Strange Behavior of Android VideoView - "Can't Play Video"

Asked 18/10, 2011 at 11:9 Answered 15/5, 2018 at 5:18

In my application,showing video from sdcard folder or new taken video from Video intent in a VideoView in different Activity by passing file path of the video selected.

Now the problem is, I have tested this app in my 2 devices LG Optimus Black and LG Optimus Me and it works like charm not problem no force close.

Now when i test this app in Samsung Fascinate 2.1 the video view shows the message "Can't Play Video" no matter i select existing video or take new one.

Remember the app is working fine with the above 2 devices.

In the ShowVideo activity i have button to upload the video, when i got the message "Can't Play Video" i been able to take video from the same path and upload it and can check that video at server side but video view didn't played that video.

So, the Video Path of the SDCard is not the problem thats for sure.

also the Video are of .3gp or .mp4 format only so the format is also supported by android

My Questions Are :

1)When the message "Can't Play Video" occurs? 2)What are the Solution for that? and 3) What could be possible mistakes in my application?

here is the logcat output while i got that message but don't see any error/exception in that.

I/ActivityManager( 2227): Starting activity: Intent { cmp=com.zoodigapp.zoodig/com.zoodigapp.media.ShowVideo (has extras) }
V/SettingsProvider( 2227): system <- value=1.0 name=font_scale
V/SettingsProvider( 2227): property: sys.settings_system_version=26
V/SettingsProvider( 2227): notifying: content://settings/system/font_scale
D/HardwareService( 2227): Brightness NATIVE setBacklightBrightness running. light: 2bightness ==> 30  mode:  1
D/NetworkLocationProvider( 2227): onDataConnectionStateChanged 6
D/MobileDataStateTracker( 2227): default Received state= CONNECTING, old= CONNECTING, reason= (unspecified), apnTypeList= *
D/AGPSManagerService( 2227): state: CONNECTING apnName: Verizon reason: null
D/dalvikvm( 3326): GC freed 2472 objects / 140504 bytes in 73ms
I/File    ( 3326): /sdcard/DCIM/Camera/video-2011-10-17-10-40-54.mp4
V/MediaStore( 3326): We probably run out of space, so create the thumbnail in memory.
I/MediaPlayerService( 2182): Use PV_PLAYER for url:/sdcard/DCIM/Camera/video-2011-10-17-10-40-54.mp4
E/MetadataDriver( 2182): MetadataDriver::setDataSource url file type is isAudiofile(0)
D/        ( 2182): SISO TEST registering PVMFRecognizerPluginFactory
D/        ( 2182): SISO TEST registering PVMFRecognizerPluginFactory success
E/MetadataDriver( 2182): isCommandSuccessful: Command id(0 and expected 0) and status (-17 and expected 1), data corruption (false) at state (4).
E/MetadataDriver( 2182): isCommandSuccessful: Command id(1 and expected 1) and status (-14 and expected 1), data corruption (false) at state (5).
E/MetadataDriver( 2182): captureFrame :  time = 0
E/MetadataDriver( 2182): captureFrame :  inputWidth = 0, inputHeight =0, bAspectratio=0, bResize=0
D/MediaUploader( 2492): UploadsQueue.getAllPending: elapsed msec=449
I/MediaUploader( 2492): UploadManager.uploadPendingItems: Found 1 items in queue.
I/Selected( 3326): =============Second
D/MediaUploader( 2492): isGphotosSynced: FALSE -- starting gphotos update refresh for -5709461173740324808
W/IInputConnectionWrapper( 3505): showStatusIcon on inactive InputConnection
