Android Mini Client on Oreo

[cat6man]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Well, I finally got the Android 8 update (Shield)... and I have to say, this is not good. Android appears to throw errors loading the various images from the server (and everything is an image in sagetv). Not sure what to make of this, to be honest. I've spent some time researching but I've come up wtih nothing. In the mean time, I have to move to Plex for my viewing, and I hate to say it, but it might be the end of road for me with SageTV

I don't know what would change from android 7 to 8 that would cause this. I found one thread saying that 16bit pngs were failing to load since upgrading.

do you have problems with standard STV?

[crarbo1]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Well, I finally got the Android 8 update (Shield)... and I have to say, this is not good. Android appears to throw errors loading the various images from the server (and everything is an image in sagetv). Not sure what to make of this, to be honest. I've spent some time researching but I've come up wtih nothing. In the mean time, I have to move to Plex for my viewing, and I hate to say it, but it might be the end of road for me with SageTV

I don't know what would change from android 7 to 8 that would cause this. I found one thread saying that 16bit pngs were failing to load since upgrading.

That is discouraging. What other options are you considering if you stop using SageTV? I still have cable TV with a cable card and I only using the mini client on my ShieldTV box for viewing with the Gemstone UI. I don't normally watch live TV or channel surf, but my wife does and loosing the current setup wouldn't be good for me, because if her.

Is there a way to roll back the ShieldTV update if I go ahead and update it to see how bad this is on my setup?

Thanks for all of your work on this as the mini client was a lifesaver for me because it gave me new option to view SageTV when the extenders died.

Thanks again,
Chuck

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by cat6man

do you have problems with standard STV?

I didn't do extensive testing, but the default stv doesn't appear to be as badly affected. Keep in mind this is not an issue with Gemstone, but rather how Android loads the images sent from the server. And since everything is an image in sagetv, I wouldn't be surprised to see it having some issues, just not a many as Gemstone.

Originally Posted by crarbo1

That is discouraging. What other options are you considering if you stop using SageTV? I still have cable TV with a cable card and I only using the mini client on my ShieldTV box for viewing with the Gemstone UI. I don't normally watch live TV or channel surf, but my wife does and loosing the current setup wouldn't be good for me, because if her.

Is there a way to roll back the ShieldTV update if I go ahead and update it to see how bad this is on my setup?

Thanks for all of your work on this as the mini client was a lifesaver for me because it gave me new option to view SageTV when the extenders died.

Thanks again,
Chuck

I've had plex setup for a while, so, I'll try to make do with that. I will likely keep sagetv running for recordings, but I might switch to plex for my viewing (although I tried it last night, and I wasn't really happy -- much of it has to do with the fact that plex knows nothing about what I've watched in sagetv.)

I have two other options...
1. I start a new client for Android TV using native AndroidTV UI. (ie, it's an app like YouTube, Plex, Netflix, etc)
2. I see what I can do by creating a new UI renderer for Android, and see if I can somehow bypass the Android image loading.

In looking at where the issues are happening, I can't be sure that I'm not dealing with some sort of OpenGL issue either, because some of the images that it is complaining about are actually temporary surfaces that are used to composit other images. But something definately changed in the Android Software with this update.

[DarkWolf77]

Talk about discouraging.

Plex isn't a great option for me as I'm too used to comskip abs my wife loves being able to fast forward with the thumbnail navigation that gemstone provides...

Well, whatever you decide to do, we're behind you. I, for one, will be glad to help out in any way I can.

[gclayto]

The Fire TV with 4K Ultra HD is still working fine with the MiniClient. I switched to it when my Nexus updated to Oreo. Another option is to use Pheonix on the MiniClient it is more usable. Some of the menus don't work correctly, but you can count your button clicks to get where you want to go.

[samgreco]

Oreo has really made a mess of things. For me, it's made the mini-client unusable.

I've been running a parallel NextPVR/Kodi setup for a month or so and I actually like Kodi as a client. NextPVR leaves a lot to be desired as a backend. Wish I had Sage as a backend option.

I still have an HD200 on the system and may use that for a bit. But I think switching to KODI may be my answer. And the new V18 will be integrating with Google Assitant.

[DarkWolf77]

For what it's worth I was able to get a log file from my phone, same issues there. I'm seeing the errors you're probably talking about, that say some bitmap is in the wrong format.

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Well, I finally got the Android 8 update (Shield)... and I have to say, this is not good. Android appears to throw errors loading the various images from the server (and everything is an image in sagetv). Not sure what to make of this, to be honest. I've spent some time researching but I've come up wtih nothing. In the mean time, I have to move to Plex for my viewing, and I hate to say it, but it might be the end of road for me with SageTV

I don't know what would change from android 7 to 8 that would cause this. I found one thread saying that 16bit pngs were failing to load since upgrading.

