Black Screen while testing channel.

Are you using Roku TV or Old Rokus like Roku 1?

"mosafer" wrote:
Are you using Roku TV or Old Rokus like Roku 1?

I've purchased a Roku Express recently.

The only time I have ever seen this issue (and what mosafer is alluding too) is with older boxes.  Originally Roku defined HD content as 720.  When you would try to play a 1080 file on a Roku 1 it couldn't play it because it wasn't capable of playing 1080 files even though it said HD.

You would get the same problem on a Roku Express if you were trying to play a 4K file on it because the Roku Express is only capable of outputting a 1080 file.

I am also getting the black screen while testing. The app splash screen shows, then the app is displayed with the logo and options visible. There is a spinner in the center of the screen for 2 seconds. The spinner disappears and the app fades to black. It appears stuck. Sometimes if I leave the app running it will crash when I press home.

• I am trying the channel on a Roku 2 XS and a Roku 3. Both have the same issue. 


• Rebooting and reinstalling is not working. 


• The Roku Developer Portal "Preview" shows a screenshot of my app and feed working.


• The feed validates in JSON lint tools and on the Roku developer portal. 


• The TVs that I have tried on are 1080p and the video files are 720p. 


• I thought it was an issue with the thumbnails, but I tried:


• JPG, PNG, 800x450, 1280x720, Http vs Https

I am also suspicious about my hosted site using Cloudflare, as there was an issue with my thumbnails and the feed validation. I moved the hosted episode thumbnails to a non Cloudflare site and the feed suddenly validated. I guess I will try to move a few videos to a non Cloudflare site and reduce the feed to a few items. Currently I have 240 possible videos to show in my channel. Is there a limit?

mikeIFA,

That is very weird.  In this case I highly doubt Cloudfare is the problem.  The app/channel is hosted and served by Roku.  When Direct Publisher reads your feed it stores a snapshot of it on their servers.  The only thing the app would do outside of Roku would be load your thumbnails and play the videos.  But even if those were not available your app/channel would still load just without thumbnails for playable video....something else is going on with your app.  

If you wanted to send me through PM your private app link I will check it out on my end. 

mediadisconnect: The feed iteslf was not hosted from a Cloudflare cached site, but the thumbnails and videos were. The feed would not validate until I pointed the thumbnails to a site that was not cached by Cloudflare. As an experiment I moved 1 thumbnail to another site and was able to get 1 out of 240 thumbnails to download from the feed:

After I realized this was a issue I moved the rest and was able to get my feed status to validate. The "Preview" works, but just crashes on a physical device.

I tried to isolate the problem by reducing my feed to 1 video. Sadly it still didn't work. Any insight would be very helpful right about now:
Feed with 1 video:

{
   "providerName":"Index Fund Advisors, Inc.",
   "lastUpdated":"2017-06-06T23:09:40.153Z",
   "language":"en-US",
   "series":[
      {
         "id":"1",
         "title":"IFA.tv",
         "seasons":[
            {
               "seasonNumber":2017,
               "episodes":[
                  {
                     "id":"594",
                     "title":"IFA.tv - Dimensional vs Vanguard - Show 240",
                     "content":{
                        "dateAdded":"2017-05-31T15:30:16.000Z",
                        "videos":[
                           {
                              "url":"https://www.ifa.com/rss/podcasts/index_funds_advisors/video/ifatv/2017-05-31/segment-1.mp4",
                              "quality":"HD",
                              "videoType":"MP4",
                              "bitrate":5000
                           }
                        ],
                        "duration":326,
                        "captions":[

