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ghartwig
Binge Watcher

Direct Publisher channel now failing

My channel has been working fine for years until a few days ago.  Now, it tries to load and then goes to a blank screen with a large magnifying glass search icon in the middle.  No controls work except to back out of the channel.  There are no errors anywhere that I can see.  Could it be too large or something?  I have an older Roku for testing (3100X - Roku 2 XS).  Could that cause issues?

My feed validates using a JSON validator and looks OK to me.  The feed status says "784 items ingested successfully" and shows no errors.  I don't know what to do to try to debug this.

My feed is: https://www.levitt.tv/bin/data_XML.php?format=JSON
My channel code is: zola

Any help would be appreciated.

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10 REPLIES 10
ghartwig
Binge Watcher

Re: Direct Publisher channel now failing

Thanks for your quick reply!

I understand that they're all SD and would have used that if possible, but I think I remember seeing in the past that SD wasn't a valid option for quality.  That's not the case now anyway, so I've changed it now.  The trickPlayFile quality still shows that it has to be either HD or FHD.  I don't understand why, but have HD hardcoded in to match the spec, though they don't explain how a BIF file can contain 720p images, especially for a video that's less than 720.

I don't see a way to specify a bitrate.

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ghartwig
Binge Watcher

Re: Direct Publisher channel now failing

I'm building the XML using PHP from data in my database and MP4 files on disk;  I don't see a bit rate parameter in the specs: https://developer.roku.com/docs/specs/direct-publisher-feed-specs/json-dp-spec.md

The video files can be SD so I don't understand why the BIF file images can't also be SD (or really, what that would mean for a BIF file anyway, since they're just thumbnails).  But there it is in the spec: https://developer.roku.com/docs/specs/direct-publisher-feed-specs/json-dp-spec.md#trickplayfile

I'm not sure what you mean by HD being the minimum required since the spec allows videos to be SD (and mine, as you pointed out, clearly are).

 

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Baradanikto
Roku Guru

Re: Direct Publisher channel now failing

According to the Roku Json spec, SD is still valid.  And, 'bitrate' was dropped as a required field a while ago.

I did notice that your 'dateAdded' fields are not formatted according to the spec.  I'm not sure that this would be enough to cause your problem, but, you should fix it.

FREE Windows desktop software for converting Direct Publisher channels to SceneGraph (SDK), for creating BIF (Trick Play) files, Roku (MRSS, JSON) feed files, and FireTV feed files @ GitHub/rrirower.
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Baradanikto
Roku Guru

Re: Direct Publisher channel now failing

According to the Trick Mode doc:

A scene-based trick mode is based on the availability of scene information in the form of BIF-files or standard thumbnail files for HLS or DASH. If such data are published and accessible for a given title, the scene-based trick mode is used during playback. The content metadata indicates the availability of scene information data on a per title basis, by providing URLs for the HD and SD versions of these assets.

SD is valid for a BIF file.

FREE Windows desktop software for converting Direct Publisher channels to SceneGraph (SDK), for creating BIF (Trick Play) files, Roku (MRSS, JSON) feed files, and FireTV feed files @ GitHub/rrirower.
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ghartwig
Binge Watcher

Re: Direct Publisher channel now failing

My dates are formatted properly for dates but have no times.  I don't  believe the ISO-8601 format requires the time (but Roku may expect it and the docs are not explicit about it, as usual).

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ghartwig
Binge Watcher

Re: Direct Publisher channel now failing

You would think SD would be valid for a BIF, but the spec shows only HD and FHD as acceptable values:

https://developer.roku.com/docs/specs/direct-publisher-feed-specs/json-dp-spec.md#trickplayfile

Must be one of the following:

  • HD – 720p
  • FHD – 1080p
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Baradanikto
Roku Guru

Re: Direct Publisher channel now failing

Do not assume that the spec is correct. For the most part, it is. However, I have personally reported missing or inaccurate info to Roku on several occasions. They do appreciate feedback when errors are found.

FREE Windows desktop software for converting Direct Publisher channels to SceneGraph (SDK), for creating BIF (Trick Play) files, Roku (MRSS, JSON) feed files, and FireTV feed files @ GitHub/rrirower.
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ghartwig
Binge Watcher

Re: Direct Publisher channel now failing

I haven't found a way to contact Roku about developer issues like this one.  I think we may be out of ideas on fixing my problem but I don't know how to contact them to report this.  There are no error messages anywhere.  The Feed Status says I have 784 items.  I don't know where else to look for a problem.

The only thing I can think of is that I'm exceeding some limits somewhere (silently), but that should give some error.  Bah.

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Baradanikto
Roku Guru

Re: Direct Publisher channel now failing

The only limit I know of is 40 items per row.  An item does not imply a video.  An item can be a series with multiple episodes.

To contact Roku, search for "Roku Partner Success".

FREE Windows desktop software for converting Direct Publisher channels to SceneGraph (SDK), for creating BIF (Trick Play) files, Roku (MRSS, JSON) feed files, and FireTV feed files @ GitHub/rrirower.
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