Discussion Please Fix Annoying Application Abort and Add Auto-Save Playlist Option

[mishko]

I noticed that when there is a network glitch and AnyStream loses connectivity the current movie being downloaded is aborted. It pops up a window telling you that there was an issue which stays open until closed. AnyStream will continue to move on to the next movie with the popup open. If you don't close the popup you are fine. But, when you click the OK button to close the popup, AnyStream terminates in the middle of the current download. Can we get rid of the popup altogether? We don't need it. Clicking the restart icon next to the aborted movie is enough to restart it and its obvious it has been aborted as it displays in the list in red. This should prevent the termination issue. Also, what about saving our current playlist to a file and auto-restoring it upon restart of the application? This behavior has been around for a long time and would greatly enhance the user experience if fixed. Thanks.

 

[DeepSpace]

To save the queue has already been asked, but the popup is a good idea. Especially annoying when more than one fails (like an entire season when you searched something on P+) and you get 8 of these at the same time. Since you can't click anything when they are open, you can't pause the downloads and AS will go to the entire queue. If all fail, you loose some tokens (not an issue anymore witg 500, just to mention it).

 

[cartman0208]

... getting your network in order ... could also be an option
I have never seen such popup

 

[RedFox 1]

Leaving a logfile would also be an option when you have an issue

 

[RedFox 1]

... getting your network in order ... could also be an option
I have never seen such popup

 

[mishko]

I wish I could control when my network has an outage but that is unfortunately beyond my control. I will look into it and see if there is anything I can find that will help on that front. Maybe switch out my switch/router. Additionally, code is a pretty powerful thing, you can do a lot with it. Why not place the download logic inside some type of try/catch such that when the catch block is raised we check for network connectivity (not immediately go to the next download which will also fail if the network is down). If the network is not available maybe asynchronously sleep for 1 minute and continually check for connectivity until found. If found we continue to download, if not we simply asynchronously sleep/remain paused until that time. We do this asynchronously such that the UI remains responsive and allows us to close the application or click on other buttons/functionality while in this process. I will find the log file and upload it later today.

 

[mishko]

Log file attached. Thanks.

 

[RedFox 1]

I wish I could control when my network has an outage but that is unfortunately beyond my control. I will look into it and see if there is anything I can find that will help on that front. Maybe switch out my switch/router. Additionally, code is a pretty powerful thing, you can do a lot with it. Why not place the download logic inside some type of try/catch such that when the catch block is raised we check for network connectivity (not immediately go to the next download which will also fail if the network is down). If the network is not available maybe asynchronously sleep for 1 minute and continually check for connectivity until found. If found we continue to download, if not we simply asynchronously sleep/remain paused until that time. We do this asynchronously such that the UI remains responsive and allows us to close the application or click on other buttons/functionality while in this process. I will find the log file and upload it later today.

Your issue is from your internet service provider, Its looks as if you are on wifi and you get a pause at certain times of maximum usage times. When the network drops packets, AS will fail but should resume to the next movie or episode in the queue, and that looks like it happened. You have a lot of completed downloads.( What you are proposing above would require a whole rewrite of our code, it just not feasible, we do not have these error that often.,

 

[mishko]

I appreciate the quick analysis and feedback! That makes a lot of sense. I can deal with the behavior since it doesn't occur often for others. The download list restore feature would also help as well when that comes out. Thanks.

 

[RedFox 1]

I appreciate the quick analysis and feedback! That makes a lot of sense. I can deal with the behavior since it doesn't occur often for others. The download list restore feature would also help as well when that comes out. Thanks.

Thank you for your report.

 

[X3rx3s]

Leaving a logfile would also be an option when you have an issue

its hard to leave a log file when you can't click on anything to generate one. If I allow AS to close and then reopen it, will the logfile generated be intact still? Or will it be a fresh clean logfile showing nothing?

The pop up says AS has created a file with analysis information at C:\Users\username\AppData\local\Temp\AnyStreaam_1.5.0.0_Dump_(ranmdom number).asdmp. when you click the OK button it closes AS and opens an explorer window to that location. I have attached these files just in case.

I currently have 2 of these pop ups on my screen for the first time ever. Oddly enough they both point to the same dump file. The pop ups presented themselves a day apart. I don't click the ok button on them because I know that AS will close and I will loose my otherwise continuing to download que. It also prevents me from adding to my que. When my que has completed I then allow all this to process and I reopen AS and re-add anything that I had lost in my que.

Quite honestly I'm surprised there are people who are not aware of this since I have encountered this since I began using AS a couple years ago.

Edit: I also tried to upload the .dmp file with the same name but it wont upload. I'm assuming its not a complete file until I click OK on the "AnyStream crash report " pop ups.

 

[cartman0208]

Quite honestly I'm surprised there are people who are not aware of this since I have encountered this since I began using AS a couple years ago.

That only proves that most users have a suitable stable infrastructure
As I mentioned, I never encountered that issue IIRC

Things that AnyStream works best with:
- steady internet connection (high bandwidth, low latency, no packet loss), which almost disqualifies WiFi
- lots of free disk space

While an app is developed, it's hard for the devs to simulate all possible environments.
Now that they are aware, there might be some fix in the future, depending on their priority list

 

[X3rx3s]

That only proves that most users have a suitable stable infrastructure
As I mentioned, I never encountered that issue IIRC

Things that AnyStream works best with:
- steady internet connection (high bandwidth, low latency, no packet loss), which almost disqualifies WiFi
- lots of free disk space

While an app is developed, it's hard for the devs to simulate all possible environments.
Now that they are aware, there might be some fix in the future, depending on their priority list

I am aware that it is difficult to predict or simulate all possible issues, that is why I have never mentioned this in the couple years I have been encountering it. it doesn't pop up often but it is the main behavior, for myself, when AS crashes. I have fiber to my house, but I am using WIFI about 10 feet from my router with a wall in between, and I have at least 4 TB of open space on the HDD I use to store my downloads on.

Just because you have never encountered this behavior doesn't mean it doesn't happen. My statement is meant to only bring more attention to it and to prove that it is more than a single person encountering it. It is also my main reason for wanting a queue import/export or a simple text doc showing what successfully completed and what hadn't successfully completed downloading since every time this happens I lose my queue.

edit: I can understand that packet loss etc can disrupt a download but crashing the entire program seems excessive when it can just move on the the next in queue.

 

[RedFox 1]

I will look into it. Thank you for posting.

 

[RedFox 1]

I am aware that it is difficult to predict or simulate all possible issues, that is why I have never mentioned this in the couple years I have been encountering it. it doesn't pop up often but it is the main behavior, for myself, when AS crashes. I have fiber to my house, but I am using WIFI about 10 feet from my router with a wall in between, and I have at least 4 TB of open space on the HDD I use to store my downloads on.

Just because you have never encountered this behavior doesn't mean it doesn't happen. My statement is meant to only bring more attention to it and to prove that it is more than a single person encountering it. It is also my main reason for wanting a queue import/export or a simple text doc showing what successfully completed and what hadn't successfully completed downloading since every time this happens I lose my queue.

edit: I can understand that packet loss etc can disrupt a download but crashing the entire program seems excessive when it can just move on the the next in queue.

!. The queue was never meant to load 100 different movies from 3 different providers. If a provider has a lag in their server or even a small buffer appears it will crash the program., I and other have been 100% successful downloading 3 or 4 seasons of a particular show at a time. If your network, fiber, or whatever, is weak, the program will crash and your queue will be gone. Saving the queue is not easy as it sounds. The idea would be not to load 200 movies into it from different providers and I think you may have more success. All this said, somewhere down the line we will look into this highly intermittent issue. Right now we have our hands full with other projects. As I said we will look into it. We understand the issue.