m4a AAC encoded files don't play back properly - EMUI Bugs and Issues

Short: First few seconds of m4a AAC encoded audio files are always skipped (in any music app). There wasn't such a bug in previous version of android (8). I am currently using latest (to this date) EMUI 9 build.
However such issue was already known a few months back:
#118053992 on google issue tracker - "When playing audio files in the media player on Android 9.0, media skips ahead 1-2 seconds even though position is set to 0". Contains: "A large amount of .m4a encoded files are not able to play properly using the Android MediaPlayer API on Android 9.0. "
But on this thread it is stated that the issue was fixed. Apparently, it is not. This gives me a hint that the current build EMUI is not using "the fixed" version of Android 9, is it? Looking forward to fixing this issue. This is very disturbing.

Related

Bad Java support for m4a?

It looks like Android environment suffers from bad/poor library support fro m4a audio tracks.
- Android Media Store SUCKS: it's more than a year now the the media scanner fails to store ,scan and read m4a tags
- Apparently, no Android media player shows being bulletproof when dealing with m4a tracks. No Android media player can handle large embedded artworks
This bring to one conclusion: is just one/same buggy Java library being used by everyone?

[Q] youtube bug - playlist is playing the same video

I created my account, logged in and created my first playlist. I then added 5 videos to the playlist and everytime I added, it indicated so that the video was added. Opened up my playlist and true enough all my videos with there - different titles and different length of time. I play the first one and plays fine. I click on the 2nd video, and to my surprise, it played exactly what my first one played even though the video titles were different. Went to my 3rd trhu my 5th video and it just played the video that was on the first one that displayed.
So the problem I have is, the videos that I added to my playlist, even though had different titles, plays only the video of the 1st one. Kind of weird.....
(On other devices it work fine -sgs2/pc)
Anyone have an idea how to fix this? Or a workaround?
I'm using. Youtube version 3.3.0 on prime with the latest update (15) not rooted...
Together with this, how do you remove or delete or edit playlist on an Android 4.0 on a tablet?
Thank you for your help
After updating to 3.5.5 the problem solved...
Still, I'll be glad to hear if there's a way to edit playlist on the prime

[Q] VLC for Android Beta doesn't show srt subtitles?

