Skip to content

While casting, the playhead (progress bar, thumbnail, and content title) appears randomly during playback #5636

@feragusper

Description

@feragusper

[REQUIRED] Issue description

While casting, the playhead (progress bar, thumbnail, and content title) appears randomly during playback. Sometimes it won't appear for a few minutes, and sometimes it will appear every 20 seconds or so.
It doesn’t happen when screen is keep on the app, and also doesn’t happen after shutting down the android mobile device. It happen only when the mobile device screen is turned off, whether or not the app is running.

We’re using Exoplayer 2.9.0 with cast extension enabled.
Everything seems to work fine except for this bug. The bug happens only when the device screen is turned off while the device is not connected to a power supply.
Once the receiver or the app is in a bad state, the bug ( the playhead showing intermittently on the Cast device) persists even after killing the application. It is however not happening if the phone is shut down.
The bug doesn’t happen using the CastVideos-android project => https://github.com/googlecast/CastVideos-android , but does happen when we use the Exoplayer Cast Plugin (https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer/blob/71f72c59537711399dc5496136dd6b867acc6d77/extensions/cast/src/main/java/com/google/android/exoplayer2/ext/cast/CastPlayer.java ).
The bug doesn’t happen using the custom receiver application used in that project => “4F8B3483”.
We’re using the default receiver application.
We generally use the same setup as in the samples: same CastOptionsProvider, same permissions in manifest, etc.

Note: The Demo App for Exoplayer releases the castPlayer in the Activity’s onPause ( see:

and )
For our app, we need the playback on the cast device to continue after the app’s activity’s onPause, so we do not call he release() -function of the castPlayer. We found this is the only way to ensure that the content keeps playing on the cast device.

[REQUIRED] Reproduction steps

Steps To Reproduce
Cast any content (video or clip) via Chromecast.
Be sure that the device isn’t connected to any power supply.
Turn off phone screen or wait for screen to turn off by itself.

Expected Result
Playhead should only display on TV when video is played/paused

Actual Result
The playhead (progress bar, thumbnail, and content title) appears randomly during playback. Sometimes it won't appear for a few minutes, and sometimes it will appear every 20 seconds or so.

[REQUIRED] Link to test content

Video of the bug happening:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Eycg_ML3MnGvW1DK8I0SjHgigpXi8dav/view?usp=sharing

[REQUIRED] A full bug report captured from the device

No logs required.

[REQUIRED] Version of ExoPlayer being used

We’re using Exoplayer 2.9.0 with cast extension enabled.

[REQUIRED] Device(s) and version(s) of Android being used

Phones
Many phones and tablets including different Android versions (5, 8, 9) and many manufacturers (Google, Samsung). Also different chromecasts (1st/2nd Gen), even using MiBox and Nvidia shield chromecast built-in devices.

Metadata

Metadata

Assignees

Type

No type

Projects

No projects

Milestone

No milestone

Relationships

None yet

Development

No branches or pull requests

Issue actions