Roku Developer Program

[ghartwig]

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.

[ghartwig]

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.

[ghartwig]

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).

[Baradanikto]

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.

[Baradanikto]

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.

[ghartwig]

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).

[ghartwig]

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

[Baradanikto]

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.

[ghartwig]

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.

[Baradanikto]

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".