chromecast doesn't work most of the times

[081099]

Operating System Version:

OS X 10.15.2 Popcorn Time Version:

0.4.3 Download date:

11.11.2016

Expected Behaviour

...Connect to my chromecast

Actual Behaviour

...it connects and then it crashes

Steps to reproduce the behaviour

1. Open any movie
2. Instead of playing it on popcorn time, play it on chromecast
3. it will connect for a few seconds and then it will crash

[gabrielgradinaru]

Try 720p instead of 1080p.

[marcprovencher]

I'm having the same problem irrespective of what version (480, 720, 1080) I try to play. The following error shows in the console log:

app.js:36 [ERROR] chromecast.play error: Error: Load failed at chrome-extension://hecfofbbdfadifpemejbbdcjmfmboohj/Applications/Popcorn-Time.app/Contents/Resources/app.nw/node_modules/castv2-client/lib/controllers/media.js:75 at fn.onmessage (chrome-extension://hecfofbbdfadifpemejbbdcjmfmboohj/Applications/Popcorn-Time.app/Contents/Resources/app.nw/node_modules/castv2-client/lib/controllers/request-response.js:27) at fn.emit (events.js:328) at Channel.onmessage (chrome-extension://hecfofbbdfadifpemejbbdcjmfmboohj/Applications/Popcorn-Time.app/Contents/Resources/app.nw/node_modules/castv2-client/lib/controllers/controller.js:16) at Channel.emit (events.js:316) at Client.onmessage (chrome-extension://hecfofbbdfadifpemejbbdcjmfmboohj/Applications/Popcorn-Time.app/Contents/Resources/app.nw/node_modules/castv2/lib/channel.js:23) at Client.emit (events.js:328) at PacketStreamWrapper.onpacket (chrome-extension://hecfofbbdfadifpemejbbdcjmfmboohj/Applications/Popcorn-Time.app/Contents/Resources/app.nw/node_modules/castv2/lib/client.js:81) at PacketStreamWrapper.emit (events.js:316) at TLSSocket. (chrome-extension://hecfofbbdfadifpemejbbdcjmfmboohj/Applications/Popcorn-Time.app/Contents/Resources/app.nw/nodemodules/castv2/lib/packet-stream-wrapper.js:28) at TLSSocket.emit (events.js:316) at emitReadable (_stream_readable.js:558) at processTicksAndRejections (internal/process/task_queues.js:83)

[Edward-Bakker]

Can confirm, neither 720p or 1080p works. Got the latest chromecast v3, it shows the controls and all. Just doesn't connect as nothing changes on the tv.

[081099]

Sometimes it works on 720p, but not always. Instead, 1080p never works

[dno89]

Same problem on Linux latest release.

[Persei08]

Doesn't this still happen ? If yes what do you mean by it crash, Does PCT crash exit, or the chromecast stream ?

Any console log (F12 or Cmd+0 > 'Console' tab) ?

Can you also provides the titles with which you enconter this issue ?.. and eventually open the video file with mediainfo to tell us with which video and audio codec the video file was encoded ?

Thx

[Persei08]

Re-reading it, and I think it's related to video encoding codec not supported by chromecast and which is different and depending of the quality, episodes and releases.

There is not specific code in popcorntime to detect chromecast supported codecs or video encoding codecs.

Will really help to have a little list of content which have this issue.

[Persei08]

@everyone. can you eventually please provide content titles or episodes numbers ? Because I have some difficulties to find incompatible ones without testing dozens.

at the moment I found 'Trolls World Tour' in 1080p, but I need few others.

Thx

[gabrielgradinaru]

@Persei08. Some examples of incompatible movies in 1080p:

• Bill & Ted face the music
• Ava
• Hard Kill
• Bad boys for life

The actual issue does not seem to be the video, but the 6 channel audio of the mp4 files. I don't think there is something that popcorn-time can do to actually fix this.

Possible solutions that I see:

• Remove the possibility to stream content with 6 channel audio to chromecast
• Issue should be raised in the chromecast-api lib and maybe get a proper fix

[Persei08]

@gabrielgradinaru thx for the examples they all fail with my chromecast gen2 but not the mi box 3 chromecast feature, so it's good for test

The thing is it really rely on the chromecast device itself and which format and codecs it support. There is a way to request if a chromecast device support some format but i'm not sure if it's in chromecast-api module... Could have being way better if the chromecast itself could just respond "Can't read, incompatible format"

Actually with current dev branch, PCT start to cast the video but then if it don't works, it stop casting and go back to movie detail page.

So I was thinking an easy thing to do could be to just display an informative message so users can have an idea.

But for detecting the audio/video encoding and knowing if the chromecast device support it, I'm not sure. need to dig into a bit more.

Thx

[Persei08]

So, for now I've added (PR #1800) a notification warning when device reply with error

Will look like this

So, it should put some order and split the users between the ones having issue because the chromecast dont support the video format/codecs and the users with other issues.

There is no plan to transcode the videos on the fly to make them playable by all devices. VLC do that if necessary.

I invites all of you to try the dev build 441 and see if your device trigger the warning or if something else happens

[gabrielgradinaru]

I can confirm I receive the warning from the gif.

[Persei08]

seem this notif was enough. :)