ -4,18 +4,24 @@ All notable changes to this project will be documented in this file.
 Given the high speed of development in the first phase, changes are being
 reported only starting from v0.20.2.
 
-## [Unreleased]
+## [0.24.5] - 2023-02-22
 
 ### Added
 
 - Added `hid` plugin to support discoverability and data interaction with
   generic HID devices - like Bluetooth/USB peripherals, joysticks, dongles and
   any other type of devices that supports the HID interface.
+  
+- Added `timeout` parameter to `websocket.send` to prevent messages sent on a
+  non-responsive websocket from getting the websocket loop stuck
 
 ### Fixed
 
 - Running the Zeroconf registration logic in another thread in `backend.http`,
   so failures in the Zeroconf logic don't affect the startup of the web server.
+  
+- (Temporarily) introduced `sqlalchemy < 2.0.0` as a requirement - a PR with a
+  migration to the new stable version of SQLAlchemy is in TODO.
 
 ## [0.24.4] - 2022-12-20
 
diff --git a/platypush/__init__.py b/platypush/__init__.py
index a4698ff6..27aa9bee 100644
--- a/platypush/__init__.py
+++ b/platypush/__init__.py
@@ -25,7 +25,7 @@ from .message.response import Response
 from .utils import set_thread_name, get_enabled_plugins
 
 __author__ = 'Fabio Manganiello <info@fabiomanganiello.com>'
-__version__ = '0.24.4'
+__version__ = '0.24.5'
 
 log = logging.getLogger('platypush')
 
diff --git a/platypush/plugins/music/mpd/__init__.py b/platypush/plugins/music/mpd/__init__.py
index 778a2d52..e5d43244 100644
--- a/platypush/plugins/music/mpd/__init__.py
+++ b/platypush/plugins/music/mpd/__init__.py
@@ -53,7 +53,7 @@ class MusicMpdPlugin(MusicPlugin):
             while n_tries > 0:
                 try:
                     n_tries -= 1
-                    self.client = mpd.MPDClient(use_unicode=True)
+                    self.client = mpd.MPDClient()
                     self.client.connect(self.host, self.port)
                     return self.client
                 except Exception as e:
diff --git a/requirements.txt b/requirements.txt
index 3381ad9b..b31f4888 100644
--- a/requirements.txt
+++ b/requirements.txt
@@ -12,10 +12,10 @@ python-dateutil
 tz
 frozendict
 requests
-sqlalchemy
+sqlalchemy<2.0.0
 bcrypt
 rsa
-zeroconf
+zeroconf>=0.27.0
 paho-mqtt
 websocket-client
 croniter
diff --git a/setup.cfg b/setup.cfg
index d419f8a0..e059a76d 100644
--- a/setup.cfg
+++ b/setup.cfg
@@ -1,5 +1,5 @@
 [bumpversion]
-current_version = 0.24.4
+current_version = 0.24.5
 commit = True
 tag = True
 
diff --git a/setup.py b/setup.py
index 99f7c7a5..cdde64c1 100755
--- a/setup.py
+++ b/setup.py
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@ backend = pkg_files('platypush/backend')
 
 setup(
     name="platypush",
-    version="0.24.4",
+    version="0.24.5",
     author="Fabio Manganiello",
     author_email="info@fabiomanganiello.com",
     description="Platypush service",
@@ -57,7 +57,7 @@ setup(
         'redis',
         'requests',
         'croniter',
-        'sqlalchemy',
+        'sqlalchemy<2.0.0',
         'websockets',
         'websocket-client',
         'wheel',