My app TransTec Transmissions has been on the Google Play store for years with no problems. I have now had complaints that the initial page that opens to is a Custom URL which links to our site is no longer scrolling. At first it was Samsung S5 and Edge users but lately it is LG and Nexus 6. I have tested it on an Samsung Edge, Motorola Moto X and a Nexus 7 and it scrolls fine. I cannot replicate the problem. Hopefully anyone can test the app and see if the Transmission by Vehicle section works (scrolls down the page to show hundreds of manufacturers not just the first 8-10). I am trying to find someone that has a device that it doesn't work on so I can do further testing. Thanks so much for your help!

I don't know if this will help you or not but I had a somewhat similar problem were the page didn't load on Samsung Note 4. It turned out the changing "android:hardwareAccelerated=" in the manifest from "false" to "true" fixed the problem. To test this, if you have "Developer options" enabled on a Samsung phone scroll down to "Hardware-accelerated rendering" and check "Force GPU rendering".

Thanks Louie, I will give it a try. Will have to find a Samsung that it doesn't work on so I can check when it works ;-)

Instead of testing all these phones physically, maybe you could download all Samsung phones as virtual devices and see whether you can replicate the error there. The link of general interest is http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2726558/is-there-a-repo-where-you-can-download-android-virtual-devices and within it, there is a link specific to Samsung virtual devices: http://developer.samsung.com/technical-doc/view.do?v=T000000095 Another idea is to try publishing your app in the Samsung apps store: http://seller.samsungapps.com/ They have rigorous testing process and they tell you for which Samsung devices your app won't run at all. (They won't let you in unless your app passes all tests on all their devices.) Maybe there would be some kind of info that can help you with your problem. Also, are you sure that the Prevent All Scrolling field in the control panel for the Custom URL screen is set to No, allow scrolling? Having said that, as a programmer, I can think of two ideas: 1) Instead of reading an HTML page with Custom URL plugin, you could show regular list menus with items from the HTML page; the custom plugin would read the HTML page first, extract the info form it and turn it into a proper, clickable menu. The reason to do that is that menus work properly even when there are hundreds of items in them. 2) Do what Smug said -- add blank spaces to the HTML file, but do that programmatically. Just my 2 cents.

Thanks Dusko, Not sure if the virtual devices will show anything only because we have tried and actual Samsung phone model that matched the one the customer has that doesn't scroll. That would be alot easier that trying to find the actual phone. The Samsung store is a good idea, they might find something that isn't quite right. Will check into the prevent scrolling thing. The app did however work on the same Samsung previously and does still work on the exact same models of phones. Not sure the spaces in the HTML will make a difference, there are hundreds of rows and it only shows the first eight. They said it just pops back to the top of the page. I definitely will try these things and I appreciate your 2 cents!

Been working with Greg on this, and we're going to look into these points. One of the pieces of data that would be super helpful, I think, would be to know exactly what VERSION of Android each problematic device is running. That might show us a correlation that we're not currently seeing. Mark

>The app did however work on the same Samsung previously and does still work on the exact same models of phones. In that case, did the owners of these phones, where the app stopped working, do something unusual before it stopped working? Changed plans with the provider, switch to wifi only or vise versa... Something has changed locally, maybe they can pinpoint what it was!?

I downloaded and it runs fine on my Samsung device. However, I notice that the app is compatible with all of my devices, one of them running Android 2.3. That means the app is made with Buzztouch 2.0. Maybe the new devices have some twist in their Android systems that does not support these previous versions. Are there other old apps that stopped working on these devices?

I installed your app on my Samsung Note 4, and with or without “hardware acceleration” enabled the manufactures page still has a scrolling problem. You said that this is custom URL that loads a PHP page, I believe this has nothing to do with BT but with the new WebView component because it’s now based on Chromium. I would suggest that you look at the code for your PHP page. Maybe use overflow:auto property of css, and give some height for your list i.e 100%. Or create a new page based on HTML 5.

Thanks Louie! You are the first one that installed and it didn't scroll. I will be back at work in about two hours and will try changing the PHP height. When I get it complete I will let you know. If you could check it and tell me if it works it would be GREATLY APPRECIATED. Cheers, Greg

Louie, We changