topic Re: Xperia E4g crashes/restarts when playing video in XPERIA archive

Xperia E4g crashes/restarts when playing video

Mandami — Sat, 05 Sep 2015 17:01:59 GMT

As the title says, the phone stops responding and it restarts. If, somehow, it doesn't restart, I have to it manually because it becomes extremely laggy.

These videos are recorded at
Bit rate                    : 18.0 Mbps
Width                       : 2 560 pixels
Height                      : 1 080 pixels
Codec ID                 : H264

This happens when playing the videos using Sony's "Movies" and "Album" applications. If the videos are opened using MXplayer (and every HW option is disabled), they play smoothly without any problem.

Here is a video sample if you want to test: https://copy.com/Q3OjmIjML4GArZ4P (the name of the file is "Selection.avi", 75MB)

I checked on both firmwares E2033_Customized FR_1293-6961_25.0.B.1.28_R6A and E2033_Customized FR_1293-6961_25.0.B.2.14_R8A

Does my phone have some problem, or it's "normal" ? Testing the same video on a Lenovo tablet, its default video player couldn't open the video, BUT it didn't restart the tablet.

Update: I tested the Sony's Movie app on my Lenovo, the app crashed when trying to open the file BUT it didn't restart the tablet.

Re: Xperia E4g crashes/restarts when playing video

Uliwooly — Sat, 05 Sep 2015 18:43:50 GMT

@Mandami

That's an over kill, think about it, the screen on your phone is only 540 x 960 pixels and you want to play a video with higher resolution than WQXGA

Re: Xperia E4g crashes/restarts when playing video

Mandami — Sat, 05 Sep 2015 19:42:19 GMT

Thank you for the answer, but there are two things I don't understand:

- why with MX Player the video plays without any problem ?

- why on my Lenovo (whose resolution is 600 x 1024) the Sony app Movies crashes (when trying to play the video) but it doesn't restart my tablet ?

For me the question is: why it restarts my phone (crashes my phone) ? should I sent it back ?

If the cause of the problem are the apps com.sonyericsson.album 7.2.A.0.6 and com.sonyericsson.video 8.0.A.1.16 then maybe Sony will propose some update.

Re: Xperia E4g crashes/restarts when playing video

Uliwooly — Sat, 05 Sep 2015 19:45:30 GMT

@Mandami

the Sony app it's for Xperia phones, perhaps MXPlayer downscale the video's resolution

Re: Xperia E4g crashes/restarts when playing video

Mandami — Sat, 05 Sep 2015 19:55:53 GMT

For sure the MX Player is smarter than Sony's Movies app, but why my Lenovo didn't crash when using Sony's Movies app ?

And more anyong: if by any chance I have a video file and I open the Sony's Album app, the phone will restart (or in the best case it will become slow, unreponsive). I couldn't install Album app on my Lenovo.

Re: Xperia E4g crashes/restarts when playing video

Uliwooly — Sat, 05 Sep 2015 20:47:17 GMT

Where are the videos stored?

Re: Xperia E4g crashes/restarts when playing video

Phy — Sat, 05 Sep 2015 20:51:16 GMT

Try booting on safe mode and see if you experience the same restarting issue.

How to boot on safe mode.
http://talk.sonymobile.com/t5/FAQ/How-to-boot-your-phone-into-safe-mode/m-p/348008#U348008

Re: Xperia E4g crashes/restarts when playing video

xperiaperson — Sun, 06 Sep 2015 07:27:28 GMT

It's a software issue. Probably with the media server app that deals with media. I put 4k video on my sd card out of curiosity. Every time I open album, video or the preloaded file manager (File Commander) same happens. Phone freezes and restarts when the file is attempted to be read (thumbnail generating). Mx player uses its own media scanning software so it doesn't happen with it. Looks like anything beyond 1080p is causing this but not sure, only tried that one video. Maybe certain codecs are to blame. Just delete those files and everything's back in order.

Re: Xperia E4g crashes/restarts when playing video

Mandami — Sun, 06 Sep 2015 10:33:15 GMT

@uliwooly

The phone is brand new; there is no SD card or even SIM card. Before starting using it I wanted to see how it plays my media files. Not only that it doesn't play my media files, but it restarts when trying to do that.

@Phy
"If you run your phone in safe mode for a while and you don’t experience any problem, the problem you’re having is most likely related to a third party app that you’ve installed."
My phone crashed without installing any other new application; the phone is brand new. It crashed because of Sony's original apps or maybe it has some hardware related problems, I'm not 100 % sure.
You can check by yourself opening the video sample in my first post.

@xperiaperson
"It's a software issue."
For the moment I'm not 100% sure, but I hope it is.

"I put 4k video on my sd card out of curiosity. Every time I open album, video or the preloaded file manager (File Commander) same happens. Phone freezes and restarts when the file is attempted to be read (thumbnail generating)."
If you want to try it again, here is a video sample https://copy.com/Q3OjmIjML4GArZ4P (the name of the file is "Selection.avi", 75MB). That video is recorded by my dashcam. It's sort of a 2K resolution, 2 560 x1 080.

"Just delete those files and everything's back in order."
I'm afraid I can't do that. If, indeed, it's a software related problem and not hardware, the only solution to avoid this is to delete every Sony application (e.g., Album, Movies, widgets apps) from my phone. I don't mind if the Sony's apps crash, but I don't want to forcedly restart my phone.

