Roku Developer Program

[EnTerr]

"squirreltown" wrote:
Always happens (above post) if roScreen is in motion when pkg is sideloaded ie; animated screensaver type screen OR if in the debugger (after a BS crash), less so otherwise.

Function which is almost completely stock SDK scroll example no longer works, region shows black and flickers wierdly when drawing. Lucky for me I'm replacing it today.
When loading a channel from Roku home screen, there is a weird tearing effect at the top 10% of the screen.

This reminds me my undue pain & suffering with 5.4 almost two months ago, re-check viewtopic.php?f=34&t=67298#p430382 for symptoms and workaround.
Also there is some fishiness around roScreen lately - viewtopic.php?f=34&t=69015 - as well as word of screen tearing.

Note TheEndless was right: you can use Konami code to reboot the box when it is wedged like that. This might be good incentive for me to get off my mule and release the version of my iOS app with remote reboot.

[RokuJoel]

Yes, you are correct, I didn't realize it had gone live. I'm checking to see if I can reproduce the issues you are describing here on my Roku 2XS with b3358. So far, I'm able to side-load through the browser and through Eclipse without any issue.

I do see an issue deleting a running roScreen based channel that does seem to crash the box.. I'm not seeing any timeouts with installing via the web browser or Eclipse.

Can you list the steps to repro the crash, possibly including sending me a copy of the package that crashes when you side-load?

- Joel

[EnTerr]

"RokuJoel" wrote:
Can you list the steps to repro the crash, possibly including sending me a copy of the package that crashes when you side-load?

Sure. These steps still work in hanging the box - using off-the-shelf SDK example, SimpleAnimatedSprite - viewtopic.php?f=34&t=67298#p430421

PS. darn it, i hate waiting the reboots. if Roku platform is just a monolithic exe, why can't the watchdog just restart the executable instead of rebooting the linux bed?! Will be much faster.

[squirreltown]

Now that I'm avoiding certain situations, I've improved to having the box hang only 50% of the time. There are no "steps" to reproducing it, just side-loading manually with a browser. It happens more often than not. As i said above the pkg. is getting through properly because its there after reboot, the hang is happening after that point. My pkg is all roscreens and the very first line of code in my pkg. creates a roScreen so this seems very similar to what EnTerr is describing, although mine is double-buffered.

[TheEndless]

"squirreltown" wrote:
Now that I'm avoiding certain situations, I've improved to having the box hang only 50% of the time. There are no "steps" to reproducing it, just side-loading manually with a browser. It happens more often than not. As i said above the pkg. is getting through properly because its there after reboot, the hang is happening after that point. My pkg is all roscreens and the very first line of code in my pkg. creates a roScreen so this seems very similar to what EnTerr is describing, although mine is double-buffered.

Are you exiting your channel before you load the new package? I've added two Home key presses via ECP (one to kill a screensaver, if running, and the second to ensure it exits the channel) to my build script before uploading the new package, and can't recall the last time I had a reboot during the side-load process. If you're not exiting the channel first, then that's a critical piece of information in being able to reproduce it.

[squirreltown]

No, I almost never exit the channel, only when it crashes and exits itself because I wrote something wrong, so many thousands of side-loads with no problem before 5.4. Pretty sure it hung today once when side-loading at the Roku homescreen though.

[EnTerr]

"TheEndless" wrote:
Are you exiting your channel before you load the new package? I've added two Home key presses via ECP (one to kill a screensaver, if running, and the second to ensure it exits the channel) to my build script before uploading the new package, and can't recall the last time I had a reboot during the side-load process. If you're not exiting the channel first, then that's a critical piece of information in being able to reproduce it.

The "critical piece of information" was provided here:

"squirreltown" wrote:
Always happens (above post) if roScreen is in motion when pkg is sideloaded ie; animated screensaver type screen OR if in the debugger (after a BS crash), less so otherwise.

Adding extra Home presses + extra wait will likely circumvent crashes but that is patch-work, the buggy behavior has to be fixed. Currently it's like having to say "Hail Mary" every time after inserting car key but before turning ignition on. Or else it chokes and dies. What kind of car is that?

[RokuJoel]

bug filed.

- Joel

[TheEndless]

"EnTerr" wrote:
The "critical piece of information" was provided here:...

Yes, but I was replying to his last statement:

"squirreltown" wrote:
There are no "steps" to reproducing it, just side-loading manually with a browser.

Clearly, there are steps to reproduce it, as you quoted...

"EnTerr" wrote:
Adding extra Home presses + extra wait will likely circumvent crashes but that is patch-work, the buggy behavior has to be fixed. Currently it's like having to say "Hail Mary" every time after inserting car key but before turning ignition on. Or else it chokes and dies. What kind of car is that?

I didn't say it didn't need to be fixed. I assumed that was obvious. I was offering a possible short term solution, as a firmware update/patch is likely to take some time. And adding two ECP key presses adds, at most, a second to the build/install time, which is a heck of a lot better than the 2-3 minutes a forced reboot adds... I'm currently working exclusively on 2D apps (primarily on my Roku 2 XD), and rarely, if ever, encounter random reboots when sideloading, so either the Home key presses are an extremely effective workaround, or I'm just absurdly lucky.

[EnTerr]

"TheEndless" wrote:
I didn't say it didn't need to be fixed. I assumed that was obvious. I was offering a possible short term solution

For which i am indebted to you - and i already pointed to that thread "for symptoms and workaround".
But let me be more clear how helpful your hack has been for me: if it wasn't for it, i would have given up on the whole BRS "development experience" about 7 weeks ago, wished Roku&Co to go fornicate recursively and left for greener pastures like Chromecast and FireTV. You are doing a lot of the Roku stain cleaning here in the forums and if RokuCo are not paying you for that work, they should!