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Vide0View

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ShamusVW

Newbie
I find that on some phones my VideoView says it is unable to play videos. Reading up on this issue, some people suggest changing the format to the older 3gp. However, on phones that used to play the mp4's, it only plays the audio on this 3gp format now (mine being one of them, a Samsung J5)

The strange thing is that I have these videos on a web server, and those phones that can't play the mp4 in the VideoView/app, if they navigate to the link/URL through the Chrome browser on their phone, they are able to click the link and the video plays fine.

Can someone suggest what I might try please, or what the problem might be?
Thank you.
 
@Dannydet is making a really good point, why rely on an app that isn't able to do what you need when there are so many other, much more capable options?
 
Thanks, we have actually installed the VLC player onto these phones to test this idea. What this means though is that each phone we now need to set up individually to get it to use the VLC player as the default video player. I downloaded it onto my phone to test, however I'm not actually sure where to make VLC the default player :( I have tried settings\apps\3 dots\default apps\and changed default app selection to ask before setting default apps. When I open a video from the gallery, it doesn't ask me which app to use, it again just uses the Samsung one, so I don't know how to reset to VLC.

However, I still don't know why the same phone will play the video clicked from a link, but not open the video referenced by the same link into the VideoView? It means it IS able to play the video, just not using the VideoView, which I assume would use the "default" video app chosen on the phone.

If I don't come right, I might look into trying to install exoplayer, although I would prefer to find a fix using code first, rather than installing another package.
 
Try going to the Settings >> Apps menu, find and open the VideoView app listing, and tap on the 'Clear defaults' button. The next time you open one of the file types that app was set to use as a default should now prompt you to use whichever app you prefer (in this instance the VLC app).
 
Under the apps\"name of my app", I don't have it choose any default video player, not 100% sure what you are referring to, sorry.
The "Set as default" option is grayed out.
 
Seems to change the default video player, you find the video under your Files, then open it there, at which point it will ask you for a default proram. However, opening it in the gallery, it just uses the default gallery player, not the VLC.
And even with VLC chosen as the default to use on the phone, the app still can't play the video, I think inside the app itself, I need to somehow specify which player to use when playing a video
 
OK so there's a lot of missing details about the VideoView app and just what you're using it for. Apparently it's a video cam app, not so much a general media player app:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.mm.android.direct.VideoView&hl=en_US
Also the app itself is sourced out of China and its developer has a pretty dodgy back history:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dahua_Technology#Controversies

Please disregard any replies I made previously in this thread, they're not relevant.
 
ShamusVW said:
No, I wrote this app, it uses a VideoView component to play a video. The app isn't called Videoview.
Click to expand...

This seems like an app development question and is probably why you're not getting the answers you seek. You should've posted your question in the app development section here...
https://androidforums.com/forums/28

Be clear in your question and perhaps post the code in question so that someone can look at it. With that said, there's no guarantee you'll get a solution. Good luck.
 
Last edited:
Oops my bad!
I clicked wrong section. I've previously posted other questions in app development, not sure why I didn't check.
Thanks anyway.
 
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