When installing version 1.3.22, I already started experiencing intermittent lagging.
After updating to 1.3.23, the situation got much worse… screen freezes… had to force close the app.
I searched online and asked AI for solutions — completely useless, wtf.
In the end I had no choice but to download the old version APK 1.3.18… and everything went back to running smoothly~

This update has been causing the app to freeze and crash very often on my tablet, sometimes randomly disconnecting when there's zero issues with the wifi.

The app became borderline unusable with this update, with constant crashes. Hilariously enough, I'm typing this through the app, and it crashed the moment I finished the first sentence.

Two questions for folks:

First, could you specify what device you're having trouble on? That'd help narrow down what change might be causing instability for you -- things actually work differently under the hood for Android TV versus Android phones, for instance. If everyone having instability is on an Android *phone*, it's (probably) not the changes to the Android TV render pathway that are at fault.

Secondly: someone mentioned reverting to 1.3.18 -- if you revert to 1.3.20, does it still also work, or does it start to have issues?

To elaborate: 1.3.22 is where the changes to the rendering were made to try to fix severe issues on several Android TV devices -- notably the Fire TV Cube 3rd Gen and Google TV Streamer 4K. If 1.3.22 is where the problems start, then it's probably related to some of those changes (and very much narrows down what code to investigate).

If 1.3.20 is *also* affected, however, then that code isn't the culprit and it'll take a bit wider investigation.

I'm running an old android tablet, which Steam Link isn't even optimised for, but it used to work just fine, and does now after downgrading to 1.3.19. I've been having these issues for a few days now, which fits with the release of 1.3.23. I'm not interested in testing versions inbetween, that should be Valve's job, they can afford to spend a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of their billions of dollars to fix the mess they made. 19 works well for me and the trackpad/trackpad cursor changes that made it worse aren't in it, so there's little reason to bother with others.

Just a generic tablet, no specific brand/model? (I ask because every time we encounter devices that display problems which didn't crop up in testing, we try to pick up one of the problem device to add to the suite of test devices to avoid it happening again with future builds.)

Other question: is this crashing happening immediately, or only after long streaming sessions?

Originally posted by Packetdancer:

Just a generic tablet, no specific brand/model?

SM-T295 is the specific model, it's an old and cheap tablet that previous versions worked on without any serious issues.

Originally posted by Packetdancer:

Other question: is this crashing happening immediately, or only after long streaming sessions?

After a varying amount of time (from as little as 4 minutes to as much as about half an hour in my experience over the last few days) one of the following things happens:
1. The video freezes with the red "connection extremely unstable" symbol, while the audio continues and I can still use touchscreen controls including the cursor. After trying to stop the stream, the app crashes to android's "desktop".
2. The video freezes without any connection issue symbols, the audio continues, controls do nothing, the menu button doesn't work either.
3. The stream crashes back to the app's starting menu, with the "start playing" button and recent games.
4. The app instantly crashes to android's "desktop" with no warning.

Alright, that'll give a starting place to look at, at least. I appreciate the info.

As a side note, since you mention you were having problems with the trackpad changes in 1.3.20, would you be willing to provide some feedback on *what's* not working right for you over in https://steamcommunity.com/app/353380/discussions/4/785451333487434387/ ? I'd be doubly appreciative.

Originally posted by Packetdancer:

As a side note, since you mention you were having problems with the trackpad changes in 1.3.20, would you be willing to provide some feedback on *what's* not working right for you over in https://steamcommunity.com/app/353380/discussions/4/785451333487434387/ ? I'd be doubly appreciative.

I'm not sure if it's actually related to those changes specifically. All I know is that at some point "trackpad cursor" disappeared, and "trackpad's" sensitivity was lowered. Specifically, I was using trackpad with the middle sensitivity setting, and at some point that got slower than I'd like, with the high sensitivity still being too fast. After downgrading to 19, I can say with certainty that it wasn't my imagination - 19's trackpad middle sensitivity is exactly right for me. I don't know which specific version made those changes. Without actual proper sensitivity options there's no way for me to get to that comfortable sensitivity on the up-to-date app.
I can't give any feedback on the specific changes you're linking to, because I don't understand them and don't feel a difference outside of sensitivity and missing trackpad cursor options.

Originally posted by Kaltfront:

I'm not sure if it's actually related to those changes specifically. All I know is that at some point "trackpad cursor" disappeared, and "trackpad's" sensitivity was lowered. Specifically, I was using trackpad with the middle sensitivity setting, and at some point that got slower than I'd like, with the high sensitivity still being too fast.

No, that actually helps a lot! The "trackpad is not working right!" reports we've gotten have largely been kinda vague, so knowing it's not necessarily that the *behavior* as to how the cursor moves is feeling wrong to folks (or at least, to some of them) but rather that the *sensitivity* is wrong... like I said, that's actually very useful data. Thank you. :)

Okay, I think I have a repro on the crash, so I'm going to try to track it down. Thank you all for info!

As a side note, if anyone is experiencing the crash and is NOT on a phone or tablet -- e.g. is on a smart TV or Android TV box (or Amazon Fire device) -- please let me know; right now, I am operating on the assumption the issue is specific to the phone/tablet display path.

Or not... the crash proved to be an issue with the encoded stream from the host I was testing from. Which is a *different* thing to fix, but probably not the issue folks are seeing; switching to streaming from a different PC seems to work perfectly fine under the 1.3.23 store build. Boo.

So if anyone does have a crash log...

Since updating I'm finding the app on my android tablet freezes and/or crashes every 1-2 mins. Very frustrating so have to stop using until fixed.

Since the update i have crackling sound on my Android 12 device. I suspect it has something to do with the "greatly improved audio latency" thing...

This version causes constant crashes or freezes on android tablet. Really annoying!