AerialViews doesn’t activate

[y2b4sure]

What were you trying to do...
Installed using ADB commands, and ‘get’ suggests all good. When app is open, and I use the test functionality, the screensaver works perfectly. Going to the shortcut area in Google TV, (top right) and selecting screensaver, activates AerialViews just fine.

Immediately after trying the manual test, the screensaver activates as per the timer just fine, however after waiting some period of time, maybe an hour, it no longer activates automatically. When going to the top right and pressing the ‘screensaver’ button, it no longer actives AerialViews either.

Android TV version 11… RP1A.200622.001

[theothernt]

Thanks for reporting the issue. A few questions...

1. What device (make/model) are you using?
2. Did the regular screensaver work before this?
3. Just to make sure, did you use the ADB instructions from this GitHub page and the command ending in .DreamActivity ?

[y2b4sure]

Hi Thank you for the questions!

1. It’s a TCL TV running Android v11.
2. Yes ambient mode worked fine. The reason for switching to AerialViews is the support for showing images and video from local NAS, great feature!
3. Here’s the ADB output
   BeyondTV4:/ $ settings get system screen_off_timeout
   300000
   BeyondTV4:/ $ settings get secure screensaver_components
   com.neilturner.aerialviews/com.neilturner.aerialviews.ui.screensaver.DreamActivity
   BeyondTV4:/ $

A big clue seems to be that the screensaver shortcut in the top right menu, doesn’t active AerialViews either. To get to AerialViews I go through the Apps menu, and open from there. Once the app has recently been opened, the screensaver shortcut and the timer both activate AerialViews correctly for ‘a while’.

[theothernt]

Thanks for that info. There is another ADB command you can run. It shouldn't be necessary but it's worth trying anyway...

settings put secure screensaver_default_component com.neilturner.aerialviews/com.neilturner.aerialviews.ui.screensaver.DreamActivity

Also, 1) does restarting the TV help? and 2) I assume you're not using a custom launcher?

[SamLeatherdale]

I am getting this same issue as well.
Works fine when the app is recently loaded in memory, but stops working when the app stops running.
Force-stopping the app is the easiest way to reproduce the behaviour, instead of waiting for it to get auto killed in the background.

1. TCL C855 (TCL Smart TV Pro, Board tcl9618, CPU MediaTek mt5896) running Android 12.
2. Working fine before with default screensaver.

$ settings get system screen_off_timeout
600000
$ settings get secure screensaver_components
com.neilturner.aerialviews/.ui.screensaver.DreamActivity
$ settings get secure screensaver_default_component
com.neilturner.aerialviews/com.neilturner.aerialviews.ui.screensaver.DreamActivity

I managed to capture some logcat output that should help in diagnosing the issue:

I/DreamManagerService(  753): Entering dreamland.
I/PowerManagerService(  753): Dreaming...
I/DreamController(  753): Starting dream: name=ComponentInfo{com.neilturner.aerialviews/com.neilturner.aerialviews.ui.screensaver.DreamActivity}, isTest=false, canDoze=false, userId=0
D/Util    (32719): isBroadcastIntentHome: action = android.intent.action.CLOSE_SYSTEM_DIALOGS
D/Util    (32719): isBroadcastIntentHome: reason = dream
D/TvPipMenuController( 1219): hideMenu(), movePipWindow=true
I/com.tcl.keyhelp.KeyHelpComponent( 1219): onReceive action=android.intent.action.CLOSE_SYSTEM_DIALOGS
V/com.tcl.keyhelp.KeyHelpComponent( 1219): onReceive(ACTION_CLOSE_SYSTEM_DIALOGS) reason=dream
W/ActivityManager(  753): [TclAppBoot]:forbid bind service ComponentInfo{com.neilturner.aerialviews/com.neilturner.aerialviews.ui.screensaver.DreamActivity}
V/TclPromptWindowComponent( 1219): onReceive() action=android.intent.action.CLOSE_SYSTEM_DIALOGS
I/TclAppBoot(  753): [TclAppBootManagerImpl]:TclAppBootInfo{callerPkgName = 'android',callerFlag = '262401',calleePkgName = 'com.neilturner.aerialviews',calleeComponent = 'com.neilturner.aerialviews/.ui.screensaver.DreamActivity',calleeFlag = '0',bootType = 'bind_service',broadcastAction = '',time = '1735906585095',isAutoStart = 'true',isAllow = 'false',reason = 'callee_does't_have_OP_AUTO_START_permission.',count = '1'}
E/DreamController(  753): Unable to bind dream service: Intent { act=android.service.dreams.DreamService flg=0x800000 cmp=com.neilturner.aerialviews/.ui.screensaver.DreamActivity }
I/DreamController(  753): Stopping dream: name=ComponentInfo{com.neilturner.aerialviews/com.neilturner.aerialviews.ui.screensaver.DreamActivity}, isTest=false, canDoze=false, userId=0, reason='bindService failed'

Searching for the callee_does't_have_OP_AUTO_START_permission yielded only one other issue reported to the Jellyfin repo, and that person also has a TCL TV (you can tell by references to TclAppBoot in their logs as well).

