Fatal Exception: android.media.MediaCodec$CodecException

[bhavinatharva]

Describe the bug

The app crashes with a MediaCodec$CodecException when attempting to start video encoding via MediaCodec. This occurs specifically when calling MediaCodec.start() inside the BaseDecoder.start() method of the Pedro Encoder library, leading to an unhandled fatal exception.

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To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Go to Stream form Video
2. Go to **Choose video **
3. Click on Start Publish
4. Attempt to start streaming a video file
5. App crashes immediately when initializing the MediaCodec

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Expected behavior

The video encoder should start successfully, allowing the video file to be streamed without any crashes.

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Screenshots

N/A (since it’s a crash)

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Smartphone (please complete the following information):

• Library version: com.github.pedroSG94.RootEncoder:library:2.5.9
• Device: Samsung Galaxy Tab A9+
• OS: Android 14
• Media server: srs, version 5.0
• Class used: GenericFromFile

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Additional context

• Crash happens inside BaseDecoder.start() at MediaCodec.start()
• It seems the codec fails to start — possible reasons might include:
  • Unsupported or invalid video format
  • Codec being in an illegal state
  • Missing codec or hardware encoder issue on device
• Might need to add a try-catch around MediaCodec.start() or validate codec availability and state before starting
• Stack trace indicates issue occurs in:

  startPublish ()
  

  when starting file stream encoding.

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[pedroSG94]

Hello,

Can you share the video used to know video information and show the result of?:

    CodecUtil.showAllCodecsInfo().forEach {
      Log.e("Pedro", it)
    }

This way we can know if the problem is related with a limitation of the device decoders

[bhavinatharva]

Hello,

Thank you for your message.

The crash is currently appearing in Firebase Crashlytics, so I don't have a specific video sample that triggered it directly on my device

[pedroSG94]

Hello,

I added a commit for it that avoid the crash allow capture it using a callback:

    genericFromFile.setDecoderErrorCallback(object: CodecErrorCallback {
      override fun onCodecError(type: CodecUtil.CodecTypeError, e: MediaCodec.CodecException) {

      }
    })

This will be available in the next version

[bhavinatharva]

Thank you for the quick update and for adding the error callback support! That’s a great addition — looking forward to the next version with this included.