Many Huawei devices blacklisted from downloading VLC off Google Play

[D13H4RD]

Many of us are familiar with VLC Media Player. I don't use it much on Android but it was my media player of choice back in the old days on Windows and macOS. 

 

Regardless, while I haven't used it much in recent times, some people on Android are in fact still using it because of some features like background playback. 

 

Unfortunately, it's that feature which had some people up in fumes regarding it breaking, mostly on recent phones running Huawei's EMUI layer atop its Android underpinnings. 

 

Apparently, developer VideoLAN has had enough of the 1-star reviews popping up due to that and has decided to blacklist many Huawei devices from installing the app. 

Quote

VideoLAN, the company behind the popular cross-platform VLC media player, has announced that users of some of Huawei’s newer handsets won’t be able to download the open-source player from the Google Play Store any longer.

The developer blames Huawei's approach to background resource management, which seems to be very aggressive in killing off background apps aside from Huawei's own.

Quote

“If an app [plays audio], it's normal for it to be in [the] background. Blocking the normal operation of Android is totally abnormal. Otherwise, just kill all the apps, and [don't] turn on the phone, it saves even more battery!”

Those with affected devices can still sideload the APK but it's a bit of a shocker. 

 

So, what do you think? Legitimate response or overblown to smithereens? 

 

Quote source: https://www.techradar.com/news/vlc-for-android-bans-huawei-phones-after-unfair-negative-reviews

[ARikozuM]

Problem: A product, VLC, suffered needless reviews due to Huawei's software.

Solution: Block vendor's ID from downloading the product. 

 

I'm totally fine with this blacklist as the responsibility rests with Huawei. Huawei should be getting the backlash for this. 

[D13H4RD]

1 minute ago, ARikozuM said:

Problem: A product, VLC, suffered needless reviews due to Huawei's software.

Solution: Block vendor's ID from downloading the product. 

 

I'm totally fine with this blacklist as the responsibility rests with Huawei. Huawei should be getting the backlash for this. 

It does make some users angry though. 

 

Because you can actually disable that ridiculous background management on a per-app basis. 

[xAcid9]

3 hours ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

Because you can actually disable that ridiculous background management on a per-app basis. 

A hit or miss for me. It still keep killing Spotify and Google Translate even after I set it to stay on background. 

 

@D13H4RD2L1V3 Typo in your sauce link btw.

[AskTJ]

So their getting mad at the 1 star reviews? Had they done anything to fix those bad reviews? Or just say fuck it and remove it from Huawei?

[D13H4RD]

8 minutes ago, AskTJ said:

So their getting mad at the 1 star reviews? Had they done anything to fix those bad reviews? Or just say fuck it and remove it from Huawei?

The problem is on Huawei's side due to their method of background task management. 

 

It's either they have the app coded to detect the phone used and tell the user to disable that with step by step instructions, or leave it and let the 1 star reviews come in or remove it until Huawei does something. 

 

They chose the last one 

[williamcll]

how ironic it is for a chinese phone getting blocked from apps instead of the other way around.

[NoRomanBatmansAllowed]

An open source app blacklisting a manufacturer? This seems iffy to me.

[Sakkura]

7 minutes ago, NoRomanBatmansAllowed said:

An open source app blacklisting a manufacturer? This seems iffy to me.

It does mean Huawei can just fork VLC if they really want it to run on their phones.

[Stefan Payne]

3 hours ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

The developer blames Huawei's approach to background resource management, which seems to be very aggressive in killing off background apps aside from Huawei's own.

They should keep their mouths shut and try to fix it and not blame other partys for their shit.

I hate it when Developers do that.

 

Because that looks just incompetent.

 

So they're saying "we were to dumb to get it to work, its not our fault, they did it!!"

They could start to issue a warning that there are some devices where some features don't work as intended...

 

But that's also one of the reasons I hate the Open Source community. They just don't own their mistakes...

 

Its the same with some other Software that uses OpenGL and runs like shit on some devices. And what do the Developer do? Blame the Hardware manufacturer for THEIR mess! Why the hell would you use OpenGL in 2018 anyway?! 

 

And why the hell would you choose OpenGL on a Windows Only Application in the first place?!

[Stefan Payne]

3 hours ago, ARikozuM said:

Problem: A product, VLC, suffered needless reviews due to Huawei's software.

Solution: Block vendor's ID from downloading the product. 

 

I'm totally fine with this blacklist as the responsibility rests with Huawei. Huawei should be getting the backlash for this. 

I'm not, as you are responsible for your programm and you don't censor stuff or ban people for using "the wrong device". You issue a warning on the product page to tell people that it doesn't work on their devices, you might eventually implement a device check, to also warn the Peoples that try to use it on those devices, what the issues are.

 

And then you try to fix the shit. Even if you are not responsible for it, you are responsible for the software to work!

[PopReference]

The source link leads to a 404 you need to move the ) at the end pls

 

On topic:
I've seen a few Android products with weird behavior, specifically with the battery, but never really had anything to point as an example before now, interesting.

[jagdtigger]

1 hour ago, Stefan Payne said:

They should keep their mouths shut and try to fix it and not blame other partys for their shit.

The problem is on Huawei's side, how VideoLAN supposed to fix an issue that is in the OS itself?

[asus killer]

5 hours ago, xAcid9 said:

 

 

@D13H4RD2L1V3 Typo in your sauce link btw.

it's rather funny to call a typo and make another.   

[D13H4RD]

2 hours ago, Stefan Payne said:

They should keep their mouths shut and try to fix it and not blame other partys for their shit.

I hate it when Developers do that.

It's not so clear-cut to just fix it.

 

The problem lies in Huawei's method of background management of processes, which is extremely aggressive by default on most apps save for Huawei's own pre-installed onto the device.

