I use the Channels app (either the main app or the most recent beta app) to watch any YouTubeTV channel in live mode (not recorded). I turn off the TV, which is a Sony Bravia running a fully updated Android TV 9 (version 10 not available for this model). When I turn the TV back on, Channels is frozen, showing a black screen with the info bar at the bottom of the screen. After about a minute during which pushing buttons on the remote does nothing, the Channels app quits entirely and goes to the Android TV Home screen. The YouTubeTV app and other streaming apps don't do this.
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Have you had any luck with a response to this? I have 3 nvidia sheilds that all do this all the time. Its started doing it on its own while watching TV as well.
What kind of SHIELDs? After it happens can you click Settings > Support > Submit Diagnostics > Crash
Since I made this post, the Channels DVR 3.5.0 update has arrived on my Sony Bravia TV running Android TV 9. The new startup features are very nice, but Channels still can't cleanly handle resuming after the TV is turned on, though the new startup features seems to make this situation better than before.
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I have the TV on, showing Channels DVR watching a TV Everywhere channel in live mode; I have it watching the same channel (NBC 6000) that is set to be the default channel to start watching live when Channels starts up or resumes.
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I turn off the TV for a few minutes.
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I turn the TV on. The screen is black except for Channels' status bar on the bottom. For about 5 seconds, the status bar is all white, and the time of day and the current show is at the time of day it was when I turned the TV off. The little spinning circle that normally shows you that something is loading does not appear. Then, after the first 5 seconds, the right part of the status bar turns purple, but still the rest of the screen is black (no video or audio feed), and the TV does not respond to the remote control, other than allowing me to use the Apps button to go back to the Android TV interface where I can start up the Channels app again.
The first time I ran this off/on test, Channels successfully restarted itself after being frozen for about a minute.
The second and third times I tried this test, Channels remained frozen for many minutes, requiring that I use the remote's Apps button to go back to the Android TV interface, where I could start up the Channels app. I submitted a Diagnostics "Other" report after the third try.
The fourth time I ran the off/on test, Channels resumed perfectly within 2 or 3 seconds, with no freeze at all; the time that the TV was off was shorter than the previous times.
The fifth time I ran the off/on test, I left the TV off for 5 minutes before turning it back on. Channels was frozen again, with the status bar showing. After more than a minute, I started pushing remote buttons. About 15 to 30 seconds later, the upper options bar pulled down, apparently in a very delayed response to my hitting remote buttons. About 10 seconds after it did that, Channels successfully restarted itself, at which point I submitted another Diagnostics report, this time labeled "Crash".
Edit: the sixth time I ran the off/on test, I turned it back on about 3 seconds after I turned it off, and Channels was frozen. After one minute, I pushed the "down" button once. Exactly twenty seconds later, the upper options menu appeared. I pushed some more buttons very slowly, but couldn't get another response. Then I pushed a lot of buttons, then after about half a minute Channels DVR successfully restarted itself. I'm not sure exactly what it takes for Channels to detect that it needs to restart itself other than "push a bunch of buttons on the remote".
I have this issue also. You described it perfectly. I get done watching, hit the shield remotes power button, everything turns off, and the next morning I turn it on and it's frozen like you said. I've tried playing around with the launch and resume or only launch to load the guide trying to figure out what triggers this, or is it not related to this setting.
Testing a fix for this in the next apk beta (v6.5.2150)
Any improvement with the beta?
Version 106.7.1936 did not arrive at my TV until today. No improvement, still the same behavior. I did some more off/on testing and refined my understanding of the behavior:
When Channels DVR is showing a live TV channel and I turn the TV off and then on, it will be in the state I described as frozen before. Channels does actually respond to TV remote commands, but just very slowly. Up, down, right, left and center take 20 seconds to happen. If I press the Back button, after 10 seconds, Channels goes to the "On Now" section without crashing and afterwards behaves normally, with the ability to open a live channel successfully.