I gave it a try with Aerial Dream as well, and it throws the exact same error. So unless we're somehow able to grant your app this OP_AUTO_START permission (perhaps via ADB as well), we might be out of luck, it kinda seems like a TCL issue :(

Doing a quick search for OP_AUTO_START yielded a few results, interestingly all of them referencing Xiaomi ROMs, not TCL. This definitely seems to be a non-standard permission but I wonder if it's still possible to grant it manually.

• Telegram XiaomiUtilities
• backgroundable-android
• AppKillerManager

To try and find the full name of this permission, I tried dumping a list of all system permissions using adb shell pm list permissions, but none of them contained OP_AUTO_START.

There were some other interesting sounding ones like android.permission.START_ACTIVITIES_FROM_BACKGROUND, which I tried to grant to your app, but it failed with:

java.lang.SecurityException: Permission android.permission.START_ACTIVITIES_FROM_BACKGROUND requested by com.neilturner.aerialviews is not a changeable permission type

[y2b4sure]

I gave it a try with Aerial Dream as well, and it throws the exact same error. So unless we're somehow able to grant your app this OP_AUTO_START permission (perhaps via ADB as well), we might be out of luck, it kinda seems like a TCL issue :(

Great research!

Building on that I found an app called ‘Safety Guard’, already installed on the TCL TV. In there I went to Permission Shield, Auto Launch Permission, then changed Auto Manager to ‘Closed’, scrolled down to the Aerial Views app, and selected ‘Opened’.

Now Aerial Views starts when hitting the Screensaver button, and when waiting for the timer. Also survived a reboot.

Not sure of any side effects, or if there is a better way to do the above, but progress!

[SamLeatherdale]

Amazing, that worked for me as well, and persisted even after force-stopping Aerial Views. Thank you @y2b4sure 🙏

I somehow doubt there is a way that @theothernt will be able to request this permission through the app, I do think we'll have to manually grant it on TCL TVs.

I've raised a PR to add these instructions to the readme: #194

[theothernt]

Thank you so much to both of you for your research on this issue, I had no clue what was going on.

The last person to report a similar issue was using a custom launcher on a TCL, so I thought it may be the launcher at the time.

Any ideas why TCL would make an app to manage/restrict auto-launching apps on Android TV? maybe it's a big issue in the Chinese market? (the Safety Guard stuff reminds me of all OEM 'stuff' pre-installed on a Windows PC)

[SamLeatherdale]

I am not using a custom launcher - just the default, although I can't see how that would interfere with the screensaver / Dream service, since that shouldn't have to go through the launcher and just directly invoke the Dream activity.

As for these restrictions, it does seem to be more common with the Chinese ROMs, I can't really speculate as to why, asides from the fact that it appears they're more willing to make more drastic modifications to stock Android.

The AppKillerManager project that I referenced earlier mentions this being an issue with Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, Meizu, OnePlus, Letv, HTC, Asus, ZTE, most of which are Chinese, but not all (notably Samsung).

I have a Samsung phone and it has a fairly aggressive "Deep sleeping apps" feature turned on by default which prevents "infrequently used apps" from starting in the background - and yet the battery life is still not great despite that :/

Battery life is not a concern on TVs, but performance is - they have underpowered CPUs compared to phones, so I can see that they would want to stop any apps from launching in the background and causing lag while you're watching media.

[schroef]

I gave it a try with Aerial Dream as well, and it throws the exact same error. So unless we're somehow able to grant your app this OP_AUTO_START permission (perhaps via ADB as well), we might be out of luck, it kinda seems like a TCL issue :(

Great research!

Building on that I found an app called ‘Safety Guard’, already installed on the TCL TV. In there I went to Permission Shield, Auto Launch Permission, then changed Auto Manager to ‘Closed’, scrolled down to the Aerial Views app, and selected ‘Opened’.

Now Aerial Views starts when hitting the Screensaver button, and when waiting for the timer. Also survived a reboot.

Not sure of any side effects, or if there is a better way to do the above, but progress!

I also have a tcl, c655, I don't see that option in Safety Guard > permission shield. I only see: sensitive permissions and authorization log.

I did manage to get the screensaver to run using and tv. However, I'm notnsure unlike this method. I can control it easy that way. I have not tried that other app, not sure I like that. Because it will probably run all the time in the background and thus eat ram.