HEVC Crashing on Chromecast with Google TV via AVR

Environment

• ExoPlayer r2.13.1 and above (including r2.14.2).
• Chromecast with Google TV, connected to an AVR or soundbar (without the AVR or soundbar HEVC videos play correctly).
• Android 10.
• HEVC Main 10 video seems to be the common culprit.

Reproducing

• Play the attached video in the ExoPlayer demo application, or any HEVC Main 10 video.

Actual Behaviour

• Notice the video freezes randomly, frames are dropped or the device crashes and partially reboot (this takes a number of play throughs to replicate).
• Null pointer dereference error occurs from the surfaceflinger process: Unable to handle kernel NULL pointer dereference at virtual address 00000000, this then causes the device to partially reboot - it seems more like an OS reboot rather than a full device reboot.

Expected Behaviour

Playback is smooth without frame freezes or drops, and without rebooting the device.

Sample + Recorded Video

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1hpLZnBSBvF89MxOXtbOPMgfg_t-4k898

• HEVC 10 - EAC3 Atmos - Crash Sample.mkv is the sample video that can be played to replicate the behaviour.
• ExoPlayer v2.14.2 Demo on Chromecast with Google TV.mp4 provides a video recording showing the behaviour on the ExoPlayer r2.14.2 demo application (shows the video freezing and frames being dropped).
• adb bugreport is also zipped up in the folder.

Notes

Sounds like more of a device related issue rather than an issue with ExoPlayer, however the problem started occurring in ExoPlayer r.13.1. In r2.12.1 HEVC plays back smoothly on a Chromecast with Google TV device.

[ojw28]

I do have some updates on this issue:

1. The GoogleTV team and SOC vendor are now both able to reproduce the issue(s), including the stretched video issue and the kernel panic (reboot). It’s unclear at this point whether they’re related, but it seems likely.
2. The SOC vendor observed that the Plex app appears to be doing something unusual between the first and second playbacks. In particular, switching playback from non-tunnelled to tunnelled mode (background reading, if you’re interested in what this means). It’s thought that this is triggering an underlying bug in the SOC vendor provided part of the platform. The unusual nature of what the Plex app appears to be doing may explain why we’ve not received many reports of other applications being affected by the same issue.
3. I was able to reproduce the stretched video issue (but not the kernel panic) directly with the ExoPlayer demo app, by modifying it to toggle between non-tunnelled and tunnelled mode.
4. Plex can work around the issue in the short term by disabling tunnelled mode on GoogleTV. There may also be other workarounds that allow continued use of tunnelled mode, but this is the simplest short term fix. Plex have provided guidance here that the workaround will be included in their v8.26 beta release, which they’re aiming to release next week. They’ve also provided an APK in the same post, if you’re keen to try the fix before then.

We will keep this issue open to track the continued investigation into the underlying platform issue.

[ojw28]

It shouldn’t be possible for the application layer (which is where ExoPlayer lives) to cause a device reboot, so the fact this is occurring indicates an issue in the underlying platform. I have requested an update and increased the priority of the issue that we previously filed on the relevant team.