Android: Video Media streaming with the built in video player doesn't always works (mostly)

[gradinaruvasile]

Actual behaviour

• Tap a video, the video player launches but most times fails to show the video, the screen stays black. Sometimes the length of the video is shown, but mostly shows 0:00. Sometimes it shows an error that the built in player is unable to play the video.

Note that

• if i use the "Stream with..." option and have VLC installed, the streaming works via VLC.
• smaller video files seem to have bigger chances to be played.
• even if a video starts succesfully, most times it just freezes after a few seconds (after initial caching?)
• this happens even if the device is on wifi on the same LAN as the NC server

Expected behaviour

• The video should be played every time. Or, if there are issues, an appropriate message to be shown.

Steps to reproduce

1. Tap a video
2. 
   
   
   3.
   

Environment data

Android version:
8.1.0
Device model:
Lenovo K6 Power
Stock or customized system:
Lineage OS
Nextcloud app version:
3.3.0
Nextcloud server version:
14.0.0

[nextcloud-android-bot]

GitMate.io thinks possibly related issues are https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues/3061 (Media Streaming Doesn't Work), https://github.com/nextcloud/android/pull/183 (Streaming), https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues/2941 (Sharing a link form the video player does not work), https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues/643 (Autoupload does not work), and https://github.com/nextcloud/android/issues/1707 (Push doesn't work).

[stale[bot]]

This request did not receive an update in the last 4 weeks. Please take a look again and update the issue with new details, otherwise the issue will be automatically closed in 2 weeks. Thank you!

[gradinaruvasile]

This issue is still present on Android 8.1, 9 with server versions 16.0 (latest ATM).

[stale[bot]]

This request did not receive an update in the last 4 weeks. Please take a look again and update the issue with new details, otherwise the issue will be automatically closed in 2 weeks. Thank you!

[exussum12]

This still happens

[tobiasKaminsky]

I'll have a look.
@exussum12 do you see any difference if you use different video formats?

[exussum12]

Ive only tried mp4. I can try another format if you like ? It does seem to try and download the entire video before trying to play, smaller videos (1-2 seconds) work but anything over 1 min has big issues

[exussum12]

I imagine this is more to do with #3061 actually looking more in to it

[tobiasKaminsky]

I found some problem, which is independent from Android: https://github.com/nextcloud/server/issues/16511

[stale[bot]]

This request did not receive an update in the last 4 weeks. Please take a look again and update the issue with new details, otherwise the issue will be automatically closed in 2 weeks. Thank you!

[AaronADev]

It appears that this issue still persists. Has there been any updates on this or any newer issues that are actually tracking this?

[ezaquarii]

@tobiasKaminsky Is it fixed server side?

[stale[bot]]

This request did not receive an update in the last 4 weeks. Please take a look again and update the issue with new details, otherwise the issue will be automatically closed in 2 weeks. Thank you!

[DragonQ]

My wife and I both have this issue. Viewing images works fine but we cannot play videos. Tapping a video just leads to a "loading" page forever, and if I choose "Stream with..." then MX Player, MX Player just sits there loading forever too. Most of the videos were recorded on our phones and are 1080p, AVC L4.1 in an MP4 container with AAC audio.

The only workarounds I've found are to download the video first within Nextcloud app (which defeats the purpose IMO), or to use the web interface instead. There is nothing related in the Nextcloud server-side logs either.

[dennorske]

I confirm this issue persists in the nextcloud dev 20191017 android app, and also on version 3.8.1. I am running android 10, on a oneplus 6T. I have also tried during my use of nc 16 and now on nc 17.

Streaming with VLC works, but built in app has never worked for me.

[tobiasKaminsky]

@DragonQ do you have server side encryption with user keys enabled?

@dennorske what kind of videos are those? The built in media player relies on the codecs that are installed on Android, so there might a few missing.

[dennorske]

These are mainly phone-recorded videos, such as MP4's from my OnePlus 6T. I don't see why the files can play on the phone but not through nextcloud's app. Let me know if i can provide more details.

[DragonQ]

@DragonQ do you have server side encryption with user keys enabled?

@tobiasKaminsky No, "Default encryption module" is not enabled.

[stale[bot]]

This request did not receive an update in the last 4 weeks. Please take a look again and update the issue with new details, otherwise the issue will be automatically closed in 2 weeks. Thank you!

[AaronADev]

Has anyone had any updates on this? It would be nice if the videos played better natively through the app especially for content creators etc. Thanks in advance.

[gradinaruvasile]

Unfortunately it is still not working properly. It seems that shorter
videos work because they are cached fully locally in very short time. But
longer ones, unless you pre-download them, are hit and miss.

On Sat, Nov 23, 2019, 21:30 Aaron Lawson [e-mail] wrote:

Has anyone had any updates on this? It would be nice if the videos played
better natively through the app especially for content creators etc. Thanks
in advance.

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[mathieu2em]

for me, on android, mp4 video files works well on the native nextcloud app but not on the stream with vlc.
for .mpk , it just gives sound on native and media player and load indefinitely on vlc

[stale[bot]]

This request did not receive an update in the last 4 weeks. Please take a look again and update the issue with new details, otherwise the issue will be automatically closed in 2 weeks. Thank you!

[njfox]

Is anyone still looking into this? I'm running into this issue on the latest stable NC server and android client.

[dennorske]

Can confirm the above is the same issue for me

[DragonQ]

Not sure if this'll help others but I set the Apache log level to debug and saw some non-error clues that led me to figuring out a solution in my case. There were basically some "errors" relating to the domain name when I tried to play a video in the Nextcloud Android app.

I set up a Let's Encrypt cerrificate (to avoid issues with self signed certificates) and tried accessing my server via its public facing URL. Voila, videos load and play successfully. However, if I access my server via its internal IP address while connected to my home network, they do not play. So the solution for me is to use the public facing URL and set up a redirect on my internal network DNS server so it forwards to my local server address, so I'm still accessing the server internally where possible even when using the public URL.

Hopefully this helps someone else with this problem!

[maidstein]

Still have the same problem! This problem only exists in case of playing larger files. Let me know if you need more details.

Please help!

[dopyrory3]

I'm having this problem too, makes switching from iPhone to Android a hot mess when none of your existing videos work

[fredbcode]

Same here, and I found no way to totally disable the nextcloud player (video plugin is disabled but the player still running)

A simple alternative should be to open automatically the file with vlc or some local players