DS Devices APK - Issues with Freezing playback etc

Is there a specific APK for the DS Devices players? Im having lots of issues such as frozen playback, white screens etc.

That depends what device are you using exactly?

DS Devices DSC-J18 and DSC-J19, yes there is specific apk for them
DSCS9 should use the ‘standard’ release Xibo for Android

Both can be downloaded from here - https://app.xibo.org.uk/download (change the version in the dropdown).

We are using the DSCS9. When we used 1.8 with timed videos lengths and fades it just gave us white screens and at the end of the playlist the white screen would fade out and back in again. In fact it started crashing out on 1.8 so we had to roll back to 1.7.

Declan

That’s interesting, 1.8R102 and TextureView rendering (display profile -> troubleshooting -> disable ‘Use Surface View…’) should be working fine on DSCS9 against 1.8.2 CMS.

Some ‘white screen’ or rather your layout background to be specific might flash at the beginning of the playback when player loads required content, but that certainly should not cause them to crash.

Perhaps logs would tell us more about the problem, I’m not sure why 1.7R64 would be more stable for you.

The boxes have gone out and we are waiting on 5 more to come. I will do a variety of tests with logs on these when they arrive and show you. There were three in total and all them shared the same issue. Will be in touch early next week with the results.

Declan

Ok i have a DSCS9 with the latest APK and it freezes out after a few minutes. Have you any recommendations how to fix this? Ive a Minix z64 which works perfectly and without issue using the exact same layout.

I think we looked at this with you before, and it’s due to not setting a duration on the videos.

You need to set a fixed duration on the video, rather than using end detect (duration = 0).

We have a bug logged to try and understand why that should be.

Ok, ill have a try. I didn’t realise this was an issue with the DSCS9 too… Will test and report back. i know this was an issue even after it was timed the last time… it did things like hold a transition frame for 3 or 4 minutes then continue on again.

It’s not an issue with a particular hardware as far as we know, but with end detection on certain codecs, when not using SurfaceView.

The feedback I had from you was that setting a duration resolved it. I wasn’t aware you were then having issues after that. If that’s the case, we’ll need to investigate with you further.

I have assigned a timed layout to the player and will report back and we will plan from there.

1 Like

it didnt even take that long. Its doing things like holding a frame for the duration of the video. (i.e getting the first frame of the video and not playing the rest then fading it in and out. now it has a frozen white screen. I will restart and see if it happens again.

Edit

It just started playing content as normal. I will let it run for a while and see what happens.

1 Like

It’s not behaviour I recognise. If it continues to do that, I’d be interested to see the video files and layouts so we can run them here.

Its gone back to the frozen white screen. What do you need me to do?

Edit

After about 2-3 minutes of a white screen it started playing again. This happened with the previous players too.

Declan

Please can you send over exports of the layouts that exhibit this behaviour and we’ll run them here. I’ll PM you details

I’ve run your layout against DSCS9 in our office today, I did have similar issues with it, while I did not see a ‘white screen’ I did notice freeze frames occasionally, which is basically the same thing you’ve seen, just in different moment - if the freeze frame would happen during fade transition then screen will be white (background colour).

Without transitions I did not see this issue, which could imply that this is the problem.

I’ve also tested it on z64 textureView with transitions and did not encounter any problems.

Can I have your permission to share your videos with DSDevices for further testing?

You sure can…
Thanks Declan

Have you any update n this issue? :smiley:

We are still investigating it and are working with DSDevices to arrive at a solution.

In the interim, we recommend using SurfaceView (unfortunately that means no transitions) or use Xibo for Android 1.7R62 which should work correctly with TextureView on DSCS9.

Hi Peter,

Where can I download the 1.7 release.
I just ordered my first DS devices so expect to have simular problems.

You dont need it… The new APK has it all sorted… Works unbelievably well.

1 Like