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[mwillems]

So I have a few different (possibly related?) issues with theater view and/or display view on Mediacenter for Linux specifically (these issues don't exist in Windows to my knowledge).  Some of them are repeatable bugs, others are more temperamental, let me know if you want me to split out any of these into separate threads.  I've experienced all of these running MC 29 for Linux with build 29.0.20 on Debian. 

1) If you open MC in standard view and press F11 (which I've mapped to the green remote button to get correct behavior on Linux) MC switches to theater view as expected.  However, if you then press F11 a second time immediately, MC presents as a blank white window and any further presses of F11 or other attempts at navigation are ignored.  I can usually recover by hitting Ctrl-1 to switch back to standard view, but obviously getting to a blank white state that doesn't respond to remote control input isn't ideal.  By contrast, if I press F11 once to switch to theater view and then navigate down into the theater view menus, a second press of F11 will correctly return me to the top level theater view menu and further presses of F11 will correctly toggle back and forth between menu locations.  The issue only seems to predictably happen when someone accidentally presses F11 when in the top menu at first open before navigating.  I can reproduce this on several machines including two running Debian 11 (on with Gnome, one with Xfce4).  I'm using Noire as my theme, but see the same results in Obsidian.

2) Less predictably, theater view sometimes winds up in a white screen state for unpredictable reasons.  For example, if I set MC to start up in theater view it will often start in a white screened state.  This is new(ish) behavior in that this wasn't happening in early MC 29 builds, although it only happens about 75% of the time.  This only seems to happen on Gnome, but not on XFCE (I can reproduce it using either the Xorg backend or the wayland backend).   Also sometimes a lot of fast "back and forth" seeking in display view can trigger a white screen (not sure if related). 

3) MC behaves a little strangely in setting itself to fullscreen for display view or theater view (this is a longstanding issue for me that's been around in some form since MC27 at least).  This presents differently in different desktop environments.  As an example, in XFCE if there's a panel somewhere on the screen, switching MC into theater view won't set itself to full screen: it will only fill the space above or below the panel, so the only way to get actual full screen is to set the panel to hide itself.  On the other hand, in Gnome, while MC will correctly full-screen itself on the transition to display view or theater view, but when I switch back to standard view the standard view window will be fullscreen obscuring the top bar.  Window resizing also stops working correctly at that point (the maximize button no longer responds and key shortcuts cease working), so the only way to get a normal window back is to close and restart.  Not a huge issue, but something I thought it was worth reporting.

Let me know if I can provide any more info.

[mwillems]

Just a gentle bump.  Let me know if logs or pics or anything would be helpful!

[bob]

Are you using OpenGL legacy or JRVR?
Are you using hardware acceleration?

[mwillems]

Are you using OpenGL legacy or JRVR?
Are you using hardware acceleration?

I'm using JRVR and hardware acceleration.  On my test rig disabling hardware acceleration and switching to OpenGL doesn't seem to change anything with respect to 1 and 3 (I can't 100% reproduce 2, but I'll try and see if those changes make a difference).  Out of curiosity does JRVR affect how theater view is rendered?  I wasn't sure if that or other video settings were "in the mix" for theater view rendering.

Another quick note on issue 1, I just discovered that if I'm actively playing something in standard view and press F11 twice, it correctly toggles to the playing now view instead of the white screen.  If I stop playback and try it again I get the white screen.  I also noted that pressing F11 when I switch to theater view a different way will also give me the white screen.  So the issue really just seems to be that, for some reason, in theater view if I press F11 when nothing is playing and before navigating away from the top menu, I get the white screen.  It's just that the easiest way to repro it here is to open a fresh instance of MC in standard view and press F11 twice in a row. 

[bob]

I'm using JRVR and hardware acceleration.  On my test rig disabling hardware acceleration and switching to OpenGL doesn't seem to change anything with respect to 1 and 3 (I can't 100% reproduce 2, but I'll try and see if those changes make a difference).  Out of curiosity does JRVR affect how theater view is rendered?  I wasn't sure if that or other video settings were "in the mix" for theater view rendering.

