ExoPlayer: com.google.android.exoplayer2.mediacodec.MediaCodecRenderer$DecoderInitializationException: Decoder init failed:

How to know the hardware decoder fails?

The player will raise an error on the AnalyticsListener.onPlayerError callback and the passed ExoPlaybackException will contain a MediaCodecRenderer.DecoderInitializationException. You can see that in the first stack trace you posted on the issue description. In your app, you should add an AnalyticsListener to the player and if onPlayerError is raised, you can inspect if it was the decoder that failed as follows:

@Override
  public void onPlayerError(EventTime eventTime, ExoPlaybackException e) {
    if (e.getRendererException() instanceof MediaCodecRenderer.DecoderInitializationException) {
      MediaCodecRenderer.DecoderInitializationException decoderInitializationException = (MediaCodecRenderer.DecoderInitializationException) e.getRendererException();
      MediaCodecInfo codecInfo = decoderInitializationException.codecInfo;
      Log.d("EXO_V2", "Decoder failed to initialize: " + codecInfo.name);
      Log.d("EXO_V2", "Hardware? " + codecInfo.hardwareAccelerated);
      Log.d("EXO_V2", "Mime type? " + codecInfo.mimeType);
      Log.d("EXO_V2", "Is H264? " + MimeTypes.VIDEO_H264.equals(codecInfo.mimeType));
    }
  }

I’ve added some extra statements to show you some of the information you can obtain the exception’s MediaCodecInfo, such as the MIME type (from which you can tell if it’s an H264 decoder), the specific decoder name and if it’s a hardware one.

Unfortunately, if you wait until the player fails and then try out with a different decoder, your app will need extra time until it starts playing the video. Please try if DefaultRenderersFactory. setEnableDecoderFallback(true) solves your problem before you try this solution.

DefaultRenderersFactory always returns software decoder?

By default, the DefaultRenderersFactory will prefer a hardware decoder if one exists. This comes down to the device capabilities, and the player will query the device to find out what decoders are available for the specific video. If for a certain video format there is a hardware and a software decoder, the player’s default behavior is to prefer to hardware. But if the device only has one decoder for a certain video format, the player will pick that decoder nevertheless.

Please Explain this condition.

if (MimeTypes.VIDEO_H264.equals(mimeType)) {

This checks is the video format is H264. Media formats are defined by a MIME type. You can check the player’s MimeTypes class. For the snippet of code I shared above, this condition changes the default codec selection only for H264 (you’d want the default behavior for other codecs). Feel free to change the condition if you find more issues with decoders not being available.

I am not getting that which setExtensionRendererMode have to use when?

This is a setting used by the demo app, and works if you want to use the DefaultRenderersFactory with ExoPlayer extensions (feel free to ignore if you don’t use extensions).

Please let me know if I can assist further, otherwise I will close tis issue now.

Please explain to me how to use a decoder. You tell me how to know the decoder of video. and how to change the video decoder.

I can think of two options

1. If you control the generation of content, you choose an encoding other than H264, e.g. use HEVC or VP9 video. The majority of devices support this encoding. 2.Try enabling decoder fallback on the ExoPlayer by calling DefaultRenderersFactory. setEnableDecoderFallback(true). For example, in the demo app’s DemoUtil.java you can do

return new DefaultRenderersFactory(context.getApplicationContext())
        .setExtensionRendererMode(extensionRendererMode).setEnableDecoderFallback(true);

1. Otherwise, following this answer, you can pass a custom MediaCodecSelector to the player which will have your custom logic to select an H264 decoder (if the video format is H264, you have to pick an H264 decoder). On an Android platform, you typically find a hardware and software decoder for H264. By default, ExoPlayer uses MediaCodecSelector.DEFAULT which prefers the hardware decoder. You may create a custom MediaCodecSelector that returns a list of decoders, with the software decoder for H264 on the top of the list instead of the hardware decoder. An easy way to achieve that is to wrap MediaCodecSelector.DEFAULT and re-order its returned results. For example, in the demo app, you can do something like this

return new DefaultRenderersFactory(context.getApplicationContext())
        .setExtensionRendererMode(extensionRendererMode).setMediaCodecSelector(
            new MediaCodecSelector() {
              @Override
              public List<MediaCodecInfo> getDecoderInfos(String mimeType,
                  boolean requiresSecureDecoder, boolean requiresTunnelingDecoder)
                  throws MediaCodecUtil.DecoderQueryException {
                List<MediaCodecInfo> decoderInfos = MediaCodecSelector.DEFAULT
                    .getDecoderInfos(mimeType, requiresSecureDecoder, requiresTunnelingDecoder);
                if (MimeTypes.VIDEO_H264.equals(mimeType)) {
                  // copy the list because MediaCodecSelector.DEFAULT returns an unmodifiable list
                  decoderInfos = new ArrayList<>(decoderInfos);
                  Collections.reverse(decoderInfos);
                }
                return decoderInfos;
              }
            });
  }

Please note the following for option 3:

• I would not advice to always pick the software decoder (on the basis that it might fail) because using the software decoder is not as performant as the hardware (battery usage, frame drops etc)
• the error you see on the specific devices does not happen on any device I have tested. What I believe is happening on your devices is that H264 decoders are acquired and not released when you put the particular video editing apps in the background. However, it’s up to the device capabilities on how many different instances of a certain decoder to create and share between processes.
• The errors you see on your devices, may not happen on other devices
• Therefore, you should first attempt to play videos with the hardware decoder and only if it fails, you should fallback to the software decoder.

Overall, I believe the issue you are seeing so far is not with ExoPlayer but with the video editing apps that seem to not release their resources when put them in the background. I have not managed to reproduce using Pixel devices and a Samsung S9. My guess is that the specific devices you are testing (Samsung J5/J7) may not have the ability to share resources. That said, I am not sure how else we have help you with the issue you are facing.

Getting below error:

com.google.android. exoplayer2. ExoPlaybackException: com.google.android.exoplayer2.mediacodec.MediaCodecRenderer$DecoderInitializationException: Decoder init failed: OMX.Exynos.avc.dec,

In my case, I have a list of videos using recyclerview like Instagram. When the feed of the video list gets scrolled very frequently it throws the above error and stops playing other items also.

Anyone could help me here,

Thanks

Try rendering fewer videos at a time