Unable to start content playback while ad is playing.

[csati]

Issue description

Unable to start content player while ad is playing. If both the IMA ad source and the content source is buffered, a preroll ad would start automatically. After it has been started, the player is in an altered state (refer to ImaAdsLoader.playWhenReadyOverriddenForAds), and the setPlayWhenReady() call does not have an effect on the content.

Reproduction steps

1. Delay player start to be called during preroll.
   On commit 792f046 (dev-v2 at this moment)
   Apply this diff at PlayerActivity.java:304

-      player.setPlayWhenReady(shouldAutoPlay);
+      mainHandler.postDelayed(new Runnable() {
+        @Override
+        public void run() {
+          player.setPlayWhenReady(shouldAutoPlay);
+        }
+      }, 8000);

2. Start the demo app with extensions, and select [IMA sample ad tags] / [VMAP pre-roll]

3. After ad finishes, the last ad frame is visible and player is in paused state. Needs to be started manually. This can be a problem if there is some external event

Link to test content

Test content is included in the demo app.

Version of ExoPlayer being used

Commit 792f046, but also reproducible on release-v2.

Device(s) and version(s) of Android being used

Device independent.

A full bug report captured from the device

N/A.

[andrewlewis]

I'm not sure I follow the suggestion here. You can setPlayWhenReady(true) before preparing the player with the ads source if you want content to play automatically when the ad finishes.

If playWhenReady is false when an ad starts playing it looks like we currently drop any requests to change the value made while the ad is playing, so perhaps you're reporting this as a bug. This was intentional because the user shouldn't be able to interact with playback controls while an ad is playing. If you have a use case for being able to toggle playWhenReady while an ad is playing, please describe it and we can take a look at changing how this works. Thanks!

[andrewlewis]

Marking as a bug. The app should be able to set playWhenReady programmatically while an ad is playing and have the state reflected when the content resumes.

[csati]

Thank you for the prompt response. For clarification, the use-case is that we want to wait for an external event before starting the content, but want to have it pre-buffered while waiting.

[soadri]

@csati

This means the content is played after that ads is finished?

[csati]

@soadri

No, the problem is the opposite. If I call setPlayWhenReady(true) while the ad is playing, the state of the content playback is not affected, so it stays paused after the ad has finished.

I would expect the ad video and the content video to be in the same logical state at all times (playing or paused). Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, but that would imply two things:

1. the preroll ad video should not start without a prior setPlayWhenReady(true) called on the player
2. after an ad media finishes, and no interaction has been made to the player the content media should start

[andrewlewis]

We have a potential fix in review that will make setPlayWhenReady work in the same way for ads and content. SimpleExoPlayerView will continue to hide playback controls while playing ads, but controls will be shown (with seeking disabled) if the app pauses the player while it's playing an ad.