Another quick note on issue 1, I just discovered that if I'm actively playing something in standard view and press F11 twice, it correctly toggles to the playing now view instead of the white screen.  If I stop playback and try it again I get the white screen.  I also noted that pressing F11 when I switch to theater view a different way will also give me the white screen.  So the issue really just seems to be that, for some reason, in theater view if I press F11 when nothing is playing and before navigating away from the top menu, I get the white screen.  It's just that the easiest way to repro it here is to open a fresh instance of MC in standard view and press F11 twice in a row.

I'll try to take a look at it.
The screen flipping stuff is complex and doesn't match up with the original windows code base very well.
Just took a look at that on Mac.
Hitting F11 goes back and forth between Cover View and Theater view on the Mac.
If it's trying to go to cover view on linux, I'm not even sure that's implemented.
Just tried that. Looks like that's what's going on.

[mwillems]

I'll try to take a look at it.
The screen flipping stuff is complex and doesn't match up with the original windows code base very well.
Just took a look at that on Mac.
Hitting F11 goes back and forth between Cover View and Theater view on the Mac.
If it's trying to go to cover view on linux, I'm not even sure that's implemented.
Just tried that. Looks like that's what's going on.

Is there any configuration workaround?  My kiddo keeps accidentally pressing the button twice and getting stuck on the white screen   

[bob]

Is there any configuration workaround?  My kiddo keeps accidentally pressing the button twice and getting stuck on the white screen 

The white screen shouldn't happen. It's some sort of timing issue on the video mode change.
Looking into it.
You should always be able to get back to standard mode by doing
ctrl 1

[bob]

F11 fixed in build 28.0.32

[bob]

Actually both of the first 2 issues should be fixed now.

There are still a couple of squirrely behaviors remaining with fullscreen and certain window managers.
Keep the reports coming. These are really difficult to track down but it feels good to get them fixed.
 

[mwillems]

Awesome.  I can confirm that the F11 issue is fixed in the latest build, and I haven't been able to trigger a white screen through fast seeking anymore so I think you fixed that too.  Thank you very much!

One issue I can still reproduce (at least on one machine): if I set MC to startup in theater view it will still startup with the blank white screen with the latest build on one of my boxes.  If I startup in standard view and switch to theater view, I have no issues.  For some reason starting up in theater view seems to still trigger it?  I can CTRL-1 out of the white screen, so it's recoverable.  Weirdly this doesn't happen on most of my machines.  On one machine it's 100% reproducible; that box is Debian 11, Gnome, X11 session, Nvidia graphics if any of that is meaningful.  I can also produce a log if that would help.

Thank again for all your work on these bugs!

[cochinada]

Awesome.  I can confirm that the F11 issue is fixed in the latest build, and I haven't been able to trigger a white screen through fast seeking anymore so I think you fixed that too.  Thank you very much!

One issue I can still reproduce (at least on one machine): if I set MC to startup in theater view it will still startup with the blank white screen with the latest build on one of my boxes.  If I startup in standard view and switch to theater view, I have no issues.  For some reason starting up in theater view seems to still trigger it?  I can CTRL-1 out of the white screen, so it's recoverable.  Weirdly this doesn't happen on most of my machines.  On one machine it's 100% reproducible; that box is Debian 11, Gnome, X11 session, Nvidia graphics if any of that is meaningful.  I can also produce a log if that would help.

Thank again for all your work on these bugs!

I have the same issue with the blank screen.
I also have another issue:
I've imported a new folder into my Library. I can see it on Standard View (and even play the audio files) but not on Theater View!

Update:
I found out why I didn't see my newest folder on Theater View and the good news is that it is not a bug  . The bad news is that I forgot how to make this process automatic.
I'll explain what the issue is. I have a folder called Music/Popular. Inside I've created some subfolders like [0-E], [F-O], etc, so I can save my albums grouped alphabetically inside the respective group.
I've created a custom tag called 'File Group Location' and here lies the problem. I expect MC29 to be clever enough to learn as soon as I paste some album inside one of these subfolders to update the library and create this custom tag with the correct value.
What happened though is that it didn't and this tag was empty which was the reason I was not able to see the album on Theater View.
How can I force MC29 to build up this tag accordingly?