 

VLC's app for Android has a feature where video would continue to play in the background while other apps are running in the foreground. The problem is that Huawei's background processes manager detects this (as it can drain battery) and kills it quickly. This doesn't really happen on other devices, regardless of whether they're running Marshmallow, Nougat or Oreo.

 

There's only one known way to get around it and that is for the user to manually dive into the settings and set exceptions for apps that can still do their stuff in the background.

 

So, VideoLAN had 3 choices;

• Implement a message at startup telling users to add the app to the exceptions list and giving a shortcut to do so if applicable. Many apps do this but it's still up to the user.
• Ignore it and continue to have people blame the developer for something that isn't their doing
• Blacklist the listing from Huawei devices until Huawei acknowledges it.

They chose the third one. IMO, I think the first one would've been the better choice, and I think the people who still post 1-star reviews for the same issue despite having the message are just really dumb.

[mynameisjuan]

I dont see whats wrong here. The OS is aggressive with constant complaints. There is nothing VLC cant do on their side of the app to prevent the problems. 

 

So instead of people being pissed because performance issues it makes sense to take it down until Huawei can provide word on the issue.  

[Stefan Payne]

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

The problem is on Huawei's side,

We don't know that.

We can't know that.

Trusting a developer blindly is stupid. Because they might (or rather will) lie to you to deflect their mistakes like it is the Case with the OpenGL Stuff I mentioned earlier. Those Devs blame a Hardware Manufacturer for their crappy performance. Why should it here be different?

 

1 hour ago, jagdtigger said:

how VideoLAN supposed to fix an issue that is in the OS itself?

For instance buy one of those devices and analyze the APIs and also talk to the Manufacturer of the Device.

 

You don't know if Huawai has an API they could use, don't you?
Because there are some things that work with this technology enabled (and yes, I think it is a good idea and should be implemented in Android itself a long time ago).

[D13H4RD]

There's no API for the background management on EMUI

 

Because Google expects that you know how Android itself does background management and it is a requirement to get GApps certification to not mess with how Android does so by default

 

EMUI does it differently to other Android phones, and Huawei doesn't seem to be developer friendly as of late, recently blocking off all bootloader unlocking

[jagdtigger]

1 minute ago, Stefan Payne said:

We don't know that.

6 hours ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

mostly on recent phones running Huawei's EMUI layer atop its Android underpinnings. 

 

The only devices suffering from this are from Huawei. Its pretty clear IMO.

[Stefan Payne]

9 minutes ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

They chose the third one. IMO, I think the first one would've been the better choice, and I think the people who still post 1-star reviews for the same issue despite having the message are just really dumb.

Yes, I agree with you. They should have gone with the first one and talked to Huawai as well.

And we don't know where the problem lies exactly, do we? Is here an Android developer? Are you an Android Developer? 

Until this problem is verified by a non involved third party, I'd trust the things the VLC guys say as far as I can throw them. Because I already seen incompetend developers blaming others for their mistakes (for example Choosing OpenGL for a Windows Program and not going with either D3D or switching to Vulkan once its viable OpenGL is a trainwreck for at least 10 years, probably even 20, it was developed by Silicon Graphics in the Beginning of the 90s).

But here we have again the EGO Problem of "Open Source" Developers, who won't admit that they messed something up and can't deal with negative critiques...

 

And that is also something the God of Free-Software criticized -> Richard Stallmann.

[laminutederire]

14 minutes ago, D13H4RD2L1V3 said:

They chose the third one. IMO, I think the first one would've been the better choice, and I think the people who still post 1-star reviews for the same issue despite having the message are just really dumb.

Theres a lot of those though... number of people complaining about absence of a language when it's stated right from the beginning there isn't the language to be supported. Similar things like that.

[Stefan Payne]

5 minutes ago, jagdtigger said:

The only devices suffering from this are from Huawei. Its pretty clear IMO.

Are you an Android developer and can prove the claim?

Have you researched this issue?

 

Just because it is only with Huawai Devices doesn't mean that Huawai is 100% to blame.

 

And since I doubt that you have experience with working with those devices, I'd treat this as a rumor or a possibility, not a fact...

 

As said, until non involved Android Developers gie their 2c...

[D13H4RD]

I think saying that they "messed up" is a bit too far-fetched.

 

We can rightfully say that if it's every single Android phone affected. But this affects only Huawei phones.

 

Plus, I feel that if they tried to talk to Huawei, I don't think they'd get very far. They could (and probably should) have tried it, but knowing Huawei, I doubt they'd let loose on the underpinnings of their Android UX layer.

 

I'll let loose on something funny. On the Huawei P20 Pro, the VLC listing is unavailable. But on an Honor 8 Pro and other Honor devices, it's still there.

[mynameisjuan]

2 minutes ago, Stefan Payne said:

Just because it is only with Huawai Devices doesn't mean that Huawai is 100% to blame.

Its pretty clear its an issue with Huawei's OS. I dont know why you are arguing against it. Until its figured out its better to remove it from the store. 

 

Its either keep it on the store and have people getting pissed about the experience or pull it down and fix it. 

 

They made the right decision. 

[Stefan Payne]

5 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

I dont know why you are arguing against it.

Because I've seen developer lie about issues and deflecting the problem, telling the users "not our fault, THEY are to blame". 

And they totally messed it up and THEY could fix it. But they aren't willing or able.

 

5 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

Until its figured out its better to remove it from the store. 

No, you can do the step by step Popup for Huawai Devices.

And they should have done that anyway!!

 

5 minutes ago, mynameisjuan said:

They made the right decision. 

They took a piss on Richard Stallmann and what he wanted to archieve with Free Software...

And show one of the Problem of "Open Source" Sotware.