Android Client Crashing

jjeffrey 2016-10-19 09:12:33 UTC #1

Hi,
I've recently set up an android client on Xibo and can't seem to stop it from crashing for any reasonable amount of time. It loads in the layout fine and updates fine when I change something and then after a random amount of time for no obvious reason it just crashes.

So far I've tried changing it from v61 down to version v59, since we have a working client on that version. I've also given it root permissions. It's been tried on different layouts and with various different options turned on and off and at this point I'm completely stuck for answers.

Any ideas?

Peter 2016-10-19 09:40:35 UTC #2

What device are you using please? (mark, model, android version, firmware version)

What kind of content do you want to display on this device?

Is it the same content that works fine on another android device?

jjeffrey 2016-10-19 10:03:51 UTC #3

This is the device, we have another one almost exactly the same running very similar content that's never had an issue.

It's android version 5.1.1, the devices version is apparently 1.0.0 with no updates available. I also removed and disabled a lot of the preinstalled apps that were of no use.
Our layout includes an RSS feed, a video and an image. Our other display uses the exact same layout but slightly different images with no issue.

Peter 2016-10-19 10:19:40 UTC #4

I see, this device is not on our recommended hardware list - https://community.xibo.org.uk/t/recommended-android-hardware/4340

That being said, it should work, especially since your content does not seem too demanding and it does work on similar device for you - perhaps there is something wrong with the device itself.

You could take a look at player status screen and CMS logs:
You will want to enable auditing for this display on Displays page in CMS first
Recreate the issue (ie wait for crash)
then check logs page in CMS for errors

Other way would be to install CatLog https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.nolanlawson.logcat&hl=en_GB (it does require root access though)
you could also check crashlogs on your android device (device -> sdcard->logs->crashlogXXX
where XXX is the crashlog number.

jjeffrey 2016-10-19 10:45:03 UTC #5

Alright I've got it going again with catlog installed and auditing turned on for the display. I'll wait for the crash to happen. Thank you very much for the help so far.

Guru_Evi 2016-10-19 19:07:25 UTC #6

Hey Jeff,

I figured out the same as you. Those cheap media players crash on anything. They overheat. You need a good 24/7 Android player, you won't find it sub-$100.

Minix makes really good ones and relatively cheap.

jjeffrey 2016-10-31 13:51:55 UTC #7

Hi, sorry for a super late reply, I was on holiday.
Well I tried at first to get error logs to send to our CMS which they won't for some reason. I can get error logs to appear from our other display screen but not this one. So I used catlog and was left with these error messages after a crash.
"invalid address or address of corrupt block 0xb895a698 passed to dlfree"
"Fatal Signal 11 (SIGSEGV), code 1, fault addr 0xdeadbaad in tid 2593 (Binder_3)"
"heap corruption detected by dlfree"
"Fatal signal 6 (SIGABRT), code -6 in tid 2653 (Binder_3)"

This was after it crashed over the weekend, when I came to it today I pressed to force close Xibo from the crash message and it restarted the machine. I think it is likely the android box is faulty but if you have any ideas it would be appreciated.