Preview-Screen only sporadic available (using a remote iPhone SE Camera).

[DWittwer]

Dear all,

I LOOOVE using the Wifibooth for my photobox and really looking forward to start again if corona is over and wedding partys are something normal again.

For my photobox I use this setup:
- WLAN Router (inside of the box)
- iPad 2018 running the Wifibooth App (newest version)
- iPhone SE running the Sololink App (newest version)

The moment the ipad is connected (settings "always allow") to the iphone everything is fine - the preview is available.
If you take a pictures and then immediately go back to the camera (red button in the gallery) it works fine also.
BUT: If you click an a picture in the gallery and e.g. delete it and then you return to the camera there is no preview anymore. Only the take-a-photo-button and the standard green/grey background is visible. When pressing the take-a-photo-button a picture is taken and available in the Gallery.

Does anybody know what the problem could be? How can I get back the preview every time I return from the gallery? Restarting the ipad/iphone/router doesn't change anything. 100% reproducible.

Thank you so much!

Best from Munich
Daniel

[tim]

Hi Daniel,

This is almost certainly a bug in one of our apps, sorry about that.
Thank you for the steps: i've definitely seen this before, but i've never seen it 100% reproducible. I'll have a go at making this reproduce next week.
Thanks for using Wifibooth!

Grüsse aus tief gefrorene Kanada

[DWittwer]

Thank you so much, Tim!
I hope you'll find the code section that could be "improved".
But it's not urgent. The next wedding is scheduled for end of April.

All the best to the beautiful Canada
Daniel

[tim]

Hi Daniel

I had a quick initial look at this. I could only reproduce the issue by deleting a photo or leaving wifibooth (opening another app) - are you able to reproduce this issue without deleting a photo?

Assuming you can only reproduce this when deleting a photo, here is what is happening:
- iOS will not let apps keep network connections when the app goes to the background (except for special apps which wifibooth is not), so when the app detects it is resigning being the active app, it disconnects its network connection
- When you hit "delete a photo", iOS pops an alert (ie. "are you sure you want to delete the photo?"), which is NOT in the app, that's iOS... so wifibooth receives a notification it is resigning being the active app, and disconnects the network
- When wifibooth comes back to the foreground after the delete confirmation dialog is finished, it reconnects to sololink ok, but there's some bug that causes the video connection not to start (or not to be able to receive, not sure yet)

Are you able to simply turn off the setting that allows guests to delete photos, so that they cannot? That would be a workaround.

UPDATE: i found a workaround - wifibooth adds a 1.5 second delay on reconnections. I'll get a beta build out to you soon for you to try it, please watch this thread

[DWittwer]

Dear Tim,

it's exactly what's happening! Without the pop-up ("do you really want to delete this picture?" created by the Apple iOS) there is no problem with the preview. So you're right with your assumption. That sounds like a good workaround for me (to deactivate the option to delete pictures).
I'll try this way and come back to you soon.

Thank you for your effort to look for a solution. I really appreciate it!

Best
Daniel

[tim]

Hi Daniel
There's a beta now available here, with a workaround: the liveview should still come back if you delete a photo or leave the app.
Can you please try it out and let me know?
https://testflight.apple.com/join/xq9llkTy

[DWittwer]

Hi Tim,

wow - you're really fast!
I installed the Beta App and tried to reproduce the problem several times. It looks like the time delay workaround (when returning to the preview screen) works fine! Returning from the gallery to the preview screen after deleting a picture is now possible. The delay is short enough without confusing the user. Even if the Wifibooth App is terminated hard by double click on the home button the re-connection is established directly and reliable.

Now everything works fine again! Do you also have a bugfix for the corona virus?
Thank you so much!

All the best to Canada
Daniel

[tim]

Hi Daniel,

Thanks
Can you please do me a favour:
(1) on your iPad can you use Testflight to update Wifibooth to build 5809 or newer
(2) on your iPhone can you please load the SoloLink beta from https://testflight.apple.com/join/Wcjhyj3j
-- and then please test that your issue is (still) solved, and the rest of things work as you expect them to

thank you ... no covid19 bugfix yet, wish I could work on that!

[tim]

... update: it's now live on the App Store: wifibooth 4.12.1
Please note that SoloLink was also updated (nothing to do with this bug though)

[DWittwer]

Dear Tim,

aaaahhhrrrgggg... I haven't checked the notifications on this forum. Please excuse my late answer.

> Can you please do me a favour:
> (1) on your iPad can you use Testflight to update Wifibooth to build 5809 or newer
> (2) on your iPhone can you please load the SoloLink beta from https://testflight.apple.com/join/Wcjhyj3j
> -- and then please test that your issue is (still) solved, and the rest of things work as you expect them to

Do you still need any feedback on the version (if it is still available)?
I'm so sorry that I didn't answer last time.

Best regards
Daniel

[tim]

Hi Daniel no worries, life is busy and this is just an app
The update is live on the app store so hopefully you have already updated, and found it is working well for you

[DWittwer]

Hi Tim,

it really does!
Your app now works perfect. Thanks again for the competent and friendly support. Looking forward to have the first event again.

All the best to Canada!
Daniel

[tim]

Thanks Daniel much appreciated, Frühling will come any month now