Layout anomalies

[pheldal]

I've seen and reported (ticket #16618) a couple anomalies with song layouts and would like to hear if anybody else has seen anything similar:

1. Using a song-layout with a popup setlist, the list will not disappear when the first song is selected. It only happens when trying to select the first song initially. When the popup-list later is reactivated the first song can be selected just fine. I have noticed that other actions (beside hide-list) associated with the selection of a song is not executed either.

2. Occasionally half the lyrics-part of the screen goes blank. Lyrics appear normal when double-tapping for full-screen, but the custom layout will not return to normal until the setlist is re-opened.

I'm trying to figure out whether these are bugs in bandhelper or if they are related to my particular hardware/OS combination. I use a Samsung Galaxy Tab A running the latest official Android-release for this tablet (7.0).

[pheldal]

With two band-accounts in use I have seen bandhelper switch from one account to the other when the layout "crashes" as described in (2) above. It displays half the screen of the selected setlist, but once I drop back in the menus I find myself in the wrong band-account and have to back all the way out to re-select the correct account to continue.

[arlo]

If you have multiple accounts and you're using in-app notifications (as set on your Account > Users > Edit page in the website), the BandHelper app will cycle through your accounts to check for notifications for each account. It sounds like that's happening and not returning you to the original account. Also, this should only happen when the app is in the background, not when you are actively using it. Are you switching between apps or opening and closing BandHelper when the problem occurs?

[pheldal]

Are you switching between apps or opening and closing BandHelper when the problem occurs?

No. The times I've noticed this has been on stage or at practise when Bandhelper has been the only active app on the tablet. There could of course be uncontrollable things happening in the background like system notifications etc, but none that I've particularly noticed.

[arlo]

We already have a help ticket going for the first issue. Can you post screen shots showing the second issue?

[pheldal]

We already have a help ticket going for the first issue. Can you post screen shots showing the second issue?

I'll try to catch one next time it happens. The "account switch" and "layout crash" has so far, except from one occasion, happened separately. Usually I don't notice the switch of band-account until I drop back in the menu and notice that I've got the wrong list of setlists to choose from. In this case there is no anomaly on the screen that can be caught in a screenshot. One would need a video to document the process which is near impossible when there is no way to reproduce these issues at will.

[pheldal]

The sudden "account switch" happened again to me and a fellow band-member during a gig. Unfortunately there was no time for screenshots. We both have multiple accounts. In this case bandhelper displays an empty setlist-layout. An attempt to reload the list after falling back to the menu results in an empty list, probably because the account BH switched over to has no songs matching the given setlist.

A common denominator may be that BH-devices are offline. My tablet is connected to my stage-LAN, but has no internet-access. My bandmate was completely offline. Offline-operation must be treated as "normal" within BH. Network connectivity changes or the lack of connectivity must not interfere with normal operation of BH. There may be some kind of connectivity indicator, but no intrusive notifications.

[arlo]

The background sync shouldn't happen at all while you're using the app, so if that's what the problem is, whether you're offline or not doesn't matter.

Do you have App selected in Account > Users > Edit > Notification Types in the BandHelper website?

Also, does Samsung allow you to install a later Android version? Since this post I've seen numerous miscellaneous display issues with Android 7.0, but many device manufacturers don't allow later Android bug fix releases to be installed. Ideally if you have any Android 7 version, it would be 7.1.2.

[pheldal]

Yes I had app-notifications enabled. Have turned them off to see if that makes a difference.

There is no way to upgrade Android outside what is supported by the manufacturer without running into other kinds of trouble. An unofficial OS (for example lineage-os) will require rooting of the device which make some heavily DRM-laden apps fail as some rights-owners view rooted devices as a potential threat to their priced possesions. My current phone is thus stuck with android 5.0.1, and my tablet on 7.0, for as long as I wish to have access to those media-apps. Both devices have received fairly recent (for Samsung) updates with bug-fixes for those particular versions of Android. Fixes to the most recent version of Android are still, when applicable, back-ported all the way to the 4.0-branch.

[pheldal]

Yes I had app-notifications enabled. Have turned them off to see if that makes a difference.

I have not observed any "spontaneous account switching" since disabling app-notifications so this may very well be related. There have also been other issues pointing to BH being "confused" about which account it is working on, like crashes when trying to acknowledge notifications related to an account other than the current active one. With app-notifications disabled this problem also seem to disappear, but in the past I've had to switch to the account related to the notification to be able to acknowledge and get rid of the message.

[arlo]

I'm not suggesting you root your device or install an unsupported app version ... just lamenting that many Android devices aren't able to install OS updates.

For the account switching, I think we can definitively say the problem occurs when the app tries downloading notifications for all your accounts. This should only happen when you're not using the app and it should return to the last-used account when it's done. I've been testing this for the last couple weeks and haven't been able to reproduce the problem, but I have seen it in the past and believe it exists.

[pheldal]

I've been testing this for the last couple weeks and haven't been able to reproduce the problem, but I have seen it in the past and believe it exists.

I've disabled app-notification on both accounts currently linked on my tablet and haven's seen any problems lately. A bandmate who is linked to a band-account shared with me and some other experienced this during a practise-session this monday. In his case app-notifications are disabled for his user on the band-account that we share, but not on the other. Told him to try to disable app-notifications for the other band-account too, but haven't heard back since. He is using a different brand tablet than me, Lenovo I believe.

[arlo]

FYI, I just made a tweak that might fix the unwanted account syncing in the next app version ... I'm still testing it in my working copy.

[arlo]

Now that the new update is available, let me know if you see the unwanted account switching problem again.