When Channels DVR is showing anything else other than a live TV channel when the TV is turned off, when turned on again it will successfully start showing the default channel to start watching live when Channels starts up or resumes.
Today, my TV received version 106.9.1556 of the beta, and then later in the day version 106.9.2034 of the beta. In both cases, no improvement. When performing the off/on test and using the back button to get out of the frozen state, sometimes it shows the "Preparing your TV" screen, sometimes it doesn't, and one time the app crashed back to the Android TV Home screen. I submitted a "Crash" report after that last one.
To be clear, this is on a Sony Bravia A9G television running Android TV 9 (10 is not yet available for this model). I am not using a Nvidia Shield.
Edit 6/10: Beta 106.9.2140 did not change the behavior.
Edit 6/12: Beta 106.11.2327 did not change the behavior.
Beta 106.14.1424 did not change the behavior.
Edit: Beta 106.15.2000 did not change the behavior.
Could you submit crash diagnostics again after it happens
I used Channels Beta 106.15.2000 to watch a live channel, turned the TV off, waited 15 seconds, turned the TV back on, and the behavior of being unable to get the live channel started happened. I then hit the back button once, waited about 10 seconds, and Channels went back to its menus without crashing. I then immediately went to the Support menu and submitted a report as "Other".
I need diagnostics with Crash mode selected
I'll try to submit logs later, it happens a lot to me.
I'm sorry I misunderstood that part. I have duplicated the process except for submitting as a crash.
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My TV received Beta (106.25.56), and the behavior has changed.
After turning the TV off and then back on while watching a live channel, I still get a black screen with the search bar, but the search bar does not turn purple, and remote control commands are now executed without delay.
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Another thing to keep in mind is that the Android TV platform is known for these types of lagging, freezing and static black screens due to insufficient storage memory. On your Home screen in Android, do you ever clear the onboard cache? Have you disabled all bloat or unused Apps?
Lastly, you may wish to pick up a flash drive to assist the Android operating system's mere 4.3 storage capacity. If one is not doing all these steps, the system will increasingly struggle with handling each large App you download, in this case, Channels.
It could be less to do with Channels itself as much as it is Channels lacking cooperation from the Android operating system.
It could be because of strained memory storage capacity with Android. Maybe not, but I would recommend trying it. I can tell you that I went through this many times. I've added larger flash drive storage, deleted or disabled bloat/unused Apps and clear cache files routinely for great results.
I went to the Storage section in my TV's settings; "Internal Shared Storage" states "Total space: 6.7 GB". Click on that, and it lists:
Apps: 3.4 GB
Photos & videos: 0 B
Audio: 0 B
Downloads: 0 B
Cached data: 665 MB
Misc.: 201 kB
Available: 3.1 GB
When I looked up the specs on this TV, the Sony 2019 A9G, it seems to be listed as having 16 GB of On-board storage. I can see that my Apps and Cached data would have been pushing the limits of a TV with only 4.3 GB of total shared storage, but that is apparently not an issue here.
I cleared all of the cached data (which increased Available space to 3.7 GB) and restarted the TV's OS. With only Channels Beta running, it still won't restart a live channel when the TV is turned off and then on again.
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I have noticed one other detail about the new behavior. When I turn the TV off and back on again while watching a live channel, as I noted before it shows a black screen and the status bar on the bottom of the screen. The status bar shows the pause symbol II but does not respond to the center button, so I can't unpause it. All of the other buttons work, so to fix it I hit the back button and then restart the live channel. The center button works to pause and unpause at any other time.
It's almost as if the live channel is getting paused when the TV is turned off or when it's turned on. I watched closely when turning the TV off; in the fractions of a second before the TV turns off completely, I see a black screen for one or two tenths of a second, then the image comes back for a few tenths of a second (paused? I don't know, it's too brief to tell), then the TV turns off completely. If the status bar is up when I turn the TV off, the pause symbol does not show before the TV turns off completely.
Please submit diagnostics when it happens from the new beta