I/copybit ( 2227): [createPP] fimc version : 50
I/MediaPlayerService( 2182): Use PV_PLAYER for url:/DCIM/Camera/video-2011-10-17-10-40-54.mp4
D/        ( 2182): SISO TEST registering PVMFRecognizerPluginFactory
D/        ( 2182): SISO TEST registering PVMFRecognizerPluginFactory success
D/        ( 2182): SISO TEST PVOMA1FFRecognizerFactory::CreateRecognizerPlugin()
D/        ( 2182): SISO TEST PVOMA1FFRecognizerFactory::CreateRecognizerPlugin() plugin found
D/        ( 2182): SISO TEST PVOMA1FFRecognizerFactory::DestroyRecognizerPlugin()
E/OsclDirectFileIO( 2182): [LargeFileSupport] OsclDirectFileIO::OpenFileOrSharedFd Error = -1
W/MediaPlayer( 3326): info/warning (1, 26)
E/PlayerDriver( 2182): Command PLAYER_SET_DATA_SOURCE completed with an error or info -4
E/MediaPlayer( 3326): SISO TEST MEDIA_ERROR
E/MediaPlayer( 3326): error (-4, -4)
W/PlayerDriver( 2182): PVMFInfoErrorHandlingComplete
V/MediaProvider( 2349): stopThumbWorkerSuspendTimer
V/MediaProvider( 2349): Resuming ThumbWorker
W/MediaProvider( 2349): Have message but no request?
I/System.out( 2647): interface name: null
I/MediaPlayer( 3326): Info (1,26)
E/MediaPlayer( 3326): Error (-4,-4)
D/VideoView( 3326): Error: -4,-4
D/MediaUploader( 2492): UploadManager.uploadPendingItems: Waiting for GPhotos sync
D/MediaUploader( 2492): UploadsQueue.getAllPending: elapsed msec=5
I/MediaUploader( 2492): UploadManager.uploadPendingItems: Found 1 items in queue.
I/POWER_OFF_TEST( 2227): mBatteryLevel = 38   mBatteryDecimalPoint = 1
D/MediaUploader( 2492): UploadsAsyncQueryHandler.notifiyDatabaseChangeListeners
D/MediaUploader( 2492): isGphotosSynced: FALSE -- update is in progress for -5709461173740324808
D/MediaUploader( 2492): UploadManager.uploadPendingItems: Waiting for GPhotos sync
D/MediaUploader( 2492): updateQueueState: RUNNING
I/GooglePlusOne( 2492): Starting new CAMERA_SYNC_CREATED request 1
I/ActivityManager( 2227): Displayed activity com.zoodigapp.zoodig/com.zoodigapp.media.ShowVideo: 1251 ms (total 1251 ms)
V/InputDevice( 2227): ID[0]=0 Dn (0=>1)
V/WindowManager( 2227): Dsptch >Window{47a67278 com.zoodigapp.zoodig/com.zoodigapp.media.ShowVideo paused=false}
D/dalvikvm( 2227): GC freed 4009 objects / 210024 bytes in 155ms
V/InputDevice( 2227): ID[0]=0 Up (1=>0)
V/WindowManager( 2227): Dsptch >Window{47a67278 com.zoodigapp.zoodig/com.zoodigapp.media.ShowVideo paused=false}
W/InputManagerService( 2227): Window already focused, ignoring focus gain of: com.android.internal.view.IInputMethodClient$Stub$Proxy@47d89250
D/dalvikvm( 2492): GC freed 11952 objects / 682568 bytes in 171ms
D/dalvikvm( 2647): GC freed 7435 objects / 656456 bytes in 26ms
D/dalvikvm( 2647): GC freed 3079 objects / 498304 bytes in 60ms
I/System.out( 2647): interface name: null
I/GooglePlusOne( 2492): CAMERA_SYNC_CREATED request 1 completed with code=200
D/MediaUploader( 2492): onGphotosChange: sawError=false; errs=0; retry=Wed Dec 31 17:00:00 America/Boise 1969; expiry=Mon Oct 17 10:56:20 America/Boise 2011
D/MediaUploader( 2492): UploadsQueue.getAllPending: elapsed msec=17
I/MediaUploader( 2492): UploadManager.uploadPendingItems: Found 1 items in queue.
D/MediaUploader( 2492): isGphotosSynced: TRUE for -5709461173740324808
D/MediaUploader( 2492): existsInGphotos: false info=name=video-2011-10-17-10-40-54.mp4 fileUri=content://media/external/video/media/37 fileSize=2477915;
