Why my videoview is not playing?

Question

I'm currently facing a problem that I can solve myself.

My android application (built for 4.2 and 4.4) act as a VideoPlayer. I've put some videos into the file directory of my app with no restriction access (MODE_WORLD_READABLE) and the player read them one by one until I shutdown the device or the application.

Sometimes, when I'm trying to read a local video using a VideoView the video doesn't start and the log print this warning :

03-24 12:10:50.493: W/MediaPlayer(12894): info/warning (701, 0)

Sometimes, the mediaplayer doesn't leave this state until I kill my app (or reboot the device).

And sometimes, the log continue after the previous warning with:

03-24 14:07:07.775: E/FFMpegMediaPlayer(100): start in mCurrentState in
03-24 14:07:07.775: I/FFMpegMediaPlayer(100): ******************************************
03-24 14:07:07.775: E/FFMpegMediaPlayer(100): start in mCurrentState = 8
03-24 14:07:07.775: I/FFMpegMediaPlayer(100): starting main player thread:2013-11-20 
03-24 14:07:07.775: I/RkAudioPlayer(100): mAudioSink->open in mSampleRate  = 48000 channels = 2
03-24 14:07:07.775: I/FFMpegMediaPlayer(100): ******************************************
03-24 14:07:07.775: I/FFMpegMediaPlayer(100): mCurrentState = 8
03-24 14:07:07.775: I/(100): starting thread
03-24 14:07:07.775: D/AUDIO_DECOE(100): prepare()
03-24 14:07:07.785: I/AudioHardwareALSA(100): Audio exiting sandby will open audio device
03-24 14:07:07.895: E/ALSAModule(100): audio type flag: 0

03-24 14:07:13.465: D/FFMpegMediaPlayer(100): url_feof=1,err=0 
03-24 14:07:13.465: I/FFMpegMediaPlayer(100): av_read_frame end of stream ret = -541478725
03-24 14:07:13.465: W/MediaPlayer(9652): info/warning (950, 0)
03-24 14:07:13.475: I/MediaPlayer(9652): Info (950,0)
03-24 14:07:13.475: E/ERROR : INFO MEDIAPLAYER(9652): what:950, extra:0
03-24 14:07:17.695: D/AudioHardwareALSA(100): AudioStreamOutALSA::standby().....

As the first log, after this one, nothing appened until I kill my app (or reboot the device).

Also, I've put some logging information in order to know if the onPrepared Callback is fired and it this is OK.

The only way I found to play the video again is to reboot my device when the problem occurred.

Here is some code of my player:

    audioManager = (AudioManager) applicationContext.getSystemService(Context.AUDIO_SERVICE); //this is in the constructor of my singleton player

    //all the following code are encapsulated in a method which is called every time a new video must be play.
    setCompletionListener(); //in here I call videoview.stopPlayback(); and I recall this method to start another video
    setErrorListener(); //here too I call videoview.stopPlayback();

    videoview.setVideoPath(applicationContext.getFilesDir() + "/" + myVideoFile.getFileName());

    videoview.setOnPreparedListener(new  MediaPlayer.OnPreparedListener() {
        @Override
        public void onPrepared(final MediaPlayer mediaPlayer) {
            audioManager.getStreamMaxVolume(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC);
            audioManager.setStreamVolume(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC, 90, 0);
            mediaPlayer.setVolume(12.0f, 12.0f);
            audioManager.setStreamVolume(AudioManager.STREAM_MUSIC, 0, 0)           
            mediaPlayer.start();
        }
    });

My question is: Why my videoview is not playing correctly all the time ? The problem appears sometimes after 2 or 3h of execution or sometimes at the boot of my app.

Answer 1

Code 701 means the mediaplayer is buffering more data and pausing playback temporarily, this is normal

public static final int MEDIA_INFO_BUFFERING_START

MediaPlayer is temporarily pausing playback internally in order to buffer more data.

Constant Value: 701 (0x000002bd)

Main problem is the error code 950

info/warning (950, 0)
I/MediaPlayer(9652): Info (950,0)
E/ERROR : INFO MEDIAPLAYER(9652): what:950, extra:0

Error code 950 falls under the 9xx branch of error codes as described here: What does MediaPlayer info/warning (973, 0) mean?

The error could be with the file you are trying to play, rather than the device or your code. There is some more info in this SO question.

Also try to report it as a bug as this one as there seems to be no proper documentation and concrete steps to resolve the error.