Forum Discussion

KingManProds's avatar
KingManProds
Visitor
7 years ago

Roku Channel Crashing Upon Launch

Hello. I have a question for the masses/experts. I recently launched my channel on Roku via Instant Channel TV, and as of late, I notice sometimes it crashes upon launch. Any suggestions on why this may be happening and how to fix?

Current specs at hand:

  • videos hosted at Vimeo.com via Professional Package

  • Tools built via Instant Channel TV

  • video files are .mov and .mp4

  • all artwork is accurate down to the exact specs required and/or suggested

  • Not a wi-fi issue. I tested it on a few different platforms as well as heard feedback from the viewers

I reached out to Instant Channel TV but no dice. I am not sure what the issue could be. Is it possible the videos are crashing it while trying to load?

Thank you so much for any help in advance.

Best,
Matt
Roku Developer Program

5 Replies

  • renojim's avatar
    renojim
    Community Streaming Expert
    7 years ago
    Do they give you a zip you can sideload? If so, that's your best shot at figuring out why it's crashing.

    If not, the first thing I'd try is clearing the registry. Remove the channel, reboot (don't skip this step), and re-add the channel. I don't know how Instant Channel TV works, so if you have other Instant Channel created channels installed you may have to remove all of them before the reboot to clear out any registry entries they may have created.

    Good luck!
    -JT
  • speechles's avatar
    speechles
    Roku Guru
    7 years ago
    Using the rsg_version=1.2 flag in the manifest will cause crashes on firmwares not up to 9.x. The app crashes at launch on firmwares 8.x with this flag.
    It appears rsg_version=1.1 does not cause the crash on 8.x and works on both 8.x and 9.x. Perhaps this is the issue?

    If you have a zip it has a manifest. Verify the rsg_version flag is present and what version it uses.
  • OddScott's avatar
    OddScott
    Roku Guru
    7 years ago
    Interesting... I'm usually pretty good about replying to emails about any problems. Are you sure that you sent an inquiry to help@InstantTVChannel.com?

    Instant TV Channel does not provide a zip file, instead you get a Pkg file that you upload to your developer account. There are numerous on-screen diagnostics available that can be switched on & off, but these probably won't be of use if the channel is crashing at launch. The #469 update on 4/16/2019 accidentally left in some 9.1-only code related to the new SignalBeacon requirement, but this was corrected the next day. If you did update a channel to #469 all you need to do is update again. Here a summary of all updates: http://www.InstantTvChannel.com/news

    The rsg_version flag that speechles mentions is configurable on the Theme page, but it defaults to "1.1" so unless you intentionally changed it, this is unlikely to be the issue.

    Clearing the registry by delete+reinstall as renojim suggests is also unlikely to correct this, as the Instant TV Channel code is fairly robust about handling bad registry data, however it won't hurt to try. Each new ITVC channel has a unique Dev ID, only clones have the same Dev ID. So deleting channels that aren't cloned won't make a difference.

    If this problem is still occurring, please send the details about your channel to help@InstantTvChannel.com. Or you can call the support phone # weekdays if this is a "Commercial" channel type.

    Thanks!
    • cocotower's avatar
      cocotower
      Roku Guru
      6 years ago

      As of today I noticed that new package uploads claim to require the .signalBeacon("AppLaunchComplete") function in order to be certified.  I will know more tomorrow if they certify my own channel's latest update but in most cases they certify anyway like when their billing code is present and working but the site claims it's not present during the analysis.  If .signalBeacon crashes any SDK channel on devices that aren't up to OS 9.1, Houston we've got a problem.  Oddly enough, the signalBeacon function won't even run side-loaded on 9.2 4090-4.   I wrote Roku about this and am awaiting a reply.