Video playback issues in Air for Android

Report · Mar 25, 2014

Hello everybody

I am developing an advertisement application which plays multiple videos. I have faced a very strange problem: nor the simple Video nor the StageVideo are not visible when I run the app on target android device. I can hear the audio but the only way to get the video is to press back button and then get back to app but in this case the video goes over the UI. This happens only on a target device which is a chinese sibo android tablet. It has android 4.1 on board. I have seen a lot of people had the similar issues:

http://forums.adobe.com/message/5429125

but the solution mentioned there - adding <containsVideo>true</containsVideo> to the manifest xml doesnt help

I am using adobe air 4.0 sdk and the air 4.0 runtime on the device. I have tried to change renderMode to CPU/Direct/Auto but it doesn change anything.

The other three android devices I have - toshiba thrive tablet(4.0.4)/ eken tablet(4.2.2)/ htc desire c(4.0.3) play all the video content without any problem.

Any advice will be highly appreciated,

Max

Report · Mar 27, 2014

Videos are h.264 mp4 files encoded via adobe media encoder. I have tried ecoding it as flv/f4v, change the bitrate and size but nothing helps. I have just tested embedding videos into swf using flash pro but still the same issue. It seems this hardware has a conflict with adobe air video player.

Update:

I have got a positive result when embedding video into an swf using flash pro and setting <containsVideo>false</containsVideo> into app descriptor

The quality and performance is poor but I think its possible to do something by playing with flv encoder settings.

Report · Sep 26, 2014

Hi,

I have the same problem..Have you fixed it somehow?

It makes me crazy...can't understand why i just hear the audio and can't see the video!!

If anyone knows how to solve this problem please answer me!!

Thanks to everyone

Tkart Staff

Report · Sep 26, 2014

Hi,

try uninstall the latest air then disable auto update from play store and then find and install old air 3.2/3.3

It helped in my case

Cheers,

Max

Report · Sep 26, 2014

sorry but i didn't get..

i have adobe AIR 4.0.0.1390.. so you suggest to reinstall the old version?

and what does it mean "i have to disable auto update from play store"?

thank you so much for your advice!

Report · Sep 26, 2014

you should manually uninstall the air 4.0 you have, then

if you plan to use the app in online mode you’ll need to disable auto updates for Adobe AIR

through google play application. Connect device to internet, run play store app on the tablet, find adobe

air, press on three dot button on the top right and deselect Auto update. This will prevent auto

updating it to the latest one.

And the last step is installing the old version of air like 3.2 or 3.3. Google for those, I'm sure you will find one of them. Not sure if its correct to put links to 3rd party sites with old air installation packages here as it may violate forum rules.

Report · Sep 26, 2014

ok, pretty clear this time!thank you!
so i have to find and install the 3.2 version on my device.

however, my question now is: adobe air allow me to see the video on the app, right? but since i'm developing that app I need to be sure that everyone can watch the video, not just me..

the problem is this: the app is already published, but it doesn't read video files. basically, I edit, render, and export the video, import it into Indesign, upload my folio, and publish it; however, video content doesn't show..

Sorry if I insist but i need to be sure that everyone can watch and use correctly my app.

Again, thank you

Tkart

Report · Oct 23, 2014

I experienced the same issue, just downloaded the Oct 14th AIR SDK, and still see the same issue.

As a former member of the Flash player team, I am not happy. Adobe AIR team, that's a very serious issue, please fix it as soon as possible. Otherwise, why do we need AIR?

Thanks,

Howard

Report · Oct 23, 2014

Can you try to add the following to you app.xml?

<application android:hardwareAccelerated="true"/>

rue

  <manifestAdditions>
        <![CDATA[
            <manifest android:installLocation="auto">
            <application android:hardwareAccelerated="true"/>

Report · Oct 24, 2014

Hi,

I have added that already. As for me it seems to be a problem which is related somehow with hardware the as the few other tablets and smartphones play videos just fine. The target device is android 4.1 chinese brand tablet so I think the problem is with their hardware or with their custom android firmware. Well at least I have found that versions 3.2 and 3.3 play videos well so we were able to continue working with our clients.

Report · Oct 24, 2014

The flag was always added.

To my knowledge from research on Google, 3 things affect black screen,

1) <application android:enabled="true" android:hardwareAccelerated="true">

2) <containsVideo></containsVideo>

3) <renderMode>direct</renderMode>

I tried the combinations of those 3 flags, still does not work for me with the very latest Oct air runtime. Sometimes there is no black screen, sometimes it shows black screen. The chances are 50/50 on my Samsung Galaxy S3 phone.

Again, as a former member of Flash player team and a loyal Flash fan, I think currently AIR really lags behind in both quality and speed.

Regards,

Howard

Report · Oct 24, 2014

Your solution will expire soon, b/c android lollipop is coming and 3.2 won't support that.

Adobe still needs to fix this issue on their side, otherwise, Air for android is unusable.

Report · Oct 25, 2014

it worked for me because my clients were using embedded devices with the same firmware and the hardware was really weak and cheap. In case of branded devices it;s a real shame for adobe as such a big corporation can't fix this bug.

unfortunately adobe doesnt consider air as a perspective tech for mobiles and works just on highly specialized aspects. in the meantime people will forget about flash and air but I m not sure adobe will be a leader in re:html/js development as the concurency is very tough there.