Re: Xperia E4g crashes/restarts when playing video

Uliwooly — Sun, 06 Sep 2015 19:15:58 GMT

@Mandami

I disagree with you, but if you think that's the problem then go ahead and contact Sony with your feedback

http://support.sonymobile.com/global-en/contactUs/

Do you experience the same issue while playing 480p videos?

Re: Xperia E4g crashes/restarts when playing video

Mandami — Sun, 06 Sep 2015 22:49:50 GMT

@uliwooly "I disagree with you"
with which of my statements ?

@uliwooly "but if you think that's the problem then go ahead and contact Sony with your feedback"
Thank you for the link; I'll write to Sony about the problem.

@uliwooly "Do you experience the same issue while playing 480p videos?"
I know I copied some old clips, and there were no problems. Today I made some tests with 4 clips recorded with my dashcam: 2 of them at 1280x720 (30 and 60fps) and other 2 at 1920x1080 (30 and 60fps).
With these clips I could use the Album, Movies and media widget (I don't know what is its original name) Sony apps without crashing my phone. The clips were displayed with some problems:

From what I see, in order to avoid restarting my phone by accident and play my 2560x1080 video clips I have to uninstall Album, Movies and that media widget.

Re: Xperia E4g crashes/restarts when playing video

xperiaperson — Mon, 07 Sep 2015 06:52:36 GMT

@Mandami
Like uliwolly said earlier. No use of such files on a low resolution screen like this. Just drains your battery dry faster and no better visually than 720p.
But if you must use them don't open the sony album and movies app or they'll freeze again, also the file commander. Put them in a folder you won't access with your file manager and use MX Player, Quickpick is a good alternative for picture viewing, and hope Sony looks into it in a future update.
You could also put a .nomedia file in the folder with those videos, then it won't be scanned and you can use album and movies (not absolutely sure about that one though, but worth a try).

Edit:

Read this, the E4g chipset supports up to 1080p playback, so it's fine although I don't know why it completely crashes the phone. Again, MX has it's own codecs and software/hardware decoding solutions so it might get over this limitation.

Re: Xperia E4g crashes/restarts when playing video

Uliwooly — Tue, 08 Sep 2015 19:40:11 GMT

@Mandami

I don't have this phone, I can't test it myself, but perhaps @Johan could add more info, still it's an overkill to play such videos with a lower resolution screen.

Re: Xperia E4g crashes/restarts when playing video

Mandami — Tue, 15 Sep 2015 16:54:29 GMT

@xperiaperson "You could also put a .nomedia file in the folder with those videos, then it won't be scanned and you can use album and movies (not absolutely sure about that one though, but worth a try)"
Thank you for this idea; it partially solves the problem: the Movies application doesn't see anymore the files, but the Album app still makes some thumbnails from my movies which crashes my phone.

@uliwooly "it's an overkill to play such videos with a lower resolution screen."
No, not really; I'll not watch this kind of movies on my phone, but it may be necessary to play them.

Re: Xperia E4g crashes/restarts when playing video

xperiaperson — Wed, 16 Sep 2015 12:45:04 GMT

@Mandami

That's weird. My album app doesn't show anything where a .nomedia file is present. Maybe it's the old thumbnail remains. Try deleting all thumbnails wherever they're stored, and clearing album data.

Re: Xperia E4g crashes/restarts when playing video

Uliwooly — Fri, 18 Sep 2015 03:16:40 GMT

@Mandami

I dont' understand the logic, your phone's display can't play the videos on HD resolution.

Xperia E4g Gray screen

Mandami — Sat, 30 Jan 2016 23:38:36 GMT

I bought this phone couple months ago but I haven't use it. With January I installed a SIM card and after two weeks the screen turned grey; nothing displayed on it. The only way to shutdown the phone was using Power+Volume buttons. I installed a new firmware hopping it will solve the problem, and then another one, and using the Sony software, but it was in vain. The only way to recover the phone was to remove the battery.

Since then everything worked smoothly until last Thursday when it turned grey again. This time disconnecting and reconnecting the battery didn't solve the issue immediately.

Today, it happened again. Even though I removed the battery the screen remains grey. Searching on Internet it seems this issue is quite common to all Sony phones.:smileyangry:

Does someone have any idea how to resurrect my phone ? Thanks !

Re: Xperia E4g Gray screen

Uliwooly — Sat, 30 Jan 2016 23:41:00 GMT

@Mandami

If PCC doesn't solve the problem, contact your Local support to get your device inspected

software repair

PC Companion (PCC)

Bridge (for Mac)

Alternatives on How to backup Xperias

http://talk.sonymobile.com/thread/36355

Re: Xperia E4g Gray screen

Mandami — Sat, 27 Feb 2016 12:23:40 GMT

PCC didn't solve the problem, time did; after two days it started as nothing has happened.

Anyway, after reading on Internet it seems that not my phone is the problem but Sony itself. It's amazing how low quality are Sony's products today. Personally I'll never buy any other Sony product again. I learnt my lesson, and I know that I'm not alone: many other users who have bought Sony phones have similar problems.

Re: Xperia E4g Gray screen

Uliwooly — Mon, 29 Feb 2016 22:57:12 GMT

@Mandami

have you contacted Sony yet? Local support