Black screen on videos (TV only)

[blackxored]

Describe the bug Audio plays but no video (black screen), only on TV (confirmed same version works properly on phone). Started happening on 1.22.7. Proxy or DASH options do not affect this behavior.

To Reproduce Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Play any video
2. Audio plays but video is just black.

Expected behavior Video should play.

General Information:

• Device: [e.g. Pixel 7a] Nvidia Shield TV
• OS: [e.g. Android 13] Android 11
• Version: [e.g. 1.14.1] Shield Experience 9.2
• Invidious-Instance:[e.g. https://yewtu.be/] N/A

Additional context Works on phone, have seen similar issues where some code was missing from the TV branches so it could be something similar or a result of lib upgrades?

[anon79678]

I'm having this issue on my Galaxy Tab S6 Lite and Shield Pro 2019.

I tested version 1.22.6 and that works on both devices. However my Galaxy S23+ does work with 1.22.7.

[lamarios]

unfortunately i am unable to reproduce this issue with an emulator and my own instance running the latest official release.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/0b9c33bf-c7f8-40c7-afd2-355f93e6d65f

I can see that yewtu.be is using modified code and a more recent version than the official invidious release. Might be worth redirecting the question to them.

[blackxored]

This is using my own instance, I might've accidentally left it from the issue template.

[alexmaras]

I'm investigating this issue too with my Nvidia Shield. My instance is self-hosted and stock with invidious and invidious-companion. I recently merged some fixes on invidious-companion to get clipious working with it, and that's been fine on mobile. On TV I get a black screen but the audio still plays.

I checked out 1.22.6 and cherry-picked the publish field fixes to get the instance to connect. After applying those changes, everything works perfectly.

I'm assuming there's a difference between a real device and an emulator in this situation. The codebase I'm using that works is: https://github.com/alexmaras/clipious/tree/android-tv-black-screen

Let me know how I can help narrow down the issue. I'll can provide any logs you need as I'm set up to flutter run with my physical device.

Edit after playing with this some more - it looks like a part in companion where we restrict to only av01 codecs is breaking certain videos on my NVIDIA shield because it doesn't support av1.

The branch I made is still necessary for any videos to play, but I also need to make a change to companion to remove that filtering behavior. Opening an issue over on companion to resolve that, but this doesn't change the need to fix the black screen video issue in general here.

Issue for the companion problem for devices without av01 support here: https://github.com/iv-org/invidious-companion/issues/78

[alexmaras]

https://github.com/iv-org/invidious-companion/pull/94

PR to revert a decision on invidious-companion to filter to only av1 codecs when available. When using my branch of clipious, all tested videos now play well.

[jhlee2222]

I'm encountering the same issue, a blank screen, but only on the TV versions of Clipious. The issue isn't present when using the app on my phone. My Android TV devices are an Nvidia Shield and Nvidia Shield TV. Invidious version is 2025.03.12-e23d0d1. @alexmaras , I see your changes to fix this have been merged, but for Invidious Companion, which is not Invidious itself. I'm not familiar with Invidious Companion. Can anyone advise on it, or if this can be resolved in standard Invidious?

[alexmaras]

@jhlee2222 - the change in invidious-companion isn't needed in standard invidious as far as I'm aware - it was an issue introduced in companion. However, the blank screen only on TV isn't due to the issue I've resolved in companion, it's an issue in clipious itself. Re-read my first comment here, I'm using a custom build of clipious on my TV because it's broken without it. The companion change just fixed a further issue I was encountering.

[jhlee2222]

@alexmaras , I understand now. Is there a way to obtain an APK release of your version that resolves the blank screen issue? I'm not familiar with building from code.

[Basti77]

I have exactly the same hardware. Shild, same build a self-hosted invidious. On my phone (Pixel 10 Pro), the same APK runs as expected.

On the Shild, I only get sound but no picture.

I would also say that there is no option in the settings to choose the codec yourself. There is no option to switch between VP9/AV1 and H.264.

Additional information: I can use a browser (Brave) on the Shield to access my Invidious instance. I get picture and sound, but it's not at all user-friendly.

[Basti77]

I think it's because of the settings of the invidious instance.

I connected to another instance. Boom, picture.

Hey, does anyone have a Docker Composer file that's compatible?