"Updating Skifta" Process Failing

Forums

A community for Skifta users to learn and share.

"Updating Skifta" Process Failing

Started 1 year ago by jharder01 (19 posts) (4 voices)
Latest reply from Conal

Posted 1 year ago

jharder01
Member

Hello, I'm just getting started with Skifta, but I cannot access the application.

I installed from the Market, connected to WiFi (known to be working), opened Skifta, and the app hangs while on the "Updating Skifta" screen.

The first two times I tried opening the app, it would freeze after 30 seconds and then reboot the phone. Now, I am able to let it sit for several hours on this updating screen (with no progress) without it freezing.

I cleared the app's cache's through Android's Manage Apps utility, this didn't work... Cleared cache, uninstalled, and then reinstalled, still not working.

This is happening on my phone, Droid X with Gingerbread as well as my Nook Color with CyanogenMod 7.0. I've also tried a different WiFi network just for kicks but that didn't work either.

Any ideas as to what might be causing this problem? Anything that I can change?
Let me know if there's anything you would like me to try to resolve this issue.

Thanks!
Justin
Posted 1 year ago

Conal
Skifta Engineer

Hi Jharder01 - thanks for trying the Skifta beta.
Normally - this is the jetty process waiting to start.
You may have some process sat in the background preventing Jetty from starting.
Please try rebooting the phone and then starting the app (you haven't mentioned that). If it gets stuck after this, we'll work out how to diagnose.
Posted 1 year ago

jharder01
Member

Thanks for your quick response.

I rebooted and started the app on the Nook Color. It updated and opened as one would expect, but after closing and opening the app again, it hung up.

I rebooted the DroidX and started the app but it still hangs.

I appreciate any assistance you can provide!

Thanks,
Justin
Posted 1 year ago

Conal
Skifta Engineer

Hi Justin

Re: Nook Color, I'm aware this device is an e-reader and can be rooted to run some android apps - not entirely sure it's a great test as we can't support non-standard firmwares and I'm sure that this device doesn't run the full android OS as required by Skifta when rooted.

Re: Droid X, some questions:
*which firmware are you running on this? Check using 'settings > About phone > Firmware version'.
*Is this the standard rollout of Gingerbread or one of the betas? An unstable beta hit around May 27th, I'm aware of an official version from June 1st.
*Is this device also rooted?
Once I have the answer to these points I'll be able to advise what you can do next.
Posted 1 year ago

jharder01
Member

Thanks for the reply.

The Nook Color is running CyanogenMod, which is a fully functional OS. If you're not familiar, its a Gingerbread based third party build (http://www.cyanogenmod.com/).

The Droid X is running Android 2.3.3. Not seeing a "Firmware Version" option as I believe Motorola changed the titles around for Motoblur.
The device is rooted.

Thanks!
Justin
Posted 1 year ago

Conal
Skifta Engineer

Hi again Justin!

With the Nook color, I'm hope you'll understand that we can't provide support for aftermarket firmware. Especially if it's running on a device which is supposed to be solely an e-reader.. we can't be sure functionality required by the product is in the hardware or firmware. It does sound like you're having the same issue on both devices which is unusual.

We support production firmwares and while we don't have a droidx (I'm working on that) we do have a collection of Android 2.3.3 devices, and I can assure you that Skifta works fine on each of these.

So - your issue is this. On Skifta startup:
* The jetty process starts up
* The Skifta webservice is contacted and the latest bundles are downloaded

So - if you're having an issue, one of these two things is not happening. My expectation is the latter. I would expect to see this issue if you had a wifi connection to the net and (for instance) DNS was not resolving correctly, but you say you have tried this on two wireless networks, both with the same result.

In this instance, if you wish to move the issue forward, you could install the free application 'log collector' from the android marketplace. Just after you see the issue, open log collector and email the result to support@skifta.com including details of this thread - and your name 'jharder01' and I'll check it out.

HTH!
Posted 1 year ago

Conal
Skifta Engineer

Hi Justin

Our San Diego staff tested this with a 2.3.3 Droid x with no issue so if you can let me know what you find by forwarding me your logging, I'll see what i can do!
Posted 1 year ago

jharder01
Member

Thanks for looking into this for me. I've emailed the log as requested. I referenced your name and this thread in the email.