Report · Oct 27, 2014

Sorry if I missed this in the thread, but do we have a bug number for this issue? If someone can post one or email me (ccampbel@adobe.com), I can research what's going on.

Thanks,
Chris

Report · Oct 28, 2014

Hi Chris,

can't find it now - it looks like it was deleted as it has been declared "fixed' when I saw it the first time in march.

I guess it was 3645241 but not sure on 100%

Regards,

Max

Report · Oct 28, 2014

thanks Max. Your bug number seems to be a generic black screen issue. I found a second bug which is more similar to what we encountered. Bug #3687920.

1. The bug Max reported is: https://bugbase.adobe.com/index.cfm?event=bug&id=3645241

2. Another bug reported is: Bug#3687920 - Rendermode gpu shows black screen on new Samsung Tablets

Hi Chris, it's Howard, long time no see. Great to see you still on top of the Flash player bug tracking.

It happens on my Samsung Galaxy SIII from T-mobile. Please see my recorded video here about the problem: http://youtu.be/VSyh-d4Yso8

Here are the facts:

0. My playback video is: H264 low profile.

1. The black screen issue is on and off. 5 times out of 10 I see black screen while hearing audio, the other 5 times I saw both video and audio. The way to reproduce it is to repeatedly hit play, stop, play and stop, for a repeated number of times.

2. I tried direct mode/Gpu mode/auto mode, and all 3 sporadically show the same issue.

3. Samsung Galaxy SIII on Tmobile is a popular phone. Galaxy S3 Android Smartphone in Blue from T-Mobile - 4G Speed & S Beam | Samsung, OS version: Android 4.3

My guess:

Maybe there is some resource not cleaned up issue, I suspect, b/c the way Netstream.close() net stream.dispose() should free up all resources including GPU/direct rendering resource when I shut it down, and Netstream.play() in theory can reuse the resource, but sometimes it fails.

Please help investigate this issue, it's really annoying to see those issues hanging around for soooooo loooong w/o being fixed. thanks.

Regards,

Howard

Report · Nov 04, 2014

Hi, Chris,

I think this issue: Bug#3832525 - [Android] Video + Stage3D = Video don't work but sound continue playback

Also there is many critical video playback issues:

Bug#3759420 - [Platform_Windows] GPU accelerated video stop playing when screen resolution changes a...

Bug#3810201 - [Android] H.264 video rotating problem

Bug#3503389 - [Platform_Android]StageVideo attachCamera()

Bug#3802932 - [iOS] Video stops playing

Bug#3840986 - [iOS] Simple Video object doesn't work with H.264 (MP4) videos

Bug#3779843 - StageVideo + NetStream + Starling = R6025 Error

Bug#3626740 - H.264 playback conflicts with Stage3D (Android)

Bug#3832327 - [Android] NetStream decodedFrames don't work

Bug#3832141 - Video is not working if you seek on NetStream.Play.Stop and have a bufferTime

Bug#3810979 - AIR on iOS: Using StageVideo makes 2D Display objects opaque/black over Stage3D

Bug#3578045 - new Video() android black screen

Bug#3703836 - Black screen on Samsung Galaxy S4 and Nexus 7 device

Bug#3837870 - [iOS] StageVideo + Stage3D = video not displaying but sound playback

Bug#3840983 - [Android] Returning from Alarm Clock causes black screen when using Video with GPU acc...

Bug#3840999 - [iOS] [Android] Turn off screen at NetStream.Buffer.Flush causes video not work or cra...

Bug#3844059 - [iOS[ Switching between multiple NetStreams not work

Bug#3773944 - Video view top at android 4.3

and more

All of these problems very important for our business. Often we cannot create stable AIR applications when we need to use videos.

Could you force for faster fixing these issues?

Report · Nov 04, 2014

Alex,

Please see this blog post for details on the upcoming VideoTexture feature:

Beta Feature: VideoTexture and Stage3D

From a brief inspection of the additional list of bugs, it seems like many are duplicates. I'll try and go through these, but are any of them blockers for your app?

Report · Nov 04, 2014

I have already noticed that VideoTexture very powerful feature indeed. It could solve many problems for us.

For Windows there are 3 bugs mentioned here: Re: Using StageVideo and Stage3D in AIR - BETA

Waiting for next releases to try it for Android, iOS and fulll integrated for Windows.

Most critical issues for our applications right now:

Bug#3840999 - [iOS] [Android] Turn off screen at NetStream.Buffer.Flush causes video not work or cra...

Bug#3832525 - [Android] Video + Stage3D = Video don't work but sound continue playback

Bug#3840983 - [Android] Returning from Alarm Clock causes black screen when using Video with GPU acc...

Bug#3837870 - [iOS] StageVideo + Stage3D = video not displaying but sound playback

And a couple others bugs. I will create tickets for them. Its about NetStream performance and video blinking for Android.

Please consider some fast features/improvements like this: Feature#3832383 - [New_Feature_Requirement] StageVideo clear method

It could be very useful for developers.

Report · Jun 21, 2015

Hello,

I had this bug for a long time in Android, waited patiently for the new Adobe Air 18, and now with the VideoTexture it still flickers after calling netStream.play()

It switches render states to "software" and sometimes get stuck there. So another play() call is needed, then it flickers through "software" and then to "accelerated" and the movie plays.

On iOS it plays the clips almost instantly. I wish to have the same behavior on Android please as it limits my creative flexibility tremendously.

Thanks

Report · Aug 11, 2015

OSMFSettings.enableStageVideo = false;