[Android/Galaxy Tab 3] Clicking on input box crashes current UI screen

Trouble with Synthesia, your keyboard, or adapter? Think you found a bug?
When describing problems, always mention your OS and game version (shown at the bottom of the title screen).

If your keyboard has USB or MIDI ports, there is a tremendously high chance (>99%) it will work with Synthesia. See what you'll need on the keyboards page.
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KK/Altair
Posts: 3

Post by KK/Altair »

Hello!

Clicking any text edit box in Synthesia Android app (version 10.8.5681) on Galaxy Tab 3 10.1 (P5200) causes current UI form to crash and exit to previous screen.
The notable places are:
- Synthesia key unlock form (total showstopper - I can't unlock Synthesia!),
- profile name box, while adding new profile

After clicking an edit box, full-screen edit line shows and on-screen keyboard is opened, but about a second after everything goes black, closes and returns to a parent UI screen, e.g:
- if "Unlock Synthesia" was entered from main menu - returns to the main menu,
- if "Unlock Synthesia" was entered from piano roll popup - returns to practice selection screen


Other than that, Synthesia app works perfectly smooth on this tabled, and the only thing stopping me from fully enjoying it is not being able to enter the unlock code.

Thanks!
KK
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Sorry for the trouble (and the wait).

We've heard a few reports of this one that seems to only affect Android 4.x devices. This is what we've uncovered so far:
  • It doesn't reproduce on any of our 4.2, 4.4, or 4.4.4 test devices or in the Android emulator.
  • It doesn't seem to depend on which keyboard app (Gboard, etc.) is set to the default.
  • One user noticed the bug seems to exist in the 10.7 version, too!
That last bit is alarming because it means several people only just started reporting a bug in an app that has been around for almost a year. So my hypothesis is that something is being changed/updated on the tablets themselves. I can't imagine any 4.x devices are still receiving security updates, but if something else (like the keyboard apps that have already been ruled out) have also changed recently, that could explain why this didn't seem to be happening until recently.

Without being able to see the problem for ourselves, it is tricky to debug!

Are you able to check the logcat file on your tablet after the crash? Getting a copy of the stack trace should help narrow down what's going on.
KK/Altair
Posts: 3

Post by KK/Altair »

Hi!

I've attached the log file. The log starts just before clicking the textbox and ends some time after the crash.
Hopefully it will help you solve the issue.

In any case, is there any alternative way to activate the app with the activation code?
A single broken text box preventing from enjoying the app is kind of funny. :)

Thanks,
KK
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synthesia-GalaxyTab3-log.txt
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Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Thanks for sending that along!

logcat output is always very... chatty. (In the span of those 7 seconds, Android recorded 41 errors, mostly in other processes.) So it can be hard to track down exactly which problems are being caused by your process vs. the general crumbling decay of the platform as a whole. :?

These three consecutive (trimmed down for readability) lines are definitely out of the ordinary and directly related to the problem:

Code: Select all

ActivityManager: Process com.synthesia.synthesia has died.
WindowState: WIN DEATH: com.synthesia.synthesia/com.synthesia.synthesia.TextActivity
ActivityManager: Force removing com.synthesia.synthesia/.TextActivity: app died, no saved state
("TextActivity" is the name that we've given the window that appears when you tap inside a text box.)

But there is no accompanying stack trace or exception or error output of any kind. Just this sort of "something bad happened" message. After that it looks like the app gets a chance to shut down normally (cleaning up, saving files, etc.) so it's not a particularly catastrophic error, either.

The only lines right before the normal-looking shutdown begin are from SamsungIME (where "IME" usually stands for "input method editor", which is generally "the thing on the screen that generates input" or simply the "on-screen keyboard"). That's not conclusive of anything though.

I'm actually surprised there isn't a stack trace. When Android starts throwing terms around like "WIN DEATH" and "Process ... has died", there is almost always a big chunk of lines that describe exactly where it happened. How curious.
KK/Altair
Posts: 3

Post by KK/Altair »

Thanks for pinpointing that line. I couldn't even quite tell the exact moment in this log the crash happened.
Looking around, by the amount of "saved" messages it looked like Synthesia actually suspended itself and got killed by the system instead of actually crashing.

I looked around and found a checkbox in Developer options, that made any background apps close.
Unchecking it solved the issue and I managed to successfully activate Synthesia. :)

Looks like the system considered Synthesia activities as two separate apps, suspended the one in background and killed the now background process quietly, which in turn broke the communications channel (or something like that, mentioned in the log) and caused TextActivity to close.

So I guess it all boils down to background app management.

Thanks again for setting me on the right track to find a workaround. :)
Nicholas
Posts: 13135

Post by Nicholas »

Wow, that's uh... something. Good sleuthing. I'm happy you were able to find a workaround. I had no idea. I'll let the other two people that have reported the problem know that they might be able to get their Android 4.x devices working with Synthesia again.
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