D/MediaUploader( 2492): UploadManager.uploadPendingItems: starting upload...
D/MediaUploader( 2492): UploadManager.upload: info=name=video-2011-10-17-10-40-54.mp4 fileUri=content://media/external/video/media/37 fileSize=2477915
I/NetworkStat( 2678): Network type: MOBILE
I/NetworkStat( 2678): -------- mobile data network is NOT available as of now
D/NotificationService( 2227): enqueueNotification :: notification.defaults = 0, Notification.DEFAULT_SOUND = 1, notification.sound = null
D/dalvikvm( 2492): GC freed 4032 objects / 238248 bytes in 49ms
I/dalvikvm-heap( 2492): Grow heap (frag case) to 6.708MB for 524304-byte allocation
D/dalvikvm( 2492): GC freed 291 objects / 13392 bytes in 58ms
D/MediaUploader( 2492): UploadsAsyncQueryHandler.notifiyDatabaseChangeListeners
D/MediaUploader( 2492): GlsAuthorizer.getAuthToken: authTokenType=lh2; [email protected];
D/MediaUploader( 2492): executeWithAuthRetry: starting httpClient.execute #1
D/dalvikvm( 2870): GC freed 555 objects / 24144 bytes in 269ms
I/System.out( 2492): interface name: null
V/InputDevice( 2227): ID[0]=0 Dn (0=>1)
V/WindowManager( 2227): Dsptch >Window{47cf6308 com.zoodigapp.zoodig/com.zoodigapp.media.ShowVideo paused=false}
V/InputDevice( 2227): ID[0]=0 Up (1=>0)
V/WindowManager( 2227): Dsptch >Window{47cf6308 com.zoodigapp.zoodig/com.zoodigapp.media.ShowVideo paused=false}
D/dalvikvm( 2647): GC freed 7301 objects / 659064 bytes in 78ms
I/System.out( 2647): interface name: null
I/System.out( 2647): interface name: null
I/System.out( 2647): interface name: null
D/dalvikvm( 2647): GC freed 2654 objects / 324016 bytes in 149ms
I/System.out( 2647): interface name: null
D/MediaUploader( 2492): getStatusCode: status=HTTP/1.1 200 OK
D/MediaUploader( 2492): getStatusCode: status=HTTP/1.1 200 OK
D/MediaUploader( 2492): UPLOAD_START: uploadUrl=https://picasaweb.google.com/data/upload/resumable/media/create-session/feed/api/user/default/albumid/camera-sync?xmlerrors=1&upload_id=AEnB2Uqe2bdvyx5p31Ta-sS4ytggj07_6-uiKG_hCOc6sT1u8eqhvr-8oZdUT1uPHxuAxXphUiJXyq-i_8YaJlT2YLholp__Sw
D/MediaUploader( 2492): UploadManager.onProgress
V/MediaUploader( 2492): UploadManager.progressUpdate: guid=1351689615505998240; bytes=0
D/dalvikvm( 2647): GC freed 920 objects / 202544 bytes in 53ms
D/dalvikvm( 2492): GC freed 7362 objects / 498448 bytes in 73ms
D/MediaUploader( 2492): UploadsAsyncQueryHandler.notifiyDatabaseChangeListeners
D/dalvikvm( 2492): GC freed 658 objects / 129232 bytes in 42ms
I/dalvikvm-heap( 2492): Grow heap (frag case) to 7.250MB for 262160-byte allocation
D/dalvikvm( 2492): GC freed 0 objects / 0 bytes in 41ms
D/dalvikvm( 2492): GC freed 92 objects / 135128 bytes in 30ms
I/dalvikvm-heap( 2492): Grow heap (frag case) to 7.621MB for 524304-byte allocation
D/dalvikvm( 2492): GC freed 0 objects / 0 bytes in 44ms
D/MediaUploader( 2492): executeWithAuthRetry: starting httpClient.execute #1
D/dalvikvm( 2647): GC freed 576 objects / 53240 bytes in 182ms
V/InputDevice( 2227): ID[0]=0 Dn (0=>1)
V/WindowManager( 2227): Dsptch >Window{47cf6308 com.zoodigapp.zoodig/com.zoodigapp.media.ShowVideo paused=false}
V/InputDevice( 2227): ID[0]=0 Up (1=>0)
V/WindowManager( 2227): Dsptch >Window{47cf6308 com.zoodigapp.zoodig/com.zoodigapp.media.ShowVideo paused=false}
I/ActivityManager( 2227): Starting activity: Intent { cmp=com.zoodigapp.zoodig/.WriteMessage (has extras) }

