Roku Developer Program

[coskel]

So I created my channel locally, tested it extensively and then logged in to submit my channel. I filled out the form, added text/artwork, description, chose a category.
Pressed "create" and then page reloaded to the main Roku homepage.

No place to send my zip file, no confirmation, no further instructions.

Now what do I do?

[coskel]

ok, update. I figured out how to package it so I have a package and a password.

I go to Utilities, enter the password and browse for the package.
Then I press Screenshot, and it returns the text "screenshot OK" but no actual screenshot appears.

using Roku 3

any suggestions?

[renojim]

Your side-loaded channel has to be running for the Screenshot to work. There's no need to browse for a package and enter a password if all you want is a screenshot. They are there for the Rekey and Inspect options.

-JT

[coskel]

thanks for the update - so the channel is on my player - when I side-loaded it, it popped right up and I can watch all the files, scroll through the splash screen menu, etc. The Roku SDK dicumentation says to go to Utilities, load a package and press screenshot, which is what I'm doing. all I get back is "Screenshot ok" but no screen shot.

If the side-loaded channel is supposed to appear in Utilities without uploading anything, is there some sort of refresh I'm supposed to be doing?

[renojim]

No, the side-loaded channel will not appear on the Utilities page and there's no need for it to appear for the Screenshot to work. If your side-loaded channel is running, you should just be able to press the Screenshot button without doing anything else. You can't take a screenshot of a playing video, but even then I get an all black image when I try it on my XS. The only time I get the "screenshot OK" message with no screenshot image is when I have no side-loaded channel running.

I don't have a Roku 3 (yet), so I don't know if there's any issues there, but I would have thought it would have been mentioned here if there were.

I'm guessing it won't be there, but you can try browsing to http://<ip of your roku>/pkgs/ after your press the Screenshot button and see if there's a dev.jpg file there.

-JT

[coskel]

Thanks Jim.
You are a rockstar - nowhere in the documentation does it say
"your channel must be playing in the Roku in order to grab screenshots"

Once I did that, everything was there.

[RokuMarkn]

Actually it does say that in the Channel Package and Publishing Guide, or attempts to. Can you describe why this sentence didn't convey that to you?

Just navigate your side-loaded application to the screen you'd like to capture and click on the "Screenshot" button on the "Package Utilities" page and the image of that screen will load in your browser.

--Mark

[EnTerr]

"RokuMarkn" wrote:
Actually it does say that in the Channel Package and Publishing Guide, or attempts to.

That sentence is not intentionally misleading - but apparently is not sufficient either. I would have added "Please note that snapshot will be taken ONLY from a side-loaded app, not from the home screen or any other channel".

Let me share my experience: i have known about the capture button for a long time, years. And yet i have to periodically re-learn it works only for the dev bundle. On /plugin_inspect page there is no indication of "Screenshot" limitation - moreover if pressed it always says "Screenshot ok" - even when it was not okay, nothing was captured and the old dev.jpg is shown.

Last this happened to me this week - i wanted to update screenshot for private channel i just published, so i progressed on screen to the image i wanted to capture, went to the Utilities page and "Snapshot"... nothing happened, still showing the old image. Again! "Screenshot OK" but it was no-K, still showing the old image there. New tab, open just the URL, force refresh... no go. Took me a while to figure it out - you and seasoned Roku devs can probably guess outright what was the reason - 'twas mystery "for the rest of us".

Anyway, if that page can indicate problem taking snapshot, that would be best - not always say OK. Pragmatically, it will save time answering people complaints that snapshot facility "does not work".

[destruk]

I'd second this - had this issue last week trying to take a screenshot from the wrong roku box and yet it always said "OK" when no screenshot appeared. For developers with 5 or 6 rokus on their LAN, you can see how in a pinch a person could pull up the wrong IP. Maybe for 'dev package installed' it could display the channel name from the manifest, or something to indicate what it is instead of the cryptic MD5.

[EnTerr]

My issue was different from destruk's: i was trying to take snapshot on the correct device/IP...
but not of the side-loaded app! - i was trying that unwittingly on the same app but as installed from the Channel Store! Took me a while to figure it out indeed, since everything looked the same but "it just didn't work".

Meanwhile, i see documentation has been updated to explicitly highlight what screenshot does not do (thanks, RokuMarkn).