Cast demo not working for HLS

[mohsinDPRO]

Media3 Version

ExoPlayer 2.18.7

Devices that reproduce the issue

OnePlus 5T, 6, 6T
Android OS - 9, 10, 11, 12, 13

Devices that do not reproduce the issue

None that I know of

Reproducible in the demo app?

Yes

Reproduction steps

1. Run the demo cast app
2. Select Clear HLS: Angel one title
3. the title shows up on the TV, but It fails to play

There are no logs in the console, which I could share

Expected result

Expected result is that the media should start playing on the chromecast device as well.
But apart from HLS rest of the streams are casting to the device, but not the HLS

Actual result

The selected title is shown on the tv screen, even the casting controls show up on the phone from which the casting session was initiated, but the stream does not starts playback on the TV ever

Media

Clear HLS: Angel One - this is the stream from the demo itself, which is not playing

Bug Report

• You will email the zip file produced by adb bugreport to dev.exoplayer@gmail.com after filing this issue.

[marcbaechinger]

This is because the cast device or the receiver does not support this HLS stream.

The user here (google/ExoPlayer#11018) says creating your own receiver app solves the problem. I haven't tried that though. I recall trying this out with about 4 different cast devices and it worked on a Next Hub but not on a Chromecast Ultra (first gen). I also think that I was able to play it on an audio only cast device. That's why I think it is device specific.

I don't expect you will use the ExoPlayer receiver app for your app, so doing this would be part of your app anyways. Sorry for not being able to give you a better answer.

[mohsinDPRO]

Ahh, thanks for the quick reply.
As I understand there would be no other way to make the hls streams cast directly to the chromecast device? Can we not explicity set CORS or user-agent or something, which will help get the hls stream be casted

[mohsinDPRO]

Hi,
I tried this example at my end on multiple phones and it seems to be casting, just fine,
there must be some changes in the original sdk vs our exoplayer extension, what can we do to debug it?

[marcbaechinger]

Sorry, I'm not sure I understand.

Are you saying the media (Angel one - HLS) plays fine on a Cast device when you are using your app (or another app) that is directly talking to the Cast SDK? And in comparison the same media does not play when you are using the ExoPlayer cast demo app?

Which phone you are using should not make a difference, as it's the cast device that receives just the media URI and then plays on it's own.

What you are saying is that there is a problem in the Cast extension/Cast demo app? If this is the case we certainly need to investigate this.

If the above is correct:
Can you give us some more details about what version of the Cast SDK you are using and what Cast device you made this work with (like the model and if possible version of the software running with this device).

My understanding is that the Cast demo app sends the URI to the device. Sending the URI works from what I remember, but then the media does not play on the cast device.

If you want to debug what is happening on the cast device you can connect a remote Chrome debugger to it. This should give some errors that tell why playing the URI does not work: https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/debugging/remote_debugger

If you do this I would certainly be interested and thankful to hear something back like a stack trace or some log out put from the cast device.

[mohsinDPRO]

I tried the demo app provided by https://github.com/googlecast/CastVideos-android
The casting here is somehow working with the same chromecast device and phone which I've been using to test the exoplayer cast extension as well.

• Casting device I am using is chrome cast 1st gen & mi android tv
• Phones used for testing is OnePlus 3t, 5T, 6, 6T, Samsung Tablet

Can we look into what different are they doing, which we can do to get our extension work