If you find anything not described well please comment below.

Additional details (moved from comments):

They are merely of 1 minutes and the last one I tested and failed on Samsung that was of only 20 seconds. and sizes are mostly in MB not more than 20 MB right now.
The video is taken from the same device and immediately after taking that video I try to show in my activity same way other already stored video are also fine...actually after uploading that video I can see that video and can download also

Ethereal answered 18/10, 2011 at 11:9 Comment(2)

I found that applying this answer enabled me to get the video in a playable format. Here is what I did. – Complaint 9/12, 2016 at 14:2

@Complaint That's a really great answer I already upvoted, but here in the case of Question, User is taking video and play it, so how to do that ffmpeg stuff via code before playing or while saving. Still the selected answer stands winner for above question as there is no solution unless you use your own media framework to catch and play a video. – Ethereal 9/12, 2016 at 14:9

1)When the message "Can't Play Video" occurs?

Android usually gives out this message, when it is not able to play the media content. The reasons for this to happen can be anything like

Unsupported file format
Unsupported codecs
Erroneous content

to mention a few.

2)What are the Solution for that?

Unless you have your own Media Framework in your app, there is no solution from the application level

3) What could be possible mistakes in my application?

Very unlikely the mistake is in your application. If you read the logs, you will see that the error seems to originate from the DataSource of opencore (Which version of android are you running anyway? It is still using Opencore instead of StageFright). It is recognizing it as a large file (> 2GB) and hence giving out the error "E/OsclDirectFileIO( 2182): [LargeFileSupport] OsclDirectFileIO::OpenFileOrSharedFd Error = -1"

The other thing to note is certain phones have better multimedia capability than the other phones, since OEM's can themselves improve the multimedia capability. So there is no written guarantee that all files can be played on all devices, even though it conforms to the supported formats, codecs mentioned by Android.

Anlace answered 18/10, 2011 at 12:1 Comment(8)

are there only 3 reason,while android give such message? – Ethereal 18/10, 2011 at 12:15

no, the number of errors are quite large, to put it simply if the mediaframework is not able to construct the media graph for the given media content then it gives that error. – Anlace 18/10, 2011 at 13:3

ok thankz...tell me if this problem occurs ..that's developer's fault or the device's fault? – Ethereal 18/10, 2011 at 13:9

You mean the app developer? Then no, there is nothing he can do about it. – Anlace 18/10, 2011 at 13:11

ok..thanx Ravi..let me do some more hardwork on this and then will mark your answer as accepted – Ethereal 18/10, 2011 at 13:11

I have the same problem with a video-url that can be played without a problem inside a webviews <video>-tag but in my VideoView I get this error. Still no developers fault? – Pelf 23/9, 2013 at 14:34

I don’t know why this answer is accepted as the best answer. It provides no solution. – Bernadettebernadina 6/10, 2014 at 12:26

I got this error because my video was coming from the internet and I forget to add permission in the AndroidManifest.xml. eg: <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET" /> – Armada 26/5, 2015 at 20:45

Its all about format problem, Some phone record the video in mp4 format and some in 3gp format, but in almost all phones the default mediaplayer support 3gp format. So the solution is you need to convert it into 3gp at the time of playing. This thing is difficult to handle in android, So at server end you can do it easily and hence whatever the format of the video is being uploaded you can download it in one format .3gp and it will work fine.

Saavedra answered 31/1, 2012 at 11:33 Comment(4)

I think i didnt understand it well see if your LG device record it in .3gp it wont any problem to play the file in LG device. you mean your defualt mediaplayer wont able to play that file also whom you record by your LG camera? – Saavedra 31/1, 2012 at 13:5

default player will play..but the VideoView doesn't play it. – Ethereal 31/1, 2012 at 13:8

ohk i was talking about the problem about default mediaplayer, ex when we upload the video from ericsson it will be in .mp4 format and hence most of samsung mobile wont support it even in default also so we need to change in .3gp format and most of defualt mediaplayer support this. Sorry for not understanding it properly. – Saavedra 31/1, 2012 at 13:22

Its Okay..You have given solution that might be useful in future..] – Ethereal 31/1, 2012 at 13:35

Make sure that your video is in MP4 format , but if still does not play or shows same error then fault is not with the code. Fault is in the video resolution. just check height and width of you video and match it with you video view component. There are lot of free video compressors Online available. So just compress your video and test it.

It will work. Cheers!!!

Underpinning answered 8/12, 2015 at 10:16 Comment(0)

I kept getting the same "Can't Play Video" message while trying to play video from the phone itself. First I didn't input good path to a file but there was anther interesting issue.

I've type path from the root, example /videoFileName.mp4 and I should have type it with sdcard in between like /sdcard/videoFileName.mp4
My Sony Ercisson Xperia Arc was connected as a usb mass device storage at the same time I was running my app through adb, so internal sd card was unmounted and file could not be found. I've discovered this when I tryed same code on Samsung Galaxy S which behaves differently when connected.

