Stage Cue | Won't display list of Network MIDI sessions while a video is playing

AnthonyB

This is a bit of an edge case I just stumbled across quite by accident.
I can understand that it might be by design, in which case, there is a bit of a gotcha that might catch people out, just like it did to me for the last 15 mins!

I have Stage Cue 1.0.5 on iPad1 (5th Gen, iOS 16.7.12)
I have Stage Traxx 4 on iPad2 (9th Gen, iOS 26.1.0)

I've never had a problem opening the settings in Stage Cue to browse Network MIDI Sessions to connect to the iPad running Stage Traxx in my setup.... until today.

Today, there was just a blank list.
I grabbed a different iPad, opened up SC, same thing. Blank list.
Performed obvious troubleshooting:

Checked that all iPads were on same WiFi network
Rebooted all iPads
Confirmed network connectivity (ST client connecting to ST host just fine)

Then I stumbled over the issue.
I had a video set to background mode that was playing. It was a short logo video with minimal 'motion' so I didn't even really notice it.
As soon as I stopped the video, BOOM, the list of Network MIDI sessions populated.

If this is not by design, well, the above should be a very easy set of repro steps.

If this is by design (and I can understand why you wouldn't need SC scanning the network for sessions while being used to preserve resources and be efficient), then maybe a warning on the Network MIDI Sessions page would be beneficial? A warning that shows when there is a video playing AND someone enter that page, advising them to stop video playback first? Or even just pause video playback while on that page (that feels like less of a good idea however).

AnthonyB

Actually, this may be a broader issue of the Settings page showing unexpected/unreliable information if a video is playing.

I just found that while changing the Stage Cue Global MIDI Stop message, that it was suddenly changing as I closed the Settings window to another value.
As soon as I stopped the background video from playing, the Global MIDI Stop message would stay to what I entered.

So this seems to extend to all Global Settings AND individual Video Settings.

peter

I can reproduce the issue in the network browser.

I can't reproduce the problem with the global midi messages.

AnthonyB

peter I can't reproduce the problem with the global midi messages.

I went to shoot video of that particular issue this morning and found it is very erratic. As Murphy's Law would dictate, every time my camera was recording, there was no issue, and every time the camera wasn't recording, the issue occurred. I swear I made 4 failed videos (i.e. it worked fine) and yet observed it not work 6 times in-between.

I believe it is related to either the video playback window refresh, or overall processing impact of video playback, as when I use the press-and-hold-spacebar to turn the spacebar into a cursor mover, the cursor flickers like crazy, and even jumps around (seems to like jumping to far right edge of the field) while I'm typing in the field.

I'm running SC on a 5th Gen iPad running iOS 16.7.12
I quickly re-ran some of these tests on an 9th Gen iPad running iOS 26.1.0 and I did not see this same behaviour. The UI and field editing was buttery smooth. So, perhaps an iOS16 issue? or just 'under-powered' iPad?

peter

My guess is that it is rather a bug in SwiftUI on iOS16. As the simple workaround is to stop playback before editing, I will not spend any time on this.

The network browser issue will be fixed in the next update.

AnthonyB

peter Yep - totally understand and agree.