Krpano iPhone Crashes

Beginner

Friday, June 27th 2014, 6:21am

I bought Panotour and I created a tour for a client that randomly crashes both his iPhone 4 and my 4S running iOS 7 constantly. If it were only my phone or only his it wouldn't be a problem because I could blame the individual phone but it's happening to both of us exactly the same way. It does NOT crash on the iPhone 5 and I don't have any reports of it crashing on other devices.

I have been trying to get a solution on the Panotour forum and from their support but they say they can't replicate it and they haven't been incredibly helpful...

My client won't buy a tour that crashes the browser of his iPhone so I tried to recreate it in Krpano.

I created this basic test tour with 1.17.4 to see how it would work but it crashes too! There is nothing in this but autorotate. It will usually crash in the first minute if you just leave it there on autorotate. But I turn off auto lock and let it run and every time it crashes.

Test tour: Cili_Ikat_Hand_Weaving_Mill_in_Bali

My iPhone crashlogs say it's a LowMemory problem. I have restarted my iPhone and there are no other apps running. I have also cleared the browser cache.

Input pano is 228mb 10688 X 5344 8 bit TIFF using MAKE PANO (MULTIRES) droplet.app

PLEASE HELP!!!

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klaus.krpano

Administrator

Posts: 13,479

2

Friday, June 27th 2014, 7:09am

Hi,

which iOS version?
iOS 7.0 or 7.1?

I have an iPhone 4 with iOS 7.1 and wasn't able to get your pano crashing there...

As documented here iOS 7.0 is pretty buggy and has several memory leaks.
The current iOS 7.1 version and also the current iOS 8 beta 2 version are much better here.

The memory need of krpano could be even more reduced by using a lower memory.maxmem setting and a lower image.multiresthreshold setting, but when the OS or the browser itself have memory problems, then even this can only delay the problem:
http://krpano.com/docu/xml/#memory
http://krpano.com/docu/xml/#image.multiresthreshold

Best regards,
Klaus

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bobjones

Beginner

Posts: 21

3

Friday, June 27th 2014, 7:27am

Thanks for the quick reply Klaus,

I was running the original 7.0 and I updated to 7.1.1 to see if that was a cause but it crashes just the same.

I have alot riding on this so I would do just about anything to salvage this sale!

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klaus.krpano

Administrator

Posts: 13,479

4

Friday, June 27th 2014, 7:57am

Hi,

as said I'm not able to get it crashing on my iPhone 4 with iOS 7.1...

Quoted

I have alot riding on this so I would do just about anything to salvage this sale!

You could avoid using multires for the iPhone, using just the <mobile> images would also reduce the memory need...

Replace the current <image> element in your xml with these two:

Source code

<image type="CUBE" multires="true" tilesize="512" progressive="false" devices="!iphone">
        <level tiledimagewidth="3402" tiledimageheight="3402">
            <cube url="Cili_Ikat_Hand_Weaving_Mill_in_Bali.tiles/mres_%s/l3/%v/l3_%s_%v_%h.jpg" />
        </level>
        <level tiledimagewidth="1702" tiledimageheight="1702">
            <cube url="Cili_Ikat_Hand_Weaving_Mill_in_Bali.tiles/mres_%s/l2/%v/l2_%s_%v_%h.jpg" />
        </level>
        <level tiledimagewidth="852" tiledimageheight="852">
            <cube url="Cili_Ikat_Hand_Weaving_Mill_in_Bali.tiles/mres_%s/l1/%v/l1_%s_%v_%h.jpg" />
        </level>
    <mobile>
        <cube url="Cili_Ikat_Hand_Weaving_Mill_in_Bali.tiles/mobile_%s.jpg" />
    </mobile>
</image>

<image devices="iphone">
    <cube url="Cili_Ikat_Hand_Weaving_Mill_in_Bali.tiles/mobile_%s.jpg" />
</image>

The multires <image> will be excluded for the iPhone via the devices="!iphone" setting and the another <image> element, which is only using the smaller mobile images, will be only used on the iPhone because of the devices="iphone" setting.

For more details about the devices setting see also here:
http://krpano.com/docu/xml/#devices-notes

Best regards,
Klaus

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bobjones

Beginner

Posts: 21

5

Friday, June 27th 2014, 9:17am

Thanks for the help Klaus!

You have really helped me understand what is happening. My client just told me that even Facebook crashes alot on his phone pfft...

I spent a shedload on Panotour so that's what I would like to use and you have given me an idea that seems to be working.

I created a separate tour with Panotour using Jpeg quality "4" and multiresolution OFF. I will use a bit of javascript to call this version up on the iPhone.

It's been spinning around with auto tour on my iPhone for 10 minutes without a crash... Now 15 minutes... FINALLY!

