I'm seeing this bug also. I'm using the tvOS beta, so I assumed that it was related, but I don't really know.
We're currently investigating the bug, as nothing has changed on our end to cause this issue.
To avoid it, which it does sound terrible, I would highly suggest just hiding the PIP button for now.
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I believe this might be an OS level issue, or something with the remote firmware.
The issue does not always occur, and I have noticed similar behavior in other apps, too. (For example, in Max, Peacock, Prime Video, and others, always while during playback.
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I want to sort of wrap up this issue.
By Design
Currently, when the PIP button is focused, the timeline stays up until it's not focused anymore. This is to prevent the bad experience of the timeline disappearing right before you're about to click the button.
- This has fall out of course in that if it's focused, the timeline doesn't go away.
- This is made worse if you accidentally focus it and don't even know it.
Changes on our end with this
Nothing.
Changes to tvOS or Problems with the Siri Remote
It's possible something changed with the remote to be more sensitive. I would be willing to bet that everyone having this issue is using the original touch based Apple TV remote.
This remote has the absolute horrible side effects of the fact that the seek button is also the same button that allows you to move focus around the interface. Clicking the left and right side of the remote makes it INSANELY easy to accidentally move focus.
What we can do
There's not much we can do here to help prevent the focusing issues. This is just a badly designed remote. Every time you press to seek forward, you have the chance to shift focus. This is why I personally never used that remote, it feels awful. The updated Apple TV remote has a much better experience.
What we CAN do is stop the timeline from being sticky when the PIP button is focused. So we'll adjust it to be a longer timeout before it disappear, so it WILL eventually always disappear...and hopefully before you're about to select it.
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Actually, I'm using the aluminum remote. But whereas last week nearly every time I would seek forward the PIP button would end up focused, this week it has rarely happened. (Conversely, I rarely noticed a similar behavior in others before this past week, and now when trying to select a button during playback like the brief "Skip Intro" kind, that other elements would become focused instead of a single click being registered.)
It could be that my button precision varies wildly, but I'm more likely to believe this is an OS or remote issue, and not anything to do with Channels.
As of the latest TestFlight beta, the PIP button being focused no longer keeps the timeline open indefinitely.
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Has anyone confirmed the latest beta fixes the issue? I tried it and for me when button is focused, it just flashes and the timeline never hides.
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Welp, you're right. Sorry about this. We'll take a look at it next week and get it actually fixed.
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Any updates on this? I tried the latest Beta (10.11.352) last night and the issue with the timeline not hiding is still occurring.
Yes, it's still keeping the timeline from hiding.
Any updates on this? It's been over two months now and this issue is still occurring.
I have a video example of this as well.
https://1drv.ms/v/s!Asny71-AvMEakWXK94_WfrJ5EjQC?e=XDA0ip
I use the logitech remote and nothing has changed on that end. You can see in the video towards the end that the timeline is actually trying to hide repeatetly, but does not until I push the down button.
I have submitted several diagnostic logs of the timeline not hiding and app crashing when trying to switch pip screens.
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Hopefully now that the new "fall update" for the server has been released, the devs can focus on outstanding bugs like this one...
I usually give bugs some time to get fixed, but when the wife starts complaining you know its taking to long!
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I’ve also noticed on my AppleTVs that if there is some sort of “blip” (like it needs to buffer), the timeline pops up with the focus on PIP - so the timeline then doesn’t go away. This seems to happen only on one that is connected via WiFi; wired Ethernet is not a possibility at that location.
It's been almost four months now and aside from one tweak back in September which didn't work, I haven't seen any progress since. Is this still being worked on?
We've poked at it quite a few times and it's eluding us.
Our current suggestion is to disable PIP if you're running into this issue a lot.
I do use the PIP feature, so disabling it entirely as a workaround to this issue would make it annoying to go into the settings to enable/disable all the time.
Has there been any thought or experimentation of moving the PIP button into the "swipe down/top menu" screen? (like where the audio tracks, subtitles, etc is?) That would still make the feature easy to activate when wanted, but not have the hovering button which keeps getting activated causing the timeline to stay on the screen. As a bonus, it would be a cleaner look! (I always thought the circle hovering above the timeline felt out of place anyways)
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can confirm similar activity using the logitech remote. I find if I'm FFW, the timeline stays up and I have to press the down arrrow to get it to go away.
Here are four mock-ups of different ways the PIP button could be moved into the drop down menu which would give the app a cleaner look, and most likely solve the annoying issue of the selection causing the timeline to stay on the screen.
Thoughts?