Loss of remote control with Chromecast shortly after starting playback

[brianjmurrell]

Describe The Bug Loss of remote control with Chromecast shortly after starting playback.

Steps To Reproduce

1. Select media to playback.
2. Select Chromecast destination.
3. Play media.
4. Immediately try to control media: stop, or move the playback slider, etc. and observe that works
5. Wait a few minutes. Maybe 10 for good measure.
6. Try to control media: pause, stop, playback slider, etc.
7. Notice you no longer have any control over the playback. You can't even disconnect from the Chromecast.
8. Further notice that the only way to play another video is to quit the app (i.e. kill it, swipe it away from the chooser, etc.), open the Google Home app and stop casting from there, then open the jellyfin app, re-navigate to where you want to play, re-choose Chromecast, play new video. This last part is super annoying.

Expected Behavior I should not lose remote control with Chromecast playback

Logs Where would I find Chromecast playback control logs?

System (please complete the following information):

• Platform: Linux server, Android client
• Browser: Chrome
• Jellyfin Version: 10.7.7, 10.8.0-beta1

[gausie]

I also get this on android

[brianjmurrell]

What I find interesting about it is that the remote control works for a short while after starting but then stops working at some point. So the functionality is there, it just loses it's ability after a period of time.

[gausie]

Mine is sometimes like that but at the moment is immediately lost

On Thu, 12 May 2022, 12:45 Brian J. Murrell, @.***> wrote:

What I find interesting about it is that the remote control works for a short while after starting but then stops working at some point. So the functionality is there, it just loses it's ability after a period of time.

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-web/issues/3541#issuecomment-1124891977, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AABL4LR4BUFYYFHN7HH5RIDVJTVPLANCNFSM5SIRZU7Q . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: @.***>

[xanderpetit01]

I also have the same issue. But sometimes it works fine and when i start the next movie i lose control immediately

[jellyfin-bot]

This issue has gone 120 days without comment. To avoid abandoned issues, it will be closed in 21 days if there are no new comments.

If you're the original submitter of this issue, please comment confirming if this issue still affects you in the latest release or master branch, or close the issue if it has been fixed. If you're another user also affected by this bug, please comment confirming so. Either action will remove the stale label.

This bot exists to prevent issues from becoming stale and forgotten. Jellyfin is always moving forward, and bugs are often fixed as side effects of other changes. We therefore ask that bug report authors remain vigilant about their issues to ensure they are closed if fixed, or re-confirmed - perhaps with fresh logs or reproduction examples - regularly. If you have any questions you can reach us on Matrix or Social Media.

[brianjmurrell]

This still happens every single time and is very frustrating. It makes the whole concept of watching JF on a big screen quite useless.

[xanderpetit01]

Still happens, i have Found that if you leave your phone unlocked and keep the jellyfin app open it doesn't happen. I have checked all powersaving settings and all are disabled.

[wjackter]

Still happening and very annoying. I recently switched from Emby but this broken functionally makes me question my decision.

[thornbill]

Does this only happen when casting from the Android app? Or does it also happen when casting from Chrome?

[wjackter]

I only do it from my Android app, have not tried doing it from Chrome.

Thank you,

Warren

On Fri, Feb 10, 2023, 8:10 AM Bill Thornton @.***> wrote:

Does this only happen when casting from the Android app? Or does it also happen when casting from Chrome?

— Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-web/issues/3541#issuecomment-1425788546, or unsubscribe https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/AC2GICTQ7W7F4IYWRW3C4YLWWY437ANCNFSM5SIRZU7Q . You are receiving this because you commented.Message ID: @.***>

[terrycalderbank]

I definitely experience this issue as well. Android App, Google pixel 6 Pro, google cast stable. You usually lose the playback bar on the bottom of the app as well.

Because it happens so often, my wife and I have started referring to this as "losing it". I have found that sometimes if you swipe up close the app and open it again, you get it back and can control it again with the playback bar on the bottom appearing again. If I remember correctly it would do this with DLNA as well.

I'm somewhat software savvy and can't find anything wrong in the logs so feel free to recommend any debugging methods because I don't think I'll be sharing my Jellyfin instance with anyone without being able to vouch for android cast ability.

[markymark86]

Got this problem too. Chrome V113 on Windows 11. If I hit the chromecast icon and select remote control, I can adjust the chromecast volume but get no indication of the playback progress and can't pause or otherwise control the cast.

[terrycalderbank]

Linking in a relevant Reddit discussion:

"For the disappearing now playing controls, I debugged it down to jellyfin-web.

In nowPlayingBar.js, the hideNowPlayingBar function is being called by some event in the webView version of the page, that doesn't happen in chrome desktop. I figured out that I need to now deploy the jellyfin-server in order to even deploy changes to jellyfin-web. Additionally, debugging webView is kinda painful, so I haven't started it yet.