So.... I am running the miniclient on android 8.1 on my phone and have not seen any of these issues. Assuming it should be pretty easy to see. Are you sure this is not specifically a Shield issue? Can this be reproduced in emulation of and android tv running 8.1?

Thanks,
Josh

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by DarkWolf77

For what it's worth I was able to get a log file from my phone, same issues there. I'm seeing the errors you're probably talking about, that say some bitmap is in the wrong format.

Was this in the Stock STV? Can this be reproduced in the stock STV?

Josh

[DarkWolf77]

Originally Posted by jvl711

Was this in the Stock STV? Can this be reproduced in the stock STV?

Josh

Sadly, no, it's on gemstone and the UI is so broken that I can't actually switch to stock. I'm thinking of removing the client properties file when I get home to get it to reset to the default settings to see if that makes any difference.

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by DarkWolf77

Sadly, no, it's on gemstone and the UI is so broken that I can't actually switch to stock. I'm thinking of removing the client properties file when I get home to get it to reset to the default settings to see if that makes any difference.

So it is only effecting Gemstone. No other STV is effected? Is it possible there are images in the STV which are not in an acceptable format?

Is it possible the image cache is getting corrupted? Did any try turning off the cache and see if the issue goes away?

[DarkWolf77]

Originally Posted by jvl711

So it is only effecting Gemstone. No other STV is effected? Is it possible there are images in the STV which are not in an acceptable format?

Is it possible the image cache is getting corrupted? Did any try turning off the cache and see if the issue goes away?

I'm afraid not. I took a few minutes on my lunch break to poke around. I cleared the app data entirely including the cache (no reinstall, but I doubt that would impact anything) and was able to get the default STV to load up - but it was even more broken the Gemstone was - going to "tv" yielded a complete blank screen. The only thing still rendering was the main menu. Unfortunately, I can't get it to produce another log file now.

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by DarkWolf77

I'm afraid not. I took a few minutes on my lunch break to poke around. I cleared the app data entirely including the cache (no reinstall, but I doubt that would impact anything) and was able to get the default STV to load up - but it was even more broken the Gemstone was - going to "tv" yielded a complete blank screen. The only thing still rendering was the main menu. Unfortunately, I can't get it to produce another log file now.

Wow... That is crazy.

I am using Android 8.1.0 / LineageOS 15.1 on a Mate 9 and I am seeing no issues rendering.


From looking at the code if I am reading it correctly I wonder if any portion of rendering the screen fails than all following items will fail as well... I might no understand that code that well though


I woulder if we put a try catch on renderQueue.get(i).run(); and let the render image fail if the next items would render ok. I also wonder if we should check the image that it is failing on to see if there are any issues with it.

synchronized (renderQueue) {
            try {
                batch.begin();
                batch.setColor(Color.BLACK);
                for (int i=0;i<size;i++) {
                    renderQueue.get(i).run();
                }
            } catch (Throwable t) {
                log.error("Render Failed.  This should never happen.  Developer should figure out why", t);
                // TODO: How should we manage this.. request a re-render??
            } finally {
                batch.end();
                renderQueue.clear();
            }
        }

[stuckless]

The problem is that the image is always bad. In my setup the image always fails no matter how many times you render it. And I did add code to clean the cached image and re render but it didn't change anything. Of course it would help if I knew why android thinks the image is bad but doesn't tell me.

Originally Posted by jvl711

Wow... That is crazy.

I am using Android 8.1.0 / LineageOS 15.1 on a Mate 9 and I am seeing no issues rendering.


From looking at the code if I am reading it correctly I wonder if any portion of rendering the screen fails than all following items will fail as well... I might no understand that code that well though


I woulder if we put a try catch on renderQueue.get(i).run(); and let the render image fail if the next items would render ok. I also wonder if we should check the image that it is failing on to see if there are any issues with it.

synchronized (renderQueue) {
            try {
                batch.begin();
                batch.setColor(Color.BLACK);
                for (int i=0;i<size;i++) {
                    renderQueue.get(i).run();
                }
            } catch (Throwable t) {
                log.error("Render Failed.  This should never happen.  Developer should figure out why", t);
                // TODO: How should we manage this.. request a re-render??
            } finally {
                batch.end();
                renderQueue.clear();
            }
        }

[jvl711]

Originally Posted by stuckless

The problem is that the image is always bad. In my setup the image always fails no matter how many times you render it. And I did add code to clean the cached image and re render but it didn't change anything. Of course it would help if I knew why android thinks the image is bad but doesn't tell me.

I am having a super hard time reproducing this. I am wondering what the variables are that are effecting the rendering of the image. I am not seeing any issues on my phone running Android 8.1. I am also not able to repro running Android TV 8.1 on an emulator from Android Studio. Are you using an emulator, or are you only reproducing this on the Shield?