Intenerate answered 24/1, 2012 at 14:25 Comment(2)

I was, always getting "Can't play video". Because I connect my phone in "USB debbuging mode" to push code on phone but on SE with certain settings that unmounts sdcard so the video wasn't there! – Intenerate 25/1, 2012 at 10:0

Okay.But in my case video was still there and I get the error. – Ethereal 26/1, 2012 at 7:29

Google recently open-sourced Exoplayer after Google IO 2014. My experience with video playing with it was good so far.

https://github.com/google/ExoPlayer

I could stream videos from Dropbox/AWS
Stream videos from youtube.

Things still depend upon codecs supported by the device.

Barbur answered 24/7, 2014 at 6:50 Comment(1)

Have you tried streaming a HLS m3u8 file with ExoPlayer? For me it doesn't work, although HLS is supported by Android. – Paoting 28/8, 2014 at 8:24

If you have mp4 file having H.264 baseline encoding and still you are unable to play video in your android device then it might be problem in .htAccess file on server side. It might be zipping .mp4 file. few devices are able to play video by unzipping it and stream it but not in all device cases. You need to change .htAccess file on server side. Change in output filter and include file format .mp4 to exclude it from being zip at streaming time.

SetEnvIfNoCase Request_URI \.(?:gif|jpe?g|png|swf|mp4)$ \ no-gzip dont-vary

Drice answered 27/5, 2015 at 5:50 Comment(2)

can you tell me path of .htAccess file. – Ine 5/11, 2016 at 9:57

@ArpitPatel You need to enable "show hidden files" and it will be in the root. if it;s not there...create it. I spent almost two days on this, I thought it was my video format, kept lowering it, then I downloaded a video from another link that played and when i put that video on my server it didnt play. So the problem HAD to be server side. – Eolande 19/11, 2016 at 21:12

I had this same issue while using VideoView, while i tried to check all things regarding the video the issue was in the AndroidManifest.xml File, It was regarding the permission to use EXTERNAL STORAGE give it a shot it might solve the issue.

Crossroad answered 3/6, 2015 at 6:53 Comment(0)

I came across the same problem and what worked for is adding the Internet permission to the manifest file since I am getting video from url.

 <uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>

This is how I am populating listview of videos.

   //assign video
    mVideosListView = (ListView) findViewById(R.id.videoListView);

    //create videos
    Video riverVideo = new Video("https://s3.amazonaws.com/androidvideostutorial/862009639.mp4");
    Video carsVideo = new Video("https://s3.amazonaws.com/androidvideostutorial/862013714.mp4");
    Video townVideo = new Video("https://s3.amazonaws.com/androidvideostutorial/862014159.mp4");
    Video whiteCarVideo = new Video("https://s3.amazonaws.com/androidvideostutorial/862014159.mp4");
    Video parkVideo = new Video("https://s3.amazonaws.com/androidvideostutorial/862014834.mp4");
    Video busyCityVideo = new Video("https://s3.amazonaws.com/androidvideostutorial/862017385.mp4");

    mVideosList.add(riverVideo);
    mVideosList.add(carsVideo);
    mVideosList.add(townVideo);
    mVideosList.add(whiteCarVideo);
    mVideosList.add(parkVideo);
    mVideosList.add(busyCityVideo);

    /***populate video list to adapter**/
    mVideoAdapter = new VideoAdapter(this, mVideosList);
    mVideosListView.setAdapter(mVideoAdapter);

Zolazoldi answered 18/11, 2017 at 21:4 Comment(0)

I faced the same issue once. In My case only issue was fie format. i Just changed the video format to .mp4 and it works like charm on all the devices and emulator i used. my suggestion is to check your video format first and then try other solutions.

Falcone answered 15/5, 2018 at 5:18 Comment(0)

-1

For me was a problem with the codec used by video. I installed the Any Video Converter and converted the video using the settings for Google Android (x264). Now I can play on every device.

Koziara answered 7/3, 2016 at 22:34 Comment(0)

-3

My problem was I had saved it in .avi format instead of .m4v format, and it worked liked a charm on my Samsung...thanks for everyone's help!

Sprint answered 20/5, 2014 at 3:55 Comment(0)

Hot tags

Godot Unity Godot Help Programming Godot 4.X GUI GDScript 3D 2D Physics CSharp Godot 3.X VR XR Projects C++

Recommended topics

Hot tags