Roku Developer Program

[trainlu]

I downloaded the SDK, edited the video player example and uploaded it via the address provided by the roku box in developer mode. I used telnet on my mac to connect to the roku over the 8085 port.

I guess i expected the videoplayer app to show up on the television, but i got nothing. The telnet session connects but nothing happens. its like it locks up.

I only edited the XML files and then hosted them on my web server and linked to the new XML files inside the videoplayer ap

Any help?

[trainlu]

Ok after some troubleshooting i have discovered that if I upload the pre-zipped files from the examples in the SDK they pop up on the roku box and work great. If I decompress that same zip and then re-zip it without any file editing on either my mac or my pc, the roku will not play it. It locks up. So I think my problem might be in the compressing of the folder. Can you zip a file incorrectly for the roku?

Its funny how something so simple can drive you crazy and make you feel stupid.

[RokuJoel]

To zip properly on Windows, open up videoplayer folder, and select everything INSIDE the folder. Right click, Send To -Compressed Zip File. Then upload that file.

On Mac, don't open the folder, just right click on it and select Archive, or, Compress depending on the version of Mac OS you are running.

- Joel

[trainlu]

Thanks for the reply. I zipped the files on the mac by "compressing" the entire folder. Still did not work. Just so I am clear, you can simply zip the files from your machine and side load them into the player and they should run?

If I side load the original zip's from the SDK examples folder they work fine. If I take the same original zipped folder, unzip it and re-zip it without any source code edits at all, it will not side load.

It does not make sense.

[gonzotek]

"trainlu" wrote:
Thanks for the reply. I zipped the files on the mac by "compressing" the entire folder. Still did not work. Just so I am clear, you can simply zip the files from your machine and side load them into the player and they should run?

If I side load the original zip's from the SDK examples folder they work fine. If I take the same original zipped folder, unzip it and re-zip it without any source code edits at all, it will not side load.

It does not make sense.

It's almost definitely a compression issue. Some zip programs let you change compression settings, and do things like add a password. Are there any settings like that for the Mac's built-in compression?

[trainlu]

Ok I found out my problem and the solution. I am going to post it here for others who might be experiencing the same problem. Hopefully the rest of the development community is not as dumb as me...but just in case I want to contribute. It took me several hours to figure this out.

1. when you zip your source folder you cannot zip the entire folder. For example if your folder is my channel/source, if you select the "my channel" folder and zip it, it actually creates a zip that is "my channel.zip/my channel/source". The roku then does not recognize the source folder to run your application.

To fix this when zipping your folder open the channel folder, use command click on mac or shift click on the pc to select all the folders inside the root folder and then compress or zip the files that are inside the root folder. On the mac this creates a zip file named "archive.zip". simply change the name from archive to the name you choose, then side load that zip and your channel will work.

I hope that made sense?

[gonzotek]

"trainlu" wrote:
Ok I found out my problem and the solution. I am going to post it here for others who might be experiencing the same problem. Hopefully the rest of the development community is not as dumb as me...but just in case I want to contribute. It took me several hours to figure this out.

1. when you zip your source folder you cannot zip the entire folder. For example if your folder is my channel/source, if you select the "my channel" folder and zip it, it actually creates a zip that is "my channel.zip/my channel/source". The roku then does not recognize the source folder to run your application.

To fix this when zipping your folder open the channel folder, use command click on mac or shift click on the pc to select all the folders inside the root folder and then compress or zip the files that are inside the root folder. On the mac this creates a zip file named "archive.zip". simply change the name from archive to the name you choose, then side load that zip and your channel will work.

I hope that made sense?

Makes sense, and I'm glad you got it sorted. But that's counter to what RokuJoel stated for the Mac. I wonder if different versions of Mac OS treat the zip root differently.

Anyway, here's the cheat sheet version of what good and bad channel zips would look like:

GOOD:
channel.zip/manifest
channel.zip/source/*.brs
channel.zip/images/*

BAD:
channel.zip/channel/manifest
channel.zip/channel/source/*.brs
channel.zip/channel/images/*

Most importantly, the manifest and source folder has to be at the root. The images folder is more of a convention, because the manifest and brightscript code can point to any resource within any directory within the package. Other folders and subfolders may also exist, if needed.