                        ]
                     },
                     "thumbnail":"https://services.ifa.com/ajax/roku/thumbnails/594_800w450h.jpg",
                     "episodeNumber":1,
                     "releaseDate":"2017-05-31",
                     "shortDescription":"Dimensional vs Vanguard",
                     "longDescription":"Why do our 100 IFA Index Portfolios utilize strategies from Dimensional Fund Advisors versus better-known passive fund companies such as Vanguard? ",
                     "credits":[
                        {
                           "name":"Mark T. Hebner",
                           "role":"host",
                           "birthDate":"1952-08-16"
                        }
                     ]
                  }
               ]
            }
         ],
         "genres":[
            "educational"
         ],
         "thumbnail":"https://services.ifa.com/art/images/1350_2017-6-5-10-1-23.jpg",
         "releaseDate":"2009-01-01",
         "shortDescription":"A Collection of investment videos about Index Fund Investing.",
         "tags":"Finance, Education, Investing, Index Funds, IFA"
      }
   ],
   "playlists":[
      {
         "name":"featured content",
         "itemIds":[
            "594"
         ]
      },
      {
         "name":"interviews",
         "itemIds":[
            "594"
         ]
      },
      {
         "name":"market reviews",
         "itemIds":[
            "594"
         ]
      }
   ]
}

"mikeIFA" wrote:
it still didn't work

Can you be a little less vague about what exactly "didn't work"?

One suggestion would be to replace your video url with a known DP-friendly video url, such as one of the videos from their tutorial, e.g:

http://roku.cpl.delvenetworks.com/media/59021fabe3b645968e382ac726cd6c7b/decbe34b64ea4ca281dc09997d0f23fd/aac0cfc54ae74fdfbb3ba9a2ef4c7080/117_segment_2_twitch__nw_060515.mp4

You can do the same with the thumbnails, too, just to verify that your hosting of the videos and thumbnails is not causing a problem.

belltown: good suggestion I tried it and there is still an issue. I am now thinking that there may be a problem with using a "series" > "season" > "episode" format. I will be trying the shortFormVideo feed type instead. 
For Reference, this was the feed I was trying:

{
   "providerName":"Index Fund Advisors, Inc.",
   "lastUpdated":"2017-06-07T20:19:41.525Z",
   "language":"en-US",
   "series":[
      {
         "id":"1",
         "title":"IFA.tv",
         "seasons":[
            {
               "seasonNumber":2017,
               "episodes":[
                  {
                     "id":"594",
                     "title":"IFA.tv - Dimensional vs Vanguard - Show 240",
                     "content":{
                        "dateAdded":"2017-05-31T15:30:16.000Z",
                        "videos":[
                           {
                              "url":"http://roku.cpl.delvenetworks.com/media/59021fabe3b645968e382ac726cd6c7b/decbe34b64ea4ca281dc09997d0f23fd/aac0cfc54ae74fdfbb3ba9a2ef4c7080/117_segment_2_twitch__nw_060515.mp4",
                              "quality":"HD",
                              "videoType":"MP4",
                              "bitrate":5000
                           }
                        ],
                        "duration":326,
                        "captions":[

                        ]
                     },
                     "thumbnail":"http://cloudfront.horsenetwork.com/sites/4/2016/08/flickr.com_Sera-Photography_FEATURED-SIZE-800x450.jpg",
                     "episodeNumber":1,
                     "releaseDate":"2017-05-31",
                     "shortDescription":"Dimensional vs Vanguard",
                     "longDescription":"Why do our 100 IFA Index Portfolios utilize strategies from Dimensional Fund Advisors versus better-known passive fund companies such as Vanguard? ",
                     "credits":[
                        {
                           "name":"Mark T. Hebner",
                           "role":"host",
                           "birthDate":"1952-08-16"
                        }
                     ]
                  }
               ]
            }
         ],
         "genres":[
            "educational"
         ],
         "thumbnail":"http://cloudfront.horsenetwork.com/sites/4/2016/08/flickr.com_Sera-Photography_FEATURED-SIZE-800x450.jpg",
         "releaseDate":"2009-01-01",
         "shortDescription":"A Collection of investment videos about Index Fund Investing.",
         "tags":"Finance, Education, Investing, Index Funds, IFA"
      }
   ],
   "playlists":[
      {
         "name":"featured content",
         "itemIds":[
            "594"
         ]
      },
      {
         "name":"interviews",
         "itemIds":[
            "594"
         ]
      },
      {
         "name":"market reviews",
         "itemIds":[
            "594"
         ]
      }
   ]
}