As for chromecast losing connection to controls, my suspicion is that some kind of api changed, and the libraries or code haven't been updated properly, since there's been practically no releases to chromecast in 2 years. Unstable is updating libs, but code hasn't been looked at much, and no jellyfin developers use chromecast anymore, which is why unstable won't play anything."

https://www.reddit.com/r/jellyfin/comments/11zsx2a/chromecast_problems_cant_control_always_idle/jjhzzm2?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

[GottZ]

i've noticed reproducible behavior.

1. from a cold start of the current Google play release, select the stream target Chromecast, wait until jellyfin displays it's logo with wall art of your content.
2. start content
3. if no controls are displayed immediately, try to open the remote via the cast icon.
4. now you either get:
   • a empty screen with a single misaligned volume slider that might actually work but does not show initial volume.
   • proper working controls with either misaligned volume without initial state as one line up, or proper volume with alignment.

in case of issues at this point, kill the app while jelly is running on Chromecast, relaunch the app and repeat from step 3. jelly might close when killing the app. in that case start over from step 1.

going this route works 100% of the time for me. I hope it enlightens a contributor about anything relatable.

another thing that does not work via Chromecast: if you pause content, wait a couple seconds or minutes and resume play, the stream will terminate after the buffer runs out, eventually even resetting the time tracking to 0:00:00 in the progress. I could only get around this issue by never hitting play but the reverse 10 seconds button.

and lastly, jelly does not reply to HDMI-CEC commands on Chromecast like pretty much all other media center solutions in the market. (no play / pause from the tv remote).. (in comparison, YouTube launches a almost feature complete YouTube TV web Client with full TV remote support)

[terrycalderbank]

This reflects my experience exactly. Additionally, sometimes if external subtitles are on and I skip forward or backwards, those subtitles are now frozen on the screen with the live subtitles displayed above them. The more times you do it, the more frozen subtitles begin to stack up.

[Etzix]

I have had the exact same issue as the 2 above for so long now. Im considering just dropping jellyfin because of it but I don't know where else I would go. But when this happens (and it happens a lot) the app is useless.

[brianjmurrell]

I gave up on Chromecasting entirely because of this issue. I now buy Google TV devices which I can Chromecast to if I want to, but it supports running jellyfin-androidtv and works much better.

It has it's own crashes but is easy enough to restart from the Google TV screen.

It also doesn't let you delete episodes from it's interface but that is supposed to be fixed in 0.16 which is not yet out.

[mp-v2]

I also experience these issues: Remote control not working, subtitles stacking up, jellyfin app losing control of chromecast. Is someone able to resolve this? I understand this is an open source project but these are multiple project-breaking bugs that have gone unfixed for a year and a half (since at least april 2022)

[jellyfin-bot]

This issue has gone 120 days without comment. To avoid abandoned issues, it will be closed in 21 days if there are no new comments.

If you're the original submitter of this issue, please comment confirming if this issue still affects you in the latest release or master branch, or close the issue if it has been fixed. If you're another user also affected by this bug, please comment confirming so. Either action will remove the stale label.

This bot exists to prevent issues from becoming stale and forgotten. Jellyfin is always moving forward, and bugs are often fixed as side effects of other changes. We therefore ask that bug report authors remain vigilant about their issues to ensure they are closed if fixed, or re-confirmed - perhaps with fresh logs or reproduction examples - regularly. If you have any questions you can reach us on Matrix or Social Media.

[terrycalderbank]

Issue still present. Have switched to the android TV app and it works a lot better but casting from mobile still has the same bug.

[Kitof]

Yes, very annoying. Actually, this is the only remaining feature missing for me to revoke my Plex Subscription...

[joepie91]

Looking at the code, I suspect that this might be where the problem is occurring, at least nominally. If an internal error is reported for a connection attempt more than once, it seems that the player is silently removed. Unfortunately the original casting error does not seem to be logged anywhere - the error message is swallowed and only a generic error is logged (the original error is provided as the first argument of onLaunchError there).

This doesn't explain why errors are occurring, of course, and it's possible that different people are experiencing different errors leading up to this, but it would at least seem to explain why it results in the player suddenly disappearing.

[jellyfin-bot]

This issue has gone 120 days without comment. To avoid abandoned issues, it will be closed in 21 days if there are no new comments.

If you're the original submitter of this issue, please comment confirming if this issue still affects you in the latest release or master branch, or close the issue if it has been fixed. If you're another user also affected by this bug, please comment confirming so. Either action will remove the stale label.

This bot exists to prevent issues from becoming stale and forgotten. Jellyfin is always moving forward, and bugs are often fixed as side effects of other changes. We therefore ask that bug report authors remain vigilant about their issues to ensure they are closed if fixed, or re-confirmed - perhaps with fresh logs or reproduction examples - regularly. If you have any questions you can reach us on Matrix or Social Media.

[Mountaineer1024]

I believe this is still a bug, and as of April 12, we still don't have a dev looking at it: https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin-chromecast/issues/364#issuecomment-2050017086