Yup sorry for not specifying. I tested it on an iPad Pro 10.5 running iOS 11 public beta 9.
Channels still freezes on commercial in tvOS 11 GM. Any update.
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This is frustrating, especially since other apps (like InstaTV) work, but they donāt have as good of a user experience (specifically with presentation of the guide and listings).
I appreciate the developer choosing a more āefficientā approach, but if this approach makes the app stop playback periodically, I donāt understand why he continues to insist on going down this path.
Yes, perhaps Apple broke something. And perhaps they will (eventually) fix it. Or not. But in the meantime, paying customers have been warning the developer about this for weeks (months, even), to no avail.
At the very least, a workaround would have been nice to see. But now weāre left with a relatively expensive TV app that doesnāt work reliably on any iOS platform.
Well, this is the first time weāve had an issue thatās gone a pretty long time to fix, but tvOS 11 is still in beta (and @tmm1 got married and took some vacation time). If you donāt want this issue, donāt use the beta. And while this release is a GM release, weāve seen in the past issues with Apple GM releases that they patched before the official release day.
Fair enough.
Hi folks. Iām back from vacation, although Iām still pretty jeg-lagged.
@timstephens24- thanks for sending me a sample recording with the issue; it made my life a lot easier. I was able to reproduce the hang on both tvOS and iOS devices after upgrading to the GM.
TL;DR the bug is fixed and new beta builds are being uploaded. The bugfix will also be available on the App Store when OS 11 is released next week.
VideoToolbox is a low-level video decoding library. You feed in h264 packets and it returns video image frames. The issue here occurred when an h264 stream switched profile/level mid-stream, generally because a commercial of a different quality was spliced in by the cable company.
In iOS/tvOS 10 and earlier, VideoToolbox would return a āmalfunctionā or ābad dataā error, which we would react to by shutting down the decoder and starting a new one. But with iOS 11, a bug in the VideoToolbox library now causes it to deadlock in these cases and hangs forever instead of returning any frames or errors.
Iāve fixed Channels to detect format changes in the h264 bitstream, and proactively reset the decoder. This works around the bug in the new OS, but is also more correct and probably something we should have been doing all along.
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Since I was up early buying new Apple TVs I saw the TestFlight come in. I just tested it for the past while and played areas I know froze yesterday and happy to say there were 0 freezes.
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Thanks for the detailed explanation.
It makes sense the low and mid level format transition issue.
Channels runs so smoothly compared to the alternatives with virtually no jitter or pixilation. I personally never seen any with your app.
My Apple TVs connect to my network at around 200-450mps. Even so I still experience the jitter with the alternatives. Your usage of compression makes the stream smooth and pure.
Any chance you can add my household email for associates with my Apple TVs to the beta? If so please let me know and I will send it you. I would like to test the new build and review it on the App Store.
I am anxious to have my live tv setup working properly. I am in the Cupertino area and have been explaining my setup and elimination of the cable boxes and other peripheral devices using the Apple TV and Channels.
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This is great news! Thanks for your update and for your tireless work on this awesome app.
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Good news indeed. Thank you.
Any chance we can be added to the Test Flight to get the fix early?