External Player error - "can't play this link"

[bobaldis 9]

Hi,

 

I hope this is the right place I'm trying to play offline content on my Sony Z3 compact tablet running Sony's skinned Android 6.0.1., with the offline folder set to an External SDCARD rather than the less than substantial 16Gb (before OS and Apps)  internal memory.

 

I like to download TV content to watch daily on my commute, upto now I've used YATSE which I 1st started using in Kodi and has a very good interface and offline facility. But now being a Premiere subscriber I thought I'd start using the builtin offline feature, at the moment I'm finding it a little clunky but maybe due to the slightly different way of working and hopefully the more I use it the better I'll understand it, but the reason for this post is a problem with my preferred media player MX Player Pro.

 

When I select External player it displays the "can't play this link" error when playing offline media,what I've tried so far after encountering this error:

1) Played a particular media online via Emby App using MX Player Pro - Plays fine.

2) Downloaded same media and played using MX Player Pro - Displays "can't play this link" error.

3) Browsed to Emby Offline folder using File Explorer and played same media OK - so not a folder/file permission issue.

 

I may be wrong but it looks like Emby is using it's own representation of the file path rather than the standard Android path format which MX Player Pro cannot understand (see attached screenshots), but accept I do not know for certain what path Emby is passing to External Players so it's just my opinion.

 

I look forward to being able to use Emby and MX Player Pro in offline mode and so await your response.

 

NB If I have any suggestions on the general operational side of things when using it is this the correct forum to make suggestions or is there another process?

 

Regards,

 

Bob

[Luke 37058]

Ok so these are downloaded files. That's the only path we have. The Android storage access framework doesn't give us the actual file path. It hides that from us and we have to use the content url that your see.

 

As a result, it will only work external players that support these urls.

[bobaldis 9]

Again, wow very quick response.

 

I appreciate what you're saying, but how do you suppose YATSE does it as that works fine with MX Player Pro, perhaps there's another more compatible way to do it, often more than one way to skin a cat?

 

Bob

[bobaldis 9]

I've just looked at the offline settings in YATSE and it appears to be able to determine the true Android path, see attached screenshot.

 

Bob

[Luke 37058]

On some devices it is possible to hack the content url but it will not work on all devices and goes against Android storage access framework guidelines.

[bobaldis 9]

Is there an external player that you have tested that works with offline files, so I can try it?

 

Regards,

 

Bob