Debug output from Chromecast

[googlecast]

Debug output from Chromecast

[joeyparrish]

Yes, but there are a few steps you have to take to get that ability:

1. In the Cast SDK Developer Console, register a receiver app (I assume you've done this at least)
2. In the console, register your Chromecast device by its serial number (this is easy to get wrong, since it might contain 1, I, and/or l)
3. Reboot the Chromecast device so that it gets its new config

When you start any receiver app registered to you, devices also registered to you will allow you to open a remote dev console through Chrome and inspect and/or debug the receiver app. To do this, go to chrome://inspect and click the "inspect" link under your device in the list.

Here's a YouTube video that shows someone opening the remote dev console on a Chromecast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL2Eomyce9o

If you don't see "inspect", here are some things to check:

1. Are you on the same network with your Chromecast?
2. Did you enter the correct serial number? (It's very easy to make mistakes on the serial number.)
3. Wait an hour and reboot the Chromecast device again. (Maybe the registration hadn't propagated and been sent to the device yet.)

If you want help getting the device serial number right, there is a helpful trick in the registration dialog. A small speaker icon can be used to launch a receiver app that reads the device serial number out loud to you. Here's a screenshot of that icon in the registration dialog:

I hope this helps!

[Vyrastas]

Documentation on how to debug is on our developer site as well https://developers.google.com/cast/docs/debugging/cast_debug_logger

[JonasVautherin]

Thanks a lot for the quick answers!

I assume you've done this at least

I have actually tried a ton of stuff, and I don't think there are many Google/DuckDuckGo results I haven't read in the last few days 🙈. This included, when running https://developers.google.com/cast/codelabs/cast-videos-chrome#2.

this is easy to get wrong, since it might contain 1, I, and/or l

Yep, for me it was O and 0, and the fact that nothing on the device says that it is the S/N, so I just registered all the numbers I found there, until I found the chrome trick with this voice that read the S/N to me 😅. But that's fine, only cost me an hour, and that's a personal project 👍 🙈.

I was hoping that I could get some log output with cast.framework.CastReceiverContext.getInstance().setLoggerLevel(cast.framework.LoggerLevel.DEBUG);, as described here, but I never managed to get anywhere in the console (either the functions do not exist, or they return undefined).

By modifying https://developers.google.com/cast/codelabs/cast-videos-chrome#2 and pointing the video to my local HTTP server (serving an HLS video), I managed to see it try to load my video and fail the same way as when I use pychromecast (i.e. it starts loading and suddenly stops). I'm not seeing any kind of useful debug output in what I think is called the "Remote Debugger" (where the image on the TV is mirrored in Google-Chrome).

I guess I won't get much further with this crazy idea of getting some debug output from my Chromecast device, after all 😕.

[JonasVautherin]

Before I close this issue, maybe I can ask you one more question 😇. With ffmpeg -i on one of the HLS segments, I get:

    Stream #0:0[0x41]: Video: h264 (High) (HDMV / 0x564D4448), yuv420p(tv, bt709, progressive), 1280x720 [SAR 1:1 DAR 16:9], 59.94 fps, 59.94 tbr, 90k tbn, 119.88 tbc

Does that seem obviously wrong? I have been focusing on the CORS headers on my HTTP server, but maybe my video format is just wrong 🤔. When I ask pychromecast to play my m3u8 file, from the HTTP server I see that the chromecast (192.168.0.24) starts fetching segments but stops after the second one:

192.168.0.24 - - [28/Nov/2022 20:49:52] "GET /playlist.m3u8 HTTP/1.1" 200 -
192.168.0.24 - - [28/Nov/2022 20:49:53] "GET /playlist.m3u8 HTTP/1.1" 200 -
192.168.0.24 - - [28/Nov/2022 20:49:53] "GET /segment00000.ts HTTP/1.1" 200 -
192.168.0.24 - - [28/Nov/2022 20:49:54] "GET /segment00001.ts HTTP/1.1" 200 -

Does that say anything about my CORS headers? Like "if the CORS headers were wrong, it would not even start fetching the segments, so it has to be the video encoding of the segment"? Or does it say nothing useful?

Thanks again for the insights, I'm really struggling with this!

[JonasVautherin]

Ok actually I just managed to prove that my HLS server is fine. So probably the video is not. I'll continue blindly trying to make it work, at some point I may get somewhere 😅.

Thanks again for the help!