Movie stim is just a black box on Pavlovia

Hi Cailey, yes unfortunately you would need to git clone from GitLab and then make sure to import PsychoJS components from that custom-lib folder (lines 5-11) instead of relying on default Builder output, but only temporarily until we get Pavlovia up to speed with the latest patches. Please post back should that approach fail to work and I will be sure to follow up with the necessary edits. Many thanks for your patience while we work to get the problem fixed for good :blush:

Basically, you can carry on working with PsychoPy as normal, but whenever you export HTML from Builder, please revisit the main JS file for your project and tweak the import section to match the current one (lines 5-11)

Hi Sotiri,
we have a sample problem here with a video-based task, where some videos are not playing and instead a black box appears. I wanted to look at the lines 5-11 that need to be modified as mentioned above, but all the links in this thread are not working. Could you please repost?
Many thanks
Henning

Hi @Henning_Holle, no problem, that link seems broken because Cailey’s study is private. Would it be possible to share your project with me to see if I can patch PsychoJS the same way? Here to help, thanks, s.

Hi Sotiri,
thanks for the kind offer. I have now added you as guest to the project (hope that works, I did not want to make the whole thing public to everyone).
Best wishes
Henning

Thanks @Henning_Holle, could you make it developer access? Cheers, x

Hi Sotiri, have just given you developer’s access. I think about 90% of my problems arise because I don’t really understand how gitlab works…

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Hi @Henning_Holle, I have created a merge request for you to try. Please post back should that fail to solve the problem. Thanks, x

Hi Sotiri,
thanks, this has fixed the problem with the black boxes. Will the patch be part of the next release of psychopy?

Dear @Henning_Holle, @Cailey, @feygele, @YT_HAN, video-playback-issue-resolving-post-pixi-upgrade tweaks have now hit production PsychoJS and you should no longer need to rely on importing from ‘custom-lib’. Please let me know if you need more details. Many thanks again for your patience, s.

Hi @sotiri
From reading a few threads it sounds like this error (and some others I am getting when trying to run my study on different devices) is likely fixed in the newest version of psychopy?

I built my study using Psychopy2020.2 how do I make sure that my experiment is using the newest core code that has these fixes included?

Thanks, Elle

Hi @EJJ, these particular tweaks should be already available on Pavlovia, would it be possible to send me a link to your study, maybe something else is at work? Thanks, s.

Thanks for the quick reply! :smiley:

Here is a link to the study:
https://pavlovia.org/run/ElleJ/squirrel_peeking

And this is a link to the github:

Video problems

  • On an ipad or android tablet the videos are replaced by black boxes
  • On a 2011 Mac the videos are replaced by black boxes
  • On android it also crashes after the 1st movie

Javascript problems

  • For just some PCs running windows it gives me an unspecified java error when attempting to run on chrome. (but works on firefox and edge and works ok on chrome on other windows pcs)
  • on a 2009 Mac, running it on safari it gives an error: tone.js is not available

Devices it runs smoothly on

  • A new Mac
  • Some windows 10 PCs on chrome, firefox and edge

Sorry for the long list, i just dont really understand whats causing the problems when it works great on some devices and browsers!

Elle

OK thanks for all the information, no problem, let me take a look, x

Hi @sotiri
I know you have probably been quite busy recently with the release of the new PsychoPy version, but have you had a chance to have a look at this yet? Any progress?

Best
Elle

Hi @EJJ, I feel terrible about this, but I have no solution for you yet. To help speed things up, would it be OK if I ask for a minimal working example? FWIW PsychoPy latest also includes a number of MovieStim fixes! Thanks, x

Hi @EJJ, apologies again for the late reply :blush: OK I have brought in the legacy browser supporting PIXI, which as it turns out was missing from the project’s index.html. Could you check if the support fork is now running as expected? I have so far tried Chrome / Samsung Galaxy S10, Chrome / Pixel 2, Safari / 8th generation iPad. Thanks, x

Hi @sotiri, thank you for looking at this. I dont seem to have access to the support fork you linked?

Hi @EJJ, oops, OK, you should have developer access now, sorry, x

Hi,
Sorry for the slow reply! Thank you :slight_smile:

  • Adding the pixi change to the index.html seems to have fixed the javascript problems.
  • Reducing the size of all the stimuli has helped with the black box problem.

It still crashes on older android tablets/phones and Ipads but we have decided to limit our participants to PC users so this isnt a problem.

Thanks for your help with this,
Elle