Plex app crashing on android

[xaquin]

Server Version#: 1.25.9.5721
Player Version#: Any android version including latest beta

For quite some time my plex app is not working anymore in a huawei mediapad m3 tablet. I’ve been ingoring this for a while hoping a new version fixes the issue, but despite seeing many threads on similar issues, I don’t see a solution. So I’ve decided to get the logcat and share with the hope that Plex devs are able to identify the issue.

The problem is as follows:
I tap on the app to open, and the app starts loading the plex logo and crashes. This has been the behavior for about 1 year. Sometimes it loads more letters from plex, sometimes it doesn’t. Clearing cache, or wiping the whole device doesn’t make any difference.

Crash logs from the android device:

04-21 14:33:46.633 24782 24856 F libc    : Fatal signal 11 (SIGSEGV), code 1, fault addr 0x4 in tid 24856 (RenderThread)
04-21 14:33:46.633   342   342 W         : debuggerd: handling request: pid=24782 uid=10174 gid=10174 tid=24856
04-21 14:33:46.736 24984 24984 F DEBUG   : *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** *** ***
04-21 14:33:46.736 24984 24984 F DEBUG   : Build fingerprint: 'HUAWEI/BEETHOVEN/hwbeethoven:7.0/HUAWEIBEETHOVEN-W09/C100B308:user/release-keys'
04-21 14:33:46.736 24984 24984 F DEBUG   : Revision: '0'
04-21 14:33:46.736 24984 24984 F DEBUG   : ABI: 'arm64'
04-21 14:33:46.736 24984 24984 F DEBUG   : pid: 24782, tid: 24856, name: RenderThread  >>> com.plexapp.android <<<
04-21 14:33:46.736 24984 24984 F DEBUG   : signal 11 (SIGSEGV), code 1 (SEGV_MAPERR), fault addr 0x4
04-21 14:33:46.736 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     x0   00000076af5ff528  x1   00000076af5ff400  x2   00000076ac890000  x3   0000000000000000
04-21 14:33:46.736 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     x4   00000000000000de  x5   00000076af9cc568  x6   0000007699267578  x7   00000076a8b9d3a0
04-21 14:33:46.736 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     x8   0000007699336de0  x9   0000000000000000  x10  00000000000000de  x11  0000000000000000
04-21 14:33:46.736 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     x12  00000076b0799648  x13  000000003f800000  x14  0000000000000010  x15  00000076a8b9dfe4
04-21 14:33:46.736 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     x16  00000076d6fc7e88  x17  00000076d82f947c  x18  00000076af484480  x19  00000076af9cca70
04-21 14:33:46.736 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     x20  0000000000000000  x21  00000076d6fc99f0  x22  000000000000001a  x23  0000000000000001
04-21 14:33:46.736 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     x24  0000000000000000  x25  0000000000000001  x26  0000000000000000  x27  000000769925ada8
04-21 14:33:46.737 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     x28  0000007699232a00  x29  00000076af9cc700  x30  00000076d6f949cc
04-21 14:33:46.737 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     sp   00000076af9cc550  pc   00000076d6f949dc  pstate 0000000080000000
04-21 14:33:46.740 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :
04-21 14:33:46.740 24984 24984 F DEBUG   : backtrace:
04-21 14:33:46.740 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     #00 pc 00000000000929dc  /system/lib64/libhwui.so
04-21 14:33:46.740 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     #01 pc 000000000009185c  /system/lib64/libhwui.so
04-21 14:33:46.740 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     #02 pc 0000000000091368  /system/lib64/libhwui.so
04-21 14:33:46.740 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     #03 pc 0000000000032c50  /system/lib64/libhwui.so
04-21 14:33:46.740 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     #04 pc 0000000000035a40  /system/lib64/libhwui.so
04-21 14:33:46.740 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     #05 pc 000000000003b41c  /system/lib64/libhwui.so (_ZN7android10uirenderer12renderthread12RenderThread10threadLoopEv+156)
04-21 14:33:46.740 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     #06 pc 00000000000125e0  /vendor/lib64/libutils.so (_ZN7android6Thread11_threadLoopEPv+272)
04-21 14:33:46.740 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     #07 pc 00000000000a6184  /system/lib64/libandroid_runtime.so (_ZN7android14AndroidRuntime15javaThreadShellEPv+116)
04-21 14:33:46.740 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     #08 pc 00000000000688e4  /system/lib64/libc.so (_ZL15__pthread_startPv+196)
04-21 14:33:46.740 24984 24984 F DEBUG   :     #09 pc 000000000001db00  /system/lib64/libc.so (__start_thread+16)

If any other log is required, please feel free to request it.

Thanks

[xaquin]

Wow, the response from Devs is overwhelming .in the meantime, I found an interesting workaround doing some research. This bug seems to be related to the UI rendering while the PLEX logo is being shown on screen. I found a similar crash in other apps doing some googling and found those devs were changing the application code to get it fixed, but I also found a “funny” workaround to it.
As this issue only happens when the UI is rendering, what would happen if I open the app but the application doesn’t have to render anything to screen?
So what I do is, I tap on the app, and immediately press the power button to shut the screen off. If I do that, I prevent the application from having the render anything in the screen, and it works, the application comes up. I was able to consistently replicate this behavior with Plex.
Hope this helps