Roku Developer Program

[sonofabit]

I have an app that is playing tracks from an RSS feed.

When I upload the development zip file to my roku, the tracks play fine.

when I uploaded the package to a private beta channel, the app loads, lists the tracks and shows a playing status, but there is no audio coming from the device.

I thought perhaps it was my audio settings (connected via hdmi) but I tried pandora and heard audio just fine, so the speakers work, the roku works, and the audio works.

but my app doesn't work.

Before I spend any time hacking through my code, is there any specific reason why this would work on my dev roku but not my test live private beta installed roku?

many thanks
josh

[EnTerr]

"sonofabit" wrote:
Before I spend any time hacking through my code, is there any specific reason why this would work on my dev roku but not my test live private beta installed roku?

My scientific wild-ass guess (hey, i learnt new expression today!) would be it is the difference between the dev Roku player ("D") and the beta Roku ("B"): they are on a different network/subnet or different hardware (fw3 vs fw5?). For example say audio file server is not accessible from B's IP. Try to narrow possibilities by say installing beta channel on "D"?

[sonofabit]

interesting it looks like you are right. I have two rokus, Roku 2 and Roku 3.

roku 3 is my dev device, but roku 2 was my test device.

I installed my beta channel (the one from the store, not the dev source code zip one) to both rokus, and only roku 3 (the dev device) plays the audio.

perhaps it's the firmware in roku 2?

is there a flag/setting or something that I missed that would prevent older rokus from working? or is the api vastly different and my channel only works for roku 3?

sorry if this is obvious, but I'm rather new to roku and not sure where to look to find this answer...

thank you kindly for your help!

[EnTerr]

"sonofabit" wrote:
is there a flag/setting or something that I missed that would prevent older rokus from working? or is the api vastly different and my channel only works for roku 3

That shouldn't be an issue but feel free to mention what each firmware version is (say 5.3.4016 for Roku3 etc).
Are both boxes on the same network? (Or overly-simplified, do their IPs start with the same 3 numbers, e.g. 192.168.1 ?)

[sonofabit]

indeed they are definitely on the same network, but I'll have to check their firmware versions later and report back.

I don't think even if they were on different networks it would matter; the audio is coming from a public website, so it should be accessible from either device...

and the weird part is that it says it's playing, and all the other data comes in (title, image, etc), i just don't hear any audio...

although I suspect what is happening is that it's actually failing to play, and my code isn't trapping that error.

I think what I need to do is install the dev code onto the roku 2 and see what happens in the debugger.

thanks for your insight! if I figure it out will report back

[TheEndless]

You didn't mention (or I completely missed it) what audio file format you're trying to play. I don't think it should matter, as long as it's a supported type, but it may be worthwhile information for troubleshooting.

[sonofabit]

aha so I think I figured it out. by default the url to the tracks coming in from the API actually do several redirects to get to the endpoint of the actual mp3 url...

but there is a separate link in the feed that links closer to the url, by using that one instead everything works!

It appears that roku3 handles the redirect better, but roku 2 needs a more direct url...

bottom line is it's working, thanks!