I can't thank you enough for the quick help on this!!!! *thumbsup*

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klaus.krpano

Administrator

Posts: 13,479

6

Friday, June 27th 2014, 10:11am

Quoted from "bobjones"

Jpeg quality "4"

Just as note - the jpeg quality matters only for the file sizes and the download times but not for the memory need - here only the pixel sizes are the important ones.

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bobjones

Beginner

Posts: 21

7

Friday, June 27th 2014, 10:30am

The clients for this tour are in Bali and the internet and 3G is terrible there.

Some people in Bali have been complaining about load times on their Phones.

I figured that since I have to create an entirely new tour I would cut down on mobile load times.

Gerald from Panotour suggested I change this code a few days ago:

Quoted

change :

<image type="CUBE" devices="androidstock+!webgl">

by

<image type="CUBE" devices="mobile">

It ran for a bit but eventually crashed. In hindsight maybe I should have cleared my cache but I don't remember if I did. Not sure if that had anything to do with it.

I can't afford even a single crash as it cheapens the product and it makes me look very bad.

The new tour I just created has now been running for over an hour without a glitch. FINALLY!

I would love a little button that would take multi resolution out of mobile versions but I think they have other bugs to work out first.

Again, I really appreciate your attention to this!

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klaus.krpano

Administrator

Posts: 13,479

8

Friday, June 27th 2014, 11:07am

Hi,

Quoted from "bobjones"

maybe I should have cleared my cache

Clearing the browser cache is pretty important when changing files, especially on iOS - otherwise the change that you still viewing the old files is very high.

Quoted from "bobjones"

I can't afford even a single crash as it cheapens the product and it makes me look very bad.

It's difficult to completely avoid crashes when the browser and the OS itself have bugs!

Btw - I saw your post in the Panotour forum now and tested the links your tour on my iPhone 4 (btw - multires was still enabled when I'm tested it) - and - no crashes at all...

and I have tried a several things to crash it, like opening other apps and other tabs at the same time...

Are you fully sure that you are already on iOS 7.1?
Or the iPhone 4S has fewer free memory and is more sensible to crashes due this than the iPhone 4... (I don't have a 4S for testing)

Best regards,
Klaus

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bobjones

Beginner

Posts: 21

9

Friday, June 27th 2014, 11:22am

Yes, both my client and I are on 7.1, I asked him earlier today.

If I was the only person with the crash with my 4S I would be able to blame my phone. But his iPhone 4 crashes too.

Seems like my client and I are the only ones with the problem! I was at a dinner party with him and about 20 of his friends the other night. Very embarrassing when he first demoed there the tour and it crashed *facepalm* I had to use someones' iPhone 5 to demo the tour of his villa for the rest of the night.

At this point I seem to have chased the ghosts away with this new version workaround and the client is happy. Now I just need this one demo to convince the other 30 villa owners in the group that they need tours and the champagne is on me! *cool*

Note: I am not using the links in that other thread, I am hosting it on another SSD server for the tour demo.

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bobjones

Beginner

Posts: 21

10

Monday, June 30th 2014, 8:03am

The plot thickens...

Now another person from the company says the new tour crashes his phone almost instantly. Are there any known issues with Android now? He says he has never had an app crash on his phone.

Phone: HUAWEI MT1-U06

Android version: 4.1.2

The new tour runs great on my iPhone but it crashed once I tried landscape mode...

I give with one hand and I take away with the other.

Anything I can tell this guy?

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bobjones

Beginner

Posts: 21

11

Tuesday, July 1st 2014, 4:04am

OK, So his Android has a screen resolution of 1280 X 720 so my javascript did not apply to his phone.

I pulled this from someone else's krpano site and it seems to be working.

	Source code
1 2 3 4 5 6 7	<script type="text/javascript"> if ( (navigator.userAgent.match(/iPhone\|Android\|webOS\|iPod\|BlackBerry\|IEMobile\|Opera Mini/i))) { window.location = "mobile/virtual_tour.html"; } </script>

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Nupsi

Professional

Posts: 697

12

Tuesday, July 1st 2014, 3:13pm

I noticed today that krpano 1.17 crashes on my iPhone 4s too, so I searched for known problems and found your topic and your tour is crashing my iPhone 4s too! Do you use krpano 1.17 too? I even upgraded iOS to 7.1.2 but krpano still crashes. I noticed that krpano 1.17 crashes immediately when I rotate the iPhone from portrait-mode to landscape-mode. At first I thought it could be due to the highres-panos I usually use, but after I switched to lowres-panos (512x512px per side) the problem still remains.

