Two independent failures were killing long unattended runs.
1. HANG at the end of a video (Windows AppHangB1)
The player froze after ~30-45 minutes of looping, always at a video item. The
playback trace stopped dead right after "video_loaded" with no "video_eos" and
no "advance_after_video_eos", and Windows logged AppHangB1 rather than a crash.
Cause, all inside Kivy and verified against the installed source:
1. ffpyplayer fires on_eos.
2. Kivy's Video widget binds its OWN handler first (kivy/uix/video.py
_do_video_load), and that handler sets state = 'stop' DURING the event
dispatch.
3. state = 'stop' -> VideoFFPy.stop() -> unload(), which calls
self._thread.join() with no timeout (the source even carries the comment
"TODO: use callback, don't block here").
4. When that decode thread is slow to exit, the Kivy/SDL main thread never
returns, so the window stops pumping messages.
It is a race, which is why it looked random and only appeared after many videos.
src/video_safety.py bounds that join. ffpyplayer has already been told to quit
and its thread woken before the join, so limiting the wait does not leak work;
it only stops an unresponsive thread from taking the whole player down. The
guard is installed before the Video widget is constructed, because the decode
thread is created during play().
The intro video had the same hazard on the main thread (state='stop' followed by
unload() inside the state callback) and is now torn down on a worker thread like
playlist videos.
2. CRASH in SDL2_mixer.dll (0xc0000005) on a video with no audio stream
Triggered when a silent 4K clip entered the playlist while the item was marked
audio: on. ffpyplayer initialises SDL2_mixer from the FIRST audio file it opens
and reuses those parameters, so a file with no audio stream (rate/channels 0)
makes SDL2_mixer dereference garbage. Muting via volume=0.0 does NOT avoid it -
the audio stream itself must be disabled.
play_video now probes the file with ffprobe and forces mute when it has no audio
track, so such a file can never reach ffpyplayer with sound enabled. The probe
fails safe (assumes audio present) if ffprobe is unavailable.
3. 24/7 supervision (solution A + C)
windows/watchdog.ps1 + start_player_watchdog.bat restart the player when it
crashes (process gone) or hangs (process alive but .player_heartbeat stale),
with a crash-loop breaker that backs off when it cannot stay up. This is the
Windows counterpart of the proven Linux start.sh watchdog.
The exit-screen password remains the only supported way to stop the player. On
success it writes .player_stop_requested next to the .exe and the watchdog
stands down instead of restarting. The flag is SESSION SCOPED: the watchdog
clears it on every start, so launching again begins a new session and there is
no file to delete by hand. Clearing on start also means a power cut cannot leave
the player permanently off.
Deliberately NOT done: a Windows service. A service runs in session 0 with no
desktop, so the player could not render to the screen at all. A login-triggered
startup entry is the correct Windows analogue of the Pi's systemd unit.
Important detail: the packaged player is TWO processes (PyInstaller bootloader
parent plus the child that owns the SDL window), so any kill uses taskkill /T or
the visible window survives and the next launch collides with it.
Verified in the packaged exe over a 7-hour run: 170 playlist restarts, 1365
items, 171 web links launched/visible/ended with zero failures, and no crashes,
no hangs and no leaked browser processes.
Tests: windows/test_video_hang.py and windows/test_watchdog.py. The hang test
deliberately holds the heartbeat open with an exclusive Windows lock (share mode
0) so the player's own write fails - backdating the file's mtime does NOT
simulate a hang, because the healthy player rewrites it immediately and the test
would then pass for the wrong reason.
src/main.py:
- Delegate web-link playback to WeblinkSession (get_weblink_session), with
on_finished / on_failed callbacks driving the transition.
- Remove the in-file Chromium subprocess launching, the /dev/input watchdog and
the pre-warm implementation; keep thin deprecated shims for platform code.
- Add _item_is_weblink(), which also accepts type aliases and the
"no file extension + http(s) url" shape so a slightly different server
payload is not treated as a missing media file.
- Replace the 1.0s wall-clock advance guard with a generation token
(next_media's _token plus _schedule_advance). The old window silently dropped
deliberate fast transitions such as weblink -> weblink; the token still
discards stale/duplicated callbacks.
- toggle_pause is now a no-op while a web link is active: a web link is an
interactive surface, so pause/play does not apply to it and can no longer cut
a viewer's session short. Pause still works for images and videos.
- Preload/prewarm the next item through the session.
- _get_browser_target_size uses the real window size instead of hardcoding a
1920x1080 fallback.
windows/run_win.py:
- Replace the Windows play_weblink override, watchdog, kill_weblink_after_frame,
play_current_media wrapper and prewarm override with adapter injection via
weblink_adapter_factory.
- _WinCefAdapter: embedded CEF, preferred (no subprocess, no z-order fights).
Binds the Kivy resize handler once instead of rebinding a new closure every
weblink cycle, which grew the callback list without bound.
- _WinChromeAdapter: Chrome/Edge subprocess with a real HWND visibility check,
so a hand-off or a page that never paints is detected instead of leaving a
black screen. Teardown keeps the required order (hide overlay, then raise
Kivy) to avoid handing foreground to Explorer.
- Delete the now-dead _hide_overlay_when_chrome_ready and
_bring_chrome_to_front. The former leaked a Clock.schedule_interval on every
weblink cycle.
v1 created a separate Win32 window — same problem as external Chrome.
v2 creates CEF as a CHILD WINDOW of Kivy's SDL_app window:
- No separate taskbar entry
- No z-order fighting (CEF is INSIDE Kivy)
- No desktop flash
- CEF message loop pumped via Kivy Clock (main thread)
- Resize handler attached so CEF follows Kivy window changes
- build.spec includes cef_browser in hidden imports
Windows-specific fixes:
- _windows_play_weblink: uses --start-maximized + --app=URL for true fullscreen
- Shows black Win32 overlay before opening/closing Chrome to mask desktop
- _windows_kill_process_tree: uses taskkill /F /T to kill all Chrome child processes
- _Win32Overlay class: fullscreen borderless always-on-top black window
- Updated README to note Python 3.12 requirement and local data dir behavior
- New windows/ directory with build scripts, specs, and configuration
- Windows-specific requirements (requirements_win.txt)
- Launch and runtime scripts for Windows (run_win.py, launch_player.bat)
- PyInstaller build configuration (build.spec)
- Updated .gitignore to exclude windows/venv312/
- Updated config and source files for Windows compatibility
- Moved working_files to proper directory
ske087