The latest version of VLC for Android Beta (version 0.9.10) downloaded from Google Play doesn't display srt subtitles anymore on my device (Sony Xperia Z2 D6503). I'm running the latest version of Android available for the device (4.4.4) and the latest available firmware version (23.0.1.A.0.167). The VLC application correctly detects the SRT file and it can be chosen as a subtitle track. However, when playing video there's no subtitles to be seen. I've tried this with a large number of different video files in different formats and with different SRT files stored in both internal and external storage or USB stick with no luck. The video files and SRT files are not corrupted since I've been able to play them with no problems on my device by using other video playback software such as BSPlayer for Android or Sony's built-in video player on the device. I've reinstalled the VLC application a number of times, rebooted the device, soft-resetted the device, cleared the media database and history in the application's settings, and cleared all application data in the system settings with no luck. I've also tried older versions of VLC and the nightly build.
I also posted this problem on the VLC's official help forum and I had a discussion with one of the developers there. From the log file I sent him (available here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/jclfbs2a7hbha2o/VLC debug.txt?dl=0) he detected that the problem is somehow related to system fonts or text rendering modules as can be seen from the following lines in the log file linked above:
freetype spu text: Using /system/fonts/DroidSans-Bold.ttf as font from file /system/fonts/DroidSans-Bold.ttf
freetype spu text: Using /system/fonts/DroidSansMono.ttf as mono-font from file /system/fonts/DroidSansMono.ttf
freetype spu text: file /system/fonts/DroidSans-Bold.ttf have unknown format
core spu text: no text renderer modules matched
Unfortunately the developer wasn't able to help me any further than that. So that's why I'm posting here.
I'd also like to point out that this issue wasn't there in the previous firmware version (17.1.2.A.0.314). I'm currently experiencing this problem running the firmware posted here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/xperia-z2/development/stock-4-4-4-23-0-1-0-167-bug-free-t2929402 As a friend of mine who also owns a Sony Xperia Z2 and uses the exact same firmware is experiencing this exact same issue, one could think that it has something to do with the firmware and Android build in question. Of course it could be any number of things affecting the subtitles but other Android devices I've tried have had no problem with displaying the subtitles in VLC.
So I'm just wondering is anyone else experiencing this annoying problem with VLC and Xperia Z2 and would someone have any idea of how to fix this? Of course meanwhile I can use other video players such as BSPlayer to watch videos with srt subtitles, but I prefer the interface of VLC.
I actually don't know anyone personally that uses either VLC or BS player anymore. You'd be best getting MX player instead, it has native support for everything that's thrown at it, including stylised subtitle support.
Are you sure you're trying to use SRT subtitles? The only time you should get warnings/errors about TTF font files is when a MKV with embedded ASS subtitles can't find a suitable substitute.
Of course there are other viable media players available, I'm aware of that. And as I pointed out VLC is the only media app misbehaving this way. And yes, I'm absolutely sure that I'm using srt subtitles. Same subtitles that have no problem playing with other media players on my device or with VLC on other Android devices. I specifically pointed out the location of the subtitle files for VLC manually. I was just curious about this error. This misbehaviour with VLC started instantly after updating firmware and the same happened to a friend of mine so that got me thinking if there's a possibility of something being different in the fonts department FW- or OS-wise. But I happen to know a couple of other apps as well that are not currently playing well with Android 4.4.4 so it's not that exceptional to find an app not fully compatible with that version of Android. Oh well, maybe I just have to move on and start using some other media player as you suggested. Using VLC was just an old habit for me and after all there's a saying that old habits die hard. And now that you mentioned MX Player as a better alternative. Well it seems that it no longer supports AC3 audio due to licensing issues so in that way it's unfortunately less functional compared to either VLC or BSPlayer. :/ And I happen to play quite a lot of media with AC3 audio on my device. However, there seem to be workarounds available for getting MX Player to play AC3 again.
One year later I suffer the same on a Asus Zen pad 540 and newest firmware, so it seems there are sensible parts of Android, mine is 5.0.
I wish I could use Ac3 with Mx player
Sent from my LG-D802 using Tapatalk
its 2020, updated my VLC to latest version... and VLC now is not reading any .srt file...
.mp4 .mkv are my vid extensions.. and no srt reading happened

Playback Anomalies

After playing for several hours, long files and long playlist playback regularly gets borked for audio files in any player and for video in the YouTube app. This has happened ever since I got my first Nexus 9, and on all operating systems I've installed since.
Originally, on Lollipop and Marshmallow, audio playback would slow down, like a vinyl record being played too slow.
Nowadays, on Nougat variants, playback speeds up, appearing to skip frames.
A key trigger for this playback deformation seems to be prolonged playback, as in it happens with long files and long playlists which have been playing for several hours.
I'm not sure about the scope of media that's affected by this. I have experienced this with audio files on a near daily basis and it happens with YouTube video as well. I remember it happening with video files in other media players too, in the past, but I am not sure whether that is still an issue as I am watching fewer video files in media player apps these days.
(This has happened for years on two separate Nexus 9 tablets, running Lollipop, Marshmallow, Nougat, CyanogenMod and LineageOS.)
I haven't had any problems with video playback. Usually up to 4.5 hours of video per day. Video files stored locally on device (and sometimes on USB stick via otg) playing with either mxplayer or VLC. Haven't seen slow down or speed up. I don't use YouTube much though so I don't have any feedback there.
Running custom ROMs (since stock is pretty much useless). Dirty unicorns until they stopped development. Then purenexus, slim, and currently aicp.
I'm not sure what the issue is, but it happened from day one and on two separate devices running different OS'ses -- currently stock Nougat and LineageOS.

Google play music - has it changed from mp3 to AAC (Mobile devices)

So there are a few mentions of Google play music changing from mp3 to AAC. Not as many as I would expect given that this is a big deal imo.
I tested today using the web player on my mac and it was indeed AAC but I have no way of verifying if this also the case on mobile devices too. On android the files are hidden away and cannot be viewed without root. I can see no reason why they would vary it by device but you never know
Anybody have any idea how to verify on an android device?
Would be great if someone could throw light on this. Really want to know whether GPM is playing AAC on Android like their web player. If that's the case, it's indeed a big deal.

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