Here´s a Safari-message from the iPhone-crashlog:
MobileSafari <b77d5c0b567f3031807fe964f7e49d3a> 84968 84968 200 [vm-pageshortage] (frontmost) (resume)

On my iPad 3 everything works just fine.

BR
Nupsi

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bobjones

Beginner

Posts: 21

13

Tuesday, July 1st 2014, 4:03pm

Tour actually crashed my iPad 4 today so I had to create a third version that keeps the menu bar but without multiresolution for the iPad. (I am using Panotour)

Source code

     <script type="text/javascript">
	 	if ( (navigator.userAgent.match(/iPhone|Android|webOS|iPod|BlackBerry|IEMobile|Opera Mini/i))) { 
     	              window.location = "mobile/virtual_tour.html";
     	              } else if ((navigator.userAgent.match(/iPad/i))) {
			window.location = "ipad/virtual_tour.html";
		  } 		
	       </script>

Now, I am just winging that code... But that works for me.

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Nupsi

Professional

Posts: 697

14

Monday, July 7th 2014, 8:14am

@Klaus
I get the feeling that 1.17 may have some serious memory issues on mobile devices, especially on the iPhone 4s?! If I deactivate the background-music the tour plays quite longer before it crashs, but it still crashes after a while. I did reduce the tiles-resolution from 2048 to 512, deactivated the music and menu-bar and krpano still crashes after some time. Like I said, especially if I rotate the device a few times.

iPhone 4s
iOS7.1.2 (11D257)
krpano 1.17.2 (build 2014-05-09)

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bobjones

Beginner

Posts: 21

15

Monday, July 7th 2014, 8:29am

My client brought up a very VERY good point.

When the tour crashes, it crashes the browser and you lose all of your open tabs. So you lose the location of what property you were looking at and the user has to navigate back to my client's site again; if he goes back to my client's site at all.

Having a site with a tour would then potentially lose the sale by having a tour instead of gaining one.

I looked at another Krpano tour that completely crashed my iPhone and forced a reboot the other day.

I am having a hard time contemplating the fact that I am selling tours that crash... Something has to be done about this.

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klaus.krpano

Administrator

Posts: 13,479

16

Monday, July 7th 2014, 8:53am

krpano 1.17 itself doesn't have a serious memory issue!!!
That's iOS (and maybe also the individual device) itself!

The difference between 1.16 and 1.17 is the multires support - and multires needs more memory of course!
For example - six 1024x1024 images (the <mobile> images) need at least 24MB of memory, but multires uses up to memory.maxmem memory (which is 50MB by default for iOS 7.1). But even that should work stable.

If you really think that version 1.17 itself is the reason for the crashes (which it isn't), then I can only recommend either to keep using version 1.16 or don't use multires and/or additionally reduce the memory.maxmem and display.hardwarelimit settings.

But please note that there is no magical trick that I could add to make the iOS browser completely stable for any kind of usage! I do a lot of testing and krpano itself should be already very stable on iOS, I would say it doesn't crash the iOS browser more often than other webpages...

Btw - why are you still using 1.17.2 when already newer versions are out that have more crash-related workarounds for iOS 7 browser bugs?

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bobjones

Beginner

Posts: 21

17

Saturday, July 12th 2014, 7:36pm

Look, I love Krpano... and I love you for making it.

But repeating the above to my client is futile.

As an end user I have no concept of what you do to make this magic happen.

But Google maps does not crash and Google Views do not crash.

Nothing EVER crashes on my iPhone... But Krpano tours.

I went to show a potential client a tour today and my basic - non multi res tour crashed after 1 second - three times to where I just had to hide my phone and say... look at my website.

It's embarrassing...

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Nupsi

Professional

Posts: 697

18

Sunday, July 13th 2014, 9:01am

Try adding the following to your tour-xml
<display hardwarelimit="800" devices="iphone+retina" />
Works perfect for me.

@Klaus
Thanks again for this nifty little tip *thumbup*

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klaus.krpano

Administrator

Posts: 13,479

19

Tuesday, July 15th 2014, 12:41pm

Hi,

just as quick note - the next release will have reduced hardwarelimit/memory settings for the iPhone 4 and 4S by default (like in version 1.16).

Best regards,
Klaus

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bobjones

Beginner

Posts: 21

20

Tuesday, October 7th 2014, 5:52am

Hey Klaus... Digging this thread up...

Before I was adding the 8 bit TIFFs to Krpano to build tours. I started adding 16 bit TIFFs and it amplified my problems.

Tours were very sluggish and the crashing was terrible.

I am now creating tours with full res JPEGs I save out of Photoshop from the TIFFs and my tours run super smooth on my iPhone and I don't really have any crashing problems anymore.

Could there be an issue with how Krpano (I am using Panotour) creates cube faces from TIFFs?

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