Thanks again!
Posted 1 year ago

Conal
Skifta Engineer

Thanks Justin - I'll check it out.
Posted 1 year ago

Conal
Skifta Engineer

Hi Justin - yes - checked into this - our engineers have identified the issue and are working on this.
Keep your eyes on marketplace for next updates and on the product updates page for more info: http://forums.skifta.com/topic/product-updates
Posted 1 year ago

mattb79
Member

Glad you found it:) I just got the app today for a samsung acclaim from us cellular and it is doing the same thing. Frist screen frezzes with the updating bar at 0%
Posted 1 year ago

Conal
Skifta Engineer

Keep an eye on this thread [ http://forums.skifta.com/topic/product-updates ] over the next two weeks for information about when the new beta is out.
Posted 1 year ago

citynomad
Member

This exact issue is also happening on my Samsung Vibrant (Galaxy S) running Froyo (FW version: 2.2; Kernel version: 2.6.32.9; Build number: FROYO.UVKA6). I have upgraded to the latest release of Skifta (0.73). I have tried rebooting, as well as uninstalling Skifta completely and doing a fresh install from the Market - neither action fixed the issue.

On a side note, I've had some other serious issues with previous builds of Skifta, such as artist or album lists taking forever to update and eventually timing out, etc. The application shows great promise, but it seems to work worse and worse with each new version.
Posted 1 year ago

Conal
Skifta Engineer

Hi citynomad - as it happens, this is the exact setup of my device also - with the exception that I'm running beta 0.74 of Skifta.

So - I'm surprised that you're seeing this issue. Here's my recommendations:
* I'm aware of what the issue was prior to 73, and you needed to force stop skifta, or reboot the phone if you saw this condition.
* Install beta 74 from the marketplace as version 73 was superseded on Friday.

If you see the issue again, let us know.
Posted 1 year ago

citynomad
Member

Hi Conal,

I just updated to version 0.74 and am happy to report that the "Updating..." problem is gone now. Good job guys!

Unfortunately, my other problem, timing out when browsing for music, still remains. When I try to browse the music collection stored on my PC (Win7 64-bit; Windows Media Player 12), Skifta displays the message "Browsing the selected source for media" for a very long time (an hour?) and then just fails. This does not happen when browsing pictures, videos or playlists. I do have a fairly large music collection (~ 20,000 tracks), encoded in MP3 and WMA lossless, but Skifta should be able to deal with a size like this, right? I know it used to, a few releases back.

I realize it's a separate issue from the original topic, so let me know if you want me to start a new thread.

(BTW, is there a way to subscribe to this thread to receive email notifications about new messages? I haven't found a way to do that.)
Posted 1 year ago

Conal
Skifta Engineer

Great to hear that your issue is resolved in regards to 'updating'. I'm going to code something up to allow viewers to receive replies from subscribed threads.

Now, re: timeout, OoooooooooooooooKay... 20,000 tracks?!
Hmm. That's going to be a big file.

If you want to try to resolve this, I suggest you diagnose if this isn't actually WMP that's causing this issue, as it will have to build a Huuuuuuuge list of media to return to other devices.. and I think Skifta's able to handle this.

Best way to do this: install XBMC and create a music library. From XBMC home screen, select 'Music', add source, choose a music folder and give it a name. Right click the folder and select 'scan items to library'.

Enable sharing via UPNP:
System > Network > Services > Share Video and Music libraries through UPNP
If you want, also check 'Allow control of XBMC via UPNP'.

Once you have your library, try hitting up the XBMC instance using Skifta.

If you have any other devices that talk UPNP and want to try and talk to your windows library to look at the response time, that would also be a useful test.

And finally - if possible, try creating a second library in WMP with just a few items in it and look to see if your response time is much faster... you've alluded to this already using your video library.

Let me know how you get on.
Posted 1 year ago

Conal
Skifta Engineer

BTW - are you building this playlist all in one go?
Is it one playlist with 20000 items?
As a consideration - if each entry of the DIDL that comes back were 1.5KB, for 20000 MP3 entries, that's a 14MB playlist :-S
Posted 1 year ago

Conal
Skifta Engineer

Hi Citynomad - email subscriptions now enabled!
Posted 9 months ago

Conal
Skifta Engineer

A quick note here (updating relevant threads with subscribers on them) - a new version of Cyanogen is out - and we're getting reports it's fixed bugs related to UPNP and Skifta is now working with it. I'd like to reiterate that we don't support aftermarket firmwares but thought this was an interesting update.