Videos begin in the paused state

[dbenjaminmiller]

Checklist

• I am using the latest version - 0.21.2
• I checked, but didn't find any duplicates (open OR closed) of this issue in the repo.
• I have read the contribution guidelines given at https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/blob/HEAD/.github/CONTRIBUTING.md.
• This issue contains only one bug. I will open one issue for every bug report I want to file.

Steps to reproduce the bug

Go to play a video.

Actual behaviour

Whether autoplay is on or off, the video begins in the paused position and must be manually begun. If autoplay is on, this means one tap (so, effectively, autoplay does not work). If autoplay is off, this means two taps.

Expected behavior

Videos should begin in the playing state.

Screenshots/Screen recordings

https://streamable.com/0pvyx1 / https://streamable.com/bknr08

Device info

• Android version: 11
• Device model: Sony Xperia 1ii

[triallax]

Introduced in 0.21.2; see #6052 (comment).

[Redirion]

could this PR have caused the regression? #5929

[SameenAhnaf]

Strange enough. But if a user switches to full screen, video begins to start.

Also, main player cannot recognise if buffering icon was pressed or not. Video always stays paused at the beginning.

[opusforlife2]

But it a user switches to full screen, video begins to start.

Only when the full screen video is landscape. If it's a portrait video, then the video stays paused even on tapping the full screen button.

[SameenAhnaf]

@opusforlife2 I hardly watch portrait videos. So, I didn't notice that. Thanks for noting that.

[litetex]

Code analysis
(I didn't debug the app, just analysed the code, might be completely wrong 😉)

There might be a problem here:
https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/pull/5929/files#diff-68cd2f051cf461f1cee8f97ab4a793ab90276943eed26f8f1baf5105948b2b5eL709-R709

Before the PR was merged (and released with v0.21.2) when simpleExoPlayer.getPlayWhenReady() was called and it resolved to true, it would start the video by calling the play()-method.

However now playPause() is called which - when I interpret the code correctly - does exactly the opposite:
It will check if the video is playing (through the "new" method getPlayWhenReady()) and then - when this resolves to true - call stop() (and not like before start), therefore stopping the video and showing you the pause-button.

---

Additional information
Related method of ExoPlayer: https://exoplayer.dev/doc/reference-v1/com/google/android/exoplayer/ExoPlayer.html#getPlayWhenReady--

The problems seem to originate from that comment:
#5929 (comment)

The original implementation of the above method was done with #4562 / 2a2c82e#diff-0f3387a41d6eb8b505889ac6fe5a85f9b63f0f02d2d32aea1a6a69aa5cc7fa2aL263-R265

---

Effects
The code changes of #5929 also affects all players that are not a AudioPlayer or a PopupPlayer:
https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/pull/5929/files#diff-68cd2f051cf461f1cee8f97ab4a793ab90276943eed26f8f1baf5105948b2b5eL695-L703

So if you use one of these two, the video should start normally. (Which I could reproduce for the popup player on my smartphone)

Note: The problem only seems to appear when the option "History and cache>Resume playback" is set to off

[litetex]

I submitted a PullRequest, which should fix the problem.

In the meantime you can try enable "History and cache>Resume playback" and check if this fixes the problem :)