Cataclysm-dda: Opening Software Keyboard on Android 9.0 causes crashing [$20 Bounty]

[chriseich21]

Describe the bug

Inputting commands with the software Keyboard (SwiftKey) is frequently crashing on the 2nd attempt when using software back button/gesture on Note 9 and Android 9. It is impossible to trade more than a single item with a merchant (and there's a limit now on credit so you'll never be able to buy items over your credit limit if you do it one at a time)
Also a second, related bug, the software Keyboard numbers do not input any amount when picking up or dropping items. Not as bad though as using Advanced inventory to avoid dropping/picking up a full stack is possible.

Steps To Reproduce

1. Spawn as Sheltered as a class with some decent items to sell (ex. Bionic Sniper)
2. Input a letter/symbol of an item to buy on software Keyboard (opened with back key)
3. Tab over to sell section and attempt to sell an item to cover cost by pressing back key to open the keyboard and crash the game.

Expected behavior

Somewhere prior to build 9569, or possibly prior to updating to Android 9.0 as it was similar timing, the software keyboard was working fine and it would work with the application just like a real hardware keyboard does. Ideally fixing the keyboard to work like a hardware one would be best, but I believe at one point the dynamic soft keys along the bottom of the screen showed items to buy/sell so that could be re-enabled/added.

Versions and configuration

• OS: Android 9.0
• Game Version: Build 9577 (version 0.D-7213-ga0159bf)
• Graphics version: Tiles
• Mods loaded: [DDA, CRIT Exp, Garden Pots, Makeshift Items, Medieval and Historic, More Survival Tools, Mythological Replicas, Dinomod, Modular Turrets, Salvaged Robots, Alt Map Key, EZ Medical, Hydroponics, Beta National Guard, More Locations, Fujis More Buildings, Urban Development, Folding Parts, Vehicle Additions, Tanks and Other, Necromancy]

Additional Context/Files

No crash.log is generated for this crash, however here is the debug.log.
debug.log

[gearforcer]

There are some compatibility problems, I guess.Recent builds run well on my Android 6.0 phone, and Android 9.0 seems occurs the issue.

[chriseich21]

There are some compatibility problems, I guess.Recent builds run well on my Android 6.0 phone, and Android 9.0 seems occurs the issue.

Hm that's disappointing as it's my most played Android game. The timing does line up as the problem started after I updated to 9.0 but I didn't play for a couple days and downloaded a new build, but I didn't see anything in CDDA changelog that would appear to be causing the issue. Not sure if crash log generates just like PC but I can check and provide it for additional reference to hopefully assist with fixing and update my above post. Wonder what's causing the incompatibility in/with new Android version, if anyone finds out I'd be curious to know!

[gearforcer]

Maybe you can find some clues from this change log#9555,because it seems that there's no compatibility problems before Android experimental build 0.D-9562, check the download list for reference. You may ask @ZhilkinSerg for more information.

[gearforcer]

@ZhilkinSerg On starting Android experimental build 0.D-9591-arm-v8a, it shows ERROR message. Run on andriod 9, CPU:Cortex A73+Cortex A53

[ZhilkinSerg]

Which version are you on?

https://bugzilla.libsdl.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4316

[gearforcer]

Which version are you on?

https://bugzilla.libsdl.org/show_bug.cgi?id=4316

Andriod 9, CPU:Cortex A73+Cortex A53

[chriseich21]

Mine had the same SDL error on Android 9 running on Note 9. I used the armeabi one and it launches like before but still has the same crashing problem when using software keyboard.

[gearforcer]

Report more detail on forum may helpful.
https://discourse.cataclysmdda.org/t/android-version/13348/609

[Alprk1980]

I still have this issue too

[RustyBrute]

Same issue here. I am adding $10 to the bounty!

[chriseich21]

I'll update the title to $30 when it shows up on bounty source

[ThomasLinkin]

Basically no one has found the error yet? Well shiet. I am seriously don't want to go back to the old 9310 version.