I would like to try and help if I can find a way to repo the issue.

Josh

[kklee]

Just wanted to add more info on this issue.

I'm using Gemstone.

I use the Miniclient occasionally on my Pixel 2 XL, last time was a couple of months ago and it worked fine at that time.

I tested it now on my phone and it now has the same messed up menu issue as the updated Shield TV.

It doesn't seem to be specific to the Shield TV.

My Pixel 2 XL is running the latest stock Oreo update from Google. So maybe something in one of the recent Oreo updates?

[stuckless]

Originally Posted by jvl711

I am having a super hard time reproducing this. I am wondering what the variables are that are effecting the rendering of the image. I am not seeing any issues on my phone running Android 8.1. I am also not able to repro running Android TV 8.1 on an emulator from Android Studio. Are you using an emulator, or are you only reproducing this on the Shield?

I would like to try and help if I can find a way to repo the issue.

Josh

Using gemstone on the emulator in it could reproduce it easily. It's how I found the errors about the 'bad bitmaps'. using the default stv, things appear to work better. Just gemstone uses a lot more images.

[DarkWolf77]

Originally Posted by stuckless

Using gemstone on the emulator in it could reproduce it easily. It's how I found the errors about the 'bad bitmaps'. using the default stv, things appear to work better. Just gemstone uses a lot more images.

Well that's unfortunate - because on all of mine, the default STV is actually worse. Beyond the main menu screen, all menus render completely blank. The only thing that updates is the heading at the very top of the screen. With gemstone, at least the background would update to match what show was selected.

But then, after that first day, no menus of any kind are rendering past the main even on gemstone (I have a tablet and phone that's also on Oreo, so I can reproduce on all three). Unfortunately I can't get any logs to generate whatsoever. Very frustrating.

Even more frustrating is the complete inability to find any kind of changelog for Android 8.0. There is literally no place I can find what changes were made beyond the marketing bullet points about picture in picture and other features that we all know few 3rd party apps will ever support.

[jvl711]

I think I might have some possibly good news. I made the suggested change to the render code to allow the code to keep rendering if an error occurs. It looks like there are only a few images that may be causing most of the issues. In the gemstone it looks like it is three images on the header. Depending on the order of rendering than the whole screen might not render.

This minor change makes the screen continue to render. It does not resolve the issue completely, but it might make the client usable.

synchronized (renderQueue)
        {
            try
            {
                batch.begin();
                batch.setColor(Color.BLACK);
                for (int i=0;i<size;i++)
                {
                    try
                    {
                        renderQueue.get(i).run();
                    }
                    catch (Throwable t)
                    {
                        log.error("Render Queue Item Failed...  Continuing to process the rest of the items in the queue", t);
                    }
                }
            }
            catch (Throwable t)
            {
                log.error("Render Failed.  This should never happen.  Developer should figure out why", t);
                // TODO: How should we manage this.. request a re-render??
            } finally
            {
                batch.end();
                renderQueue.clear();
            }
        }

See attached imaged. The images that are in the yellow box are what did not render on my phone when I updated the code. I think we should see if the Gemstone developers can look at those image files and see if there may be something different about them.

Josh


ADDITIONAL INFO:

I went through and opened the MarkerSysAlert png files in Paint.net, and made no changes to them, and resaved, and the images started to render withouit issue. I am convinced there is something about those images that Android/OpenGL does not like now. Maybe there is something a little of in the format.

[stuckless]

Looks like we arrived at the same conclusions I discovered this morning that a few images are causing issues and I started to compare those images to those that work. Using the "identify -verbose" tool they appeared to be very similar. I ran "optipng" on all pngs and then sagetv worked again. So while I can't fix this in the miniclient, it is likely it can be fixed by fixing the images, themselves. (and adding your try/catch is a good thing as well, since, it would prevent this, and possibly other render failures from causing the UI from being totally broken).

I'll see if I can get an update out this weekend.

Originally Posted by jvl711

I think I might have some possibly good news. I made the suggested change to the render code to allow the code to keep rendering if an error occurs. It looks like there are only a few images that may be causing most of the issues. In the gemstone it looks like it is three images on the header. Depending on the order of rendering than the whole screen might not render.

This minor change makes the screen continue to render. It does not resolve the issue completely, but it might make the client usable.

See attached imaged. The images that are in the yellow box are what did not render on my phone when I updated the code. I think we should see if the Gemstone developers can look at those image files and see if there may be something different about them.

Josh


ADDITIONAL INFO:

I went through and opened the MarkerSysAlert png files in Paint.net, and made no changes to them, and resaved, and the images started to render withouit issue. I am convinced there is something about those images that Android/OpenGL does not like now. Maybe there is something a little of in the format.