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roquoonewbie's avatar
roquoonewbie
Visitor
13 years ago

Found a pretty big bug in the new Firmware/UI

Very easy to reproduce.

1) Enter a channel (any channel...say Netflix)
2) Using the External Control Point API, issue a command to take the user to the Channel Store, to a specific channel

For instance...take the user to the Hulu Plus screen in the channel store by doing a POST to:

http://192.168.0.29:8060/launch/11?contentID=2285

About 70-80% of the time, this causes the box to lock up and (very slowly) reboot.

I have confirmed this on 2 boxes (an LT and an XD). Both were fine wrt this prior to today's firmware update.

Roku...can you reproduce and comment on an ETA for the fix? Having a total hard reboot from a simple command is really bad.
Roku Developer Program

14 Replies

  • TheEndless's avatar
    TheEndless
    Roku Guru
    13 years ago
    Are you, by any chance, displaying an "please wait" style message dialog when issuing the ECP command? I had issues with that when the Roku 3 was first released, and "fixed" it by removing the wait dialog.
  • roquoonewbie's avatar
    roquoonewbie
    Visitor
    13 years ago
    Not at all. There is no brightscript code here. Just an external control point sending a POST command. That is all it takes to totally crash the box.

    I can make this happen by sending the command from my PC to the Roku, for instance.
  • roquoonewbie's avatar
    roquoonewbie
    Visitor
    13 years ago
    In other words, just doing this ncat command from an external device crashes the box (as long as it is in a channel when the command is sent, and not sitting at the home screen). The IP of the Roku box is 192.168.0.29 in this case:

    # The following is an example command sent via the ncat command. It will launch the channel store app (11) on the box with a contentID equal to 2285 (the Hulu Plus app).
    % echo -e 'POST /launch/11?contentID=2285 HTTP/1.1\r\n\r\n' | ncat 192.168.0.29 8060
    HTTP/1.1 200 OK
    Content-Length: 0

    BOOM, CRASH, REBOOT!!!!

    REALLY FRUSTRATING
  • TheEndless's avatar
    TheEndless
    Roku Guru
    13 years ago
    I'm not seeing that behavior at all. In fact, one of my channels uses that ECP feature extensively (https://owner.roku.com/add/MyChannels). I've never had it crash, and I've not received any reports from users experiencing crashes.

    What's the full version of the firmware you're seeing the issue in?
  • roquoonewbie's avatar
    roquoonewbie
    Visitor
    13 years ago
    Version 5.0
    Build 8043

    Just got updated yesterday on both devices. Problem started then.

    Are you on this latest update yet?
  • roquoonewbie's avatar
    roquoonewbie
    Visitor
    13 years ago
    I just took a look at your MyChannels app. It does not appear to launch the Channel store app to a specific channel's detail screen. It just launches to it's main screen.

    Again, the bug occurs if you go from app1 to a specific detail screen within the Channel store app (by specifying a contentID).

    It is *very* easy to replicate. Go to your Roku. Enter the Netflix app. Then do the POST indicated above to make it navigate to the Channel store screen for the Hulu Plus app (or any other app).
  • TheEndless's avatar
    TheEndless
    Roku Guru
    13 years ago
    "roquoonewbie" wrote:
    I just took a look at your MyChannels app. It does not appear to launch the Channel store app to a specific channel's detail screen. It just launches to it's main screen.

    Again, the bug occurs if you go from app1 to a specific detail screen within the Channel store app (by specifying a contentID).

    It is *very* easy to replicate. Go to your Roku. Enter the Netflix app. Then do the POST indicated above to make it navigate to the Channel store screen for the Hulu Plus app (or any other app).

    I didn't realize it was specific to the channel store, but I did try the POST you indicated above while in the Netflix channel, and still didn't get a crash. I'm running 5.0b8043 on a Roku 2 XD.
  • TheEndless's avatar
    TheEndless
    Roku Guru
    13 years ago
    "roquoonewbie" wrote:
    did your test POST take you to the Hulu Plus page within the Channel Store?

    It did. I tried it several times with the same result.
  • roquoonewbie's avatar
    roquoonewbie
    Visitor
    13 years ago
    It is still happening to me, almost every time.

    The box resonds to the POST with a 200 OK, and it does launch the channel store, but in the process of displaying the details of the channel in the store, the whole box freezes and reboots.

    Can someone else give this a try? Just go to Netflix, then send the external control point POST to launch the channel store app to display the details of Hulu Plus (or any other app you may have on your Roku).