IPappTV

Troubleshooting

Black screen, sound plays

Three different situations that look the same - and how to tell them apart in a few seconds

Czarny ekran, dźwięk gra PL Picture freezes (1080i) EN Android TV & Google TV EN
Symptom: the channel plays - you hear sound, the bar shows the programme - but the screen is completely black. Not a frozen frame, just black. Shortest fix: if you turned on "Tunneled playback" in Settings, turn it off. If not, wait 6 seconds - the app switches the decoder by itself once it decides no picture is coming through.

1. Three causes, one symptom

In IPTV, audio and video are decoded separately. Audio almost always works, so a black screen with sound tells you only this: the picture is not reaching the screen. There are three reasons, each needing a different response:

  • Tunneled playback on a TV that does not implement it correctly - the picture is decoded but goes nowhere.
  • The hardware decoder accepted the stream but delivers no frames - the same mechanism as a frozen picture, just without the first frame.
  • The stream has no video - a radio channel, or the provider disabled video. A black screen is then correct.

2. Tunneled playback

This setting (Settings → "Tunneled playback", off by default) tells Android to route audio and video through one path straight to the hardware, bypassing synchronisation in the app. It lowers CPU load and works fine on good TVs. On some devices - especially older and cheaper boxes - the tunnel implementation is faulty: sound goes through, picture does not.

If you turned it on manually, turn it off. If it is off, rule this cause out and move on. Tunneling applies to the hardware decoder only; with the software decoder the app does not use it.

3. A decoder that delivers nothing

The player reports "playing", has a video track, data flows - but the counter of rendered frames stays at zero. The app checks that counter every two seconds; after six seconds without a single frame it switches to the other decoder (FFmpeg) by itself and remembers that choice for the channel. You briefly see "Switching decoder…" and then the picture.

If nothing happens after six seconds, it is not this cause - or you set "Always hardware" for this channel, which disables automatic switching. Then manually: down arrow → decoder → "Automatic" or "Always software".

The details of this mechanism, including its cost, are in the article on the frozen picture.

4. A stream without video

Many lists contain radio stations; some providers put them in a "Radio" group, others do not. It also happens that a TV channel has its video temporarily disabled on the provider's side. In both cases the app plays audio only and does not try to fix anything, because there is nothing to fix.

How to tell: check the same channel in VLC. If it is black there too, the stream has no video. The app currently has no separate "audio only" indicator - a deliberate simplification, but if you hit this case often, let us know.

5. Order of checks

  1. Settings → "Tunneled playback": if on, turn off and restart the channel.
  2. Wait 6 seconds on the channel. If "Switching decoder…" appears and then the picture - done, the app has remembered the decoder for this channel.
  3. Down arrow → decoder → make sure it is not on "Always hardware". Set "Always software (FFmpeg)".
  4. The channel in VLC: if black there too - the stream has no video.

If VLC shows a picture and IPappTV does not after all the steps, write to kontakt@ipapptv.com - with the device model, Android version and which step changed what.