Most audio files are supported by Android, however occasionally there are factors that can cause an audio file to fail to play.
The easiest way to determine if there is a problem with the audio file is to long press on the media file and 'launch in external player'. This will load the media file and the Android music player. If it fails to play, then the audio file will not play in DoggCatcher because DoggCatcher uses an embedded Android music player for media playback.
In the past, audio failure have been caused by:
-Invalid audio encoding parameters - In this case it has been useful to contact the publisher and let them know. They will often try to correct the problem.
-Corrupt SD cards.
-Failing Android media player (or sound drivers). Rebooting the devices fixes this.
Some audio files are not encoded in a way that is compatible with variable speed. You can try disabling variable speed in the setting to determine if this is causing the problem. Note that setting the speed to 1.0x *is not* effective as testing for this problem.
Occasionally the Android media player dies in a way that can only be resolved by rebooting the device. If you get errors trying to play a variety of different audio files of which you are confident should work properly, try rebooting your device. Rebooting normally resolves this problem.
Switch to Google’s new Android experimental media player for 6.0+/7.0+ devices, it also includes a variable speed feature (DC Menu>Settings>Advanced) Enable “Experimental Marshmallow media player” the player can sometimes resume playback on an incorrect position, but the audio playback problems goes away.
Headset buttons
Android allows one application at a time to respond to headset buttons. The application that most recently requested to be the sole receiver of headset button events, will receive all headset button events.
You can see this demonstrated by following these steps:
-Start DoggCatcher and press play in the DoggCatcher UI
-Press a headset button (wired or BT) a few times, DoggCatcher will responds to the button presses
-Start a main stream audio application (like Google Play Music or Spotify) and press play in the music app UI
-Press a headset button (wired or BT) a few times, the music app will responds to the button presses
We've followed the development guidelines and reproduced the intended behavior, and also the behavior of the Android music player.
DoggCatcher will begin responding to the headset buttons when the following happens, and will continue to respond to headset button events until another app requests to be the sole received of headset button events.
-DoggCatcher is launched
-The play button in the DoggCatcher UI is pressed
Headset button developer guidelines
The coding details can be found here - http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/06/allowing-applications-to-...
Bluetooth metadata
Some devices support the display of Bluetooth meta data, like artist name, track name, etc, on the display of the Bluetooth device.
This works on most devices regardless of DoggCatcher's configuration, however some devices require that the this DoggCatcher setting be enabled:
Settings / Headset/Lockscreen / Lock screen buttons
DC relies on the Android media player (which calculates times from the media file) and the duration provided by the publisher (which is displayed on the episode) to determine the times,
This issue is usually caused by audio encoding parameters that are not compatible with the version of Android that you're using. In the past feed publishers have worked to resolve these types of things. You could contact the publisher and let them know the problem you're experiencing with the feed.
See Forum Support Posts:
Wrong times on ESPN podcasts - http://www.doggcatcher.com/node/4216
One feed (young turks) displays incorrect time, resumes improperly ('losing its place') - http://www.doggcatcher.com/node/4320
See Forum General Discussion Post:
Dropping last 30 secs of pod cast - http://www.doggcatcher.com/node/6026
The app removes episodes from the currently active playlist once they're completed, If the media files haven't been deleted yet....you can add them back to the default system playlists from the episode screen of each particular feed/podcast on the "Feeds" tab
Press the context menu icon (Hamburger Icon Top Right of Episode Screen) to flag all episodes new(Blue)/in progress(Green) or press the context menu icon of each particular episode (Hamburger Icon Right of Episode title) to flag new(Blue)/in progress(Green)
Another option is to use the Multi-Select feature to flag all or selected episodes as new/done, delete media files or add episodes to a user/dynamic playlists> to enable "Long Press" on a particular episode from the episode screen & then press on selected episodes> press on the icons on top of the screen to enable selected actions
Press the Playlist icon to add new episodes to a playlist (User/Dynamic)
Press Flag New icon
Press Flag Done icon
Press the delete icon
Press the Pinned icon to deleted pinned episodes
Currently it's not possible keep completed episodes on the current active playlist automatically
When these playback/download issues happen, check the apps “Event Log” (DC Navigation Menu>More>Event Log) If there are error notifications listed
“Error playing episode - java.io.IOException: setDataSourceFD failed.: status=0x8000000”
“java.io FileNotFoundException:/sdcard/external_sd/......podcast.mp3.PART: open failed: EROFS (Read-only file system)”
“java.io.IOException - Failed to instantiate extractor”
These error notifications are all are caused by a corrupted SD card, replacing the card (New prefered) resolves the problem
Custom ROM Playback Issue Acer, Blu, Fairphone, Kindle Fire Devices (Lollipop 5.0) & Zest Mobile Devices
Audio only plays about 1 second every 10 seconds or so, doesn’t remember the play position of media file on Acer, Blu, Elephone,Fairphone,Freetel,Gionee, Huawei, Kindle Fire Devices (Lollipop 5.0), Lenovo,Oppo, Otium,Pelephone Gini W5, RCA, Ulefone,Wiko, Xiaomi & Zest Mobile devices are running a custom ROM version of Android that is incompatible with DC’s features,particularly "Variable Speed”
Try these two workaround solutions that might resolve the playback problem you’re experiencing
1) Disable the "Variable Speed Enabled" feature (DC Navigation Menu>Settings>Audio Player)
2) Change the player for DC from “Integrated” (Internal) to “External” (DC Navigation Menu>Settings>Audio Player) Press “Audio Player” change to “External Player”
(unfortunately this workaround option doesn’t resolve the problem with remembering the play position of media file feature.)
FYI- The "Resume Hack" and "Seekbar Hack" setting options was for a bug issue with the Android media player on very old devices (3.x) and should only be needed as a workaround to resolve that issue. Those hack settings have no effect on newer devices, so the settings have been removed.
DoggCatcher displays a notification when another app has requested audio focus and Android revokes the audio focus from DoggCatcher. At this point, DoggCatcher must stop audio playback.
Audio Focus is something that is managed by Android to allow only one app to play audio at a time. When an audio app (such as DoggCatcher) plays audio, it first requests audio focus.
Audio apps should only do this when they are responding to user input, like pressing on a media button in the app. But sometimes apps do this at other times, some seeming completely random.
Unfortunately, there is no easy way to tell which app is taking audio focus away from DoggCatcher aside from closely monitoring what apps are installed or updated when this behavior starts.
This means that Android has killed DoggCatcher. Android will do this when there isn't enough available memory for DoggCatcher to continue to operate. This can be usually remedied by uninstalling applications that run in the background. Some devices running Android 5.0 can leak memory that can only be recovered by rebooting your device.
There can be different causes for this, both of which can be confirmed by viewing the DoggCatcher event log. This log can be seen in the menu opened by clicking on the hamburger at the top left.
A headset play/pause event has been received
Some car audio systems automatically send a play event to your mobile device right after connecting via bluetooth. This has been observed with Ford Sync and some other aftermarket headunuts like the Pioneer NEX-4100.
Faulty wired headset
After a wired headset device has been used for a while, it can begin to send faulty signals to the mobile device which are interpreted as play/pause events.