[Alprk1980]

9552 works as thats what I'm running in the meanwhile

[ThomasLinkin]

Thanks my dude. But that's the last version works for us?

[ZhilkinSerg]

Thanks my dude. But that's the last version works for us?

Most probably build 9589

Basically no one has found the error yet? Well shiet. I am seriously don't want to go back to the old 9310 version.

Nobody tried yet.

[chriseich21]

Well my bug report is on 9577

[ZhilkinSerg]

Try 9552 then.

[ThomasLinkin]

9552 is the last one works btw.

[ThomasLinkin]

after that,none of them work. idk what, but it seems like the problem came from the device's OS

[ThomasLinkin]

i tried. the stable 0.D worked flawlessly, the experiment which Play Store allowed me to download was the #9310 version. so far the latest i could tried was the #9552 up here.

[gearforcer]

It's very strange that there is no influence to few of Android 9.0 phone. If we can find the difference between them, we should know the reason.

---Original---
From: "ZhilkinSerg"<[email protected]>
Date: Mon, Sep 30, 2019 16:19 PM
To: "CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA"<[email protected]>;
Cc: "gearforcer"<[email protected]>;"Comment"<[email protected]>;
Subject: Re: [CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA] Opening Software Keyboard on Android 9.0 causes crashing [$20 Bounty] (#33781)

It is very strange. Builds that I linked are before various changes to Android build process (which could cause the issue).

Did you try any versions from Playstore (stable 0.D and beta)? Are they working for you?

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[ThomasLinkin]

so i have two option.
1 is wait for the 0.E version,and pray to any higher being i am believing in that it works.or 2
degrade my OS back to Android 8. this isn't what i want to do, due to the amount of data i have on my phone.

[ThomasLinkin]

oh,do you think this also related to phone's brand ? idk, but it sounds pretty much relatable

[ZhamelSeh]

I am experiencing the same issue on a Samsung Note 8, running Android 9.

Added onto this is an issue when I try and connect a Bluetooth keyboard (Logitech G613) the onscreen keyboard opens and does not go away. I try to use the back button to get rid of the virtual keyboard but it just immediately returns.

In addition to the above, if the keyboard is connected when I start CDDA, when the game is loading all the scripting for a world, sometimes the game/app will time out on loading Tileset, I am assuming at this part of loading the world because virtual keyboard is hiding most of the screen, and crash.

[ThomasLinkin]

@ZhamelSeh mine crashed even in the main menu. turned the game on, and boom,crashed after the second keyboard activation

[RustyBrute]

Just for info, my phone is pocophone Xiaomi Pocophone F1, crash on second keyboard activation anytime in the game.

[ThomasLinkin]

Mine is Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 Pro.

[Alprk1980]

Huawai Pro same issue

[ThomasLinkin]

I think a phone with a highly-tweaked firmware type causes the problem? Dunno,gotta wait for more evidence and stuff

[chriseich21]

I think it's just something to do with the Android 9 OS, but I could be mistaken. The crash became a problem immediately after I updated to Android 9, and I'm running a Note 9. I don't feel like TouchWiz is that heavily modified. My crash happens with SwiftKey, I can try it with Samsung keyboard but I think it's just a problem with the back button opening software keyboard on the 2nd attempt, not the keyboard itself (although as mentioned in OP, numbers on number row do not input values when picking up/dropping partial stacks)

[RustyBrute]

Well, its a strange issue. I doubt it is only androids 9s issue. CDDA 9552 works fine, later versions do not. Must be something on both sides. Dunno...
We have to raise dat bounty guys, it will be a proper motivation for someone more competent in this topic as we are :D

[Gaunah]

This issue also persists in Android 10 (Pixel 3a).
The second time I open the virtual keyboard the app closes. Tested with build 9715.

[Mrkeserian]

Can also confirm on a Samsung Galaxy S9+ (Verizon) running Android 9 with the September 9 security patch. It happens with both the default Samsung Keyboard as well as SwiftKey, so I would concur that it's something to do with the back button opening the keyboard and not the keyboard itself. Is there any crash logging on the Android version? The only log I can find seems to just log the load process.

Also, it looks like the app rendering fails on regaining focus after switching back from another app or lock. The haptic feedback kicks in if you try to move, but the screen remains completely black, and nothing CDDA related renders on it.

[ThomasLinkin]

Oh,yeah,he was right. That problem exists too. Everytime you switch apps,the game renders failed,and if i switch off the software render,that problem seems to cease itself. But another problem was that if i scroll down the notification bar,the game stopped showing what i do after scrolling the bar down. What shown on the screen was the image of what i was doing. Can still feel the haptic feedback,confirmed the game still work at the time.

[Mrkeserian]

Also, bit more information, it appears that the game will crash on any attempt to open the keyboard using the back button after the keyboard has been opened once using any method.

In other words, if you open the keyboard once with the back button, no crash. Open it a second time with the back button, crash.

If you open the keyboard once with by going into a keyboard menu (automatic virtual keyboard management == on), no crash. Open it with the back button after it has been opened once, crash.

However, it appears that the automatic keyboard management can open the virtual keyboard any number of times with no crash behavior observed. So, I'm not sure how helpful that is, but I hope it helps someone run down the issue.

As to the renderer failing to redraw, I tried hardware graphics once, and it kinda worked, although there were weird characters off the edge of the terminal, and the game was way less stable (again, S9+ running Android 9). I'm not a mobile or low level program guy, but it looked (to me) like the game was trying to pass instructions to the renderer that the renderer didn't completely understand. No effect on the keyboard issue though.

So my guess is that we have two separate issues here. One may have to do with the renderer having an argument with soemthing in the OS (maybe a call changed when they went to Android 9?) (that's the focus issue, and maybe the instability in hardware rendering). The other issue I'd guess has soemthing to do with how Android is parsing the back button command. Maybe we could get an alternate button on the shortcut bar to bring up the virtual keyboard? Just as a troubleshooting mechanism. Like, allow the tilde key to bring up the virtual keyboard, just to see if that fixes the problem.

See, the reason I think that is because it doesn't seem to be the keyboard itself causing the problem. If it was the keyboard, automatic keyboard management would be crashing the game. So, my guess is that Android is interpreting the back button as something else, and then terminating Cata's process. That would explain the lack of crash logs because Cata isn't having time for its exception handler to generate a log, it isn't hitting an exception: the OS is just killing the process.

Again, not a mobile programmer, and C was never my strong suit, but these would be my guesses from doing troubleshooting on PC. I'm going to test later to see if there's a way to reassign the "bring up the keyboard" button in Cata.

[Alprk1980]

Same if I do the default name I can get keyboard to come up and go. If we
can have setting to change keyboard to show in options it could work?

On Thu, 17 Oct 2019, 14:57 Mrkeserian, [e-mail] wrote:

Also, bit more information, it appears that the game will crash on any
attempt to open the keyboard using the back button after the keyboard has
been opened once using any method.

In other words, if you open the keyboard once with the back button, no
crash. Open it a second time with the back button, crash.

If you open the keyboard once with by going into a keyboard menu
(automatic virtual keyboard management == on), no crash. Open it with the
back button after it has been opened once, crash.

However, it appears that the automatic keyboard management can open the
virtual keyboard any number of times with no crash behavior observed. So,
I'm not sure how helpful that is, but I hope it helps someone run down the
issue.

As to the renderer failing to redraw, I tried hardware graphics once, and
it kinda worked, although there were weird characters off the edge of the
terminal, and the game was way less stable (again, S9+ running Android 9).
I'm not a mobile or low level program guy, but it looked (to me) like the
game was trying to pass instructions to the renderer that the renderer
didn't completely understand. No effect on the keyboard issue though.

So my guess is that we have two separate issues here. One may have to do
with the renderer having an argument with soemthing in the OS (maybe a call
changed when they went to Android 9?) (that's the focus issue, and maybe
the instability in hardware rendering). The other issue I'd guess has
soemthing to do with how Android is parsing the back button command. Maybe
we could get an alternate button on the shortcut bar to bring up the
virtual keyboard? Just as a troubleshooting mechanism. Like, allow the
tilde key to bring up the virtual keyboard, just to see if that fixes the
problem.

See, the reason I think that is because it doesn't seem to be the keyboard
itself causing the problem. If it was the keyboard, automatic keyboard
management would be crashing the game. So, my guess is that Android is
interpreting the back button as something else, and then terminating Cata's
process. That would explain the lack of crash logs because Cata isn't
having time for its exception handler to generate a log, it isn't hitting
an exception: the OS is just killing the process.

Again, not a mobile programmer, and C was never my strong suit, but these
would be my guesses from doing troubleshooting on PC. I'm going to test
later to see if there's a way to reassign the "bring up the keyboard"
button in Cata.

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[EhNuhc]

@ZhilkinSerg .It might be something wrong in libsdl2. When I choose a new version of sdl(about 2.0.11), and used its build.gradle for ''APP_PLATFORM=android-16'', It won't crashed at all.

[EhNuhc]

Argument for 'android-19' also works fine.

[Alprk1980]

Have you a version that work? I'm away on holiday today and hoping to play
on plane, you could save me 9 hours of boredom...

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019, 11:18 EhNuhc, [e-mail] wrote:

Argument for 'android-19' also works fine.

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[ThomasLinkin]

Have you a version that work? I'm away on holiday today and hoping to play
on plane, you could save me 9 hours of boredom...
…

well yes,check my comment above. can't be bother checking out a bunch of comment btw

[ThomasLinkin]

@ZhilkinSerg .It might be something wrong in libsdl2. When I choose a new version of sdl(about 2.0.11), and used its build.gradle for ''APP_PLATFORM=android-16'', It won't crashed at all.

nice. @ZhilkinSerg

[Alprk1980]

Yeah I know about 9552 but I been passing save between pc and phone but now
I can't play on 9552 on my save as I get xml error

On Fri, 18 Oct 2019, 11:33 ThomasLinkin, [e-mail] wrote:

Have you a version that work? I'm away on holiday today and hoping to play
on plane, you could save me 9 hours of boredom...
…

well yes,check my comment above. can't be bother checking out a bunch of
comment btw

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[ThomasLinkin]

Yeah I know about 9552 but I been passing save between pc and phone but now
I can't play on 9552 on my save as I get xml error
…

if that's the case then go older. the newer version than 9552 doesn't work as long as I can tell. tested,none work so far

[EhNuhc]

Have you a version that work? I'm away on holiday today and hoping to play on plane, you could save me 9 hours of boredom...
…
On Fri, 18 Oct 2019, 11:18 EhNuhc, @.*> wrote: Argument for 'android-19' also works fine. — You are receiving this because you commented. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#33781?email_source=notifications&email_token=ANGIQU7PLWNDQKUKKPLHAMLQPGEOLA5CNFSM4ITBBAD2YY3PNVWWK3TUL52HS4DFVREXG43VMVBW63LNMVXHJKTDN5WW2ZLOORPWSZGOEBTYFXQ#issuecomment-543654622>, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/ANGIQU7QTVQTZDOV6OAXX5TQPGEOLANCNFSM4ITBBADQ .

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-217DzMJJn-LOZiiHSvx5Xyk794S4Q7-/view?usp=drivesdk

[Mrkeserian]

Galaxy S9+ running Android 9.

Can confirm that issue is not resolved by Pull Request #34839. Also, it looks like something has now completely borked software rendering, causing a complete fail to render, and hardware rendering is only updating when something forces a re-render to part of the screen. So, for example, the main menu will be completely blank until you start moving the cursor, at which point only the parts that are highlighted will actually show up.

Edit: file uploaded to Google Drive does resolve the keyboard issue, although the rendering issue still remains. Forcing a refresh of the screen seems to fix the problem.

[williambj100]

I can confirm this. In addition, when actually playing, the nav buttons disappear, making it difficult to use the keyboard, though not impossible

[Mrkeserian]

Okay, can confirm that the fix in the Google link hasn't been pushed to main, or if it was, it somehow didn't fix the issue. So, in conclusion, the Google drive version fixes that issue with the keyboard quite well.

[RustyBrute]

Same here. Keyboard issue fixed with g. link.

[ZhilkinSerg]

Please try build 9845 and report id there are still issues with opening of keyboard.

[Mrkeserian]

Please try build 9845 and report id there are still issues with opening of keyboard.

Can confirm that crash on second keyboard open still exists for Build #9845. Galaxy S9+ Running Android 9.

[ZhilkinSerg]

Please test build 9847 (when it will be ready).

[RustyBrute]

No luck, I tested it and it crashes on second kboard activaion.

[Mrkeserian]

No luck, I tested it and it crashes on second kboard activaion.

I just tested it. And yep, no fix. Whatever was done to that Google drive release fixed it.

Edit: is there any way you could rebuild latest against a newer version of sdl and we could test that again? I'd do it, but I've never compiled Cata, don't have an environment set up, and have to go to work in five minutes.

[ZhilkinSerg]

Please test build 9850 (when it will be ready).

[ThomasLinkin]

@ZhilkinSerg still there. The problem still exists.

[ZhilkinSerg]

That is very strange. Are you sure https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-217DzMJJn-LOZiiHSvx5Xyk794S4Q7-/view?usp=drivesdk is working for fine you?

[ThomasLinkin]

Yeah. His game mod worked fine for me. Perfectly fine

[ThomasLinkin]

Oh and it seems like the game isn't compatible with Android 9 or st since every single bug or crash i saw happen on phones with Android 9

[Mrkeserian]

That is very strange. Are you sure https://drive.google.com/file/d/1-217DzMJJn-LOZiiHSvx5Xyk794S4Q7-/view?usp=drivesdk is working for fine you?

Yep. Only issue is that screen redraw issue, but it's easy to work around.

Oh and it seems like the game isn't compatible with Android 9 or st since every single bug or crash i saw happen on phones with Android 9

That's what I'm seeing as well. But again, the Google drive version with the updated sdl works fine. Didn't you mention that you had also changed an argument in the compile? Something about setting to android-16.

[Alprk1980]

Also confirm that the apk from the drive fixes the keyboard issue running on android 9. But the latest compiled from the git doesn't.

[Mrkeserian]

So, if someone can link me to a guide for how to set up a compile for CDDA on Windows, I can try to compile with the updated includes and see what happens.

[ZhilkinSerg]

https://github.com/CleverRaven/Cataclysm-DDA/blob/master/doc/COMPILING/COMPILING.md#cross-compile-to-android-from-linux

[Mrkeserian]

Sorry that I haven't been able to experiment with this so far this week, life and work have gotten in the way, but I may have some time to mess with it tonight or tomorrow. Either way, here's to hoping we can get a fix put together soon.

[ZhilkinSerg]

Try version from here - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/oi4mrpfbwyzayqh/AABWAcefJ4qCH2NWtYyXPo12a?dl=0

[RustyBrute]

Try version from here - https://www.dropbox.com/sh/oi4mrpfbwyzayqh/AABWAcefJ4qCH2NWtYyXPo12a?dl=0

This works fine.

[ThomasLinkin]

@ZhilkinSerg now i have to face another problem. The game's screen shrank into a 1/10 size of the device's screen after i turn on the option tab and return to the main menu.

[ZhilkinSerg]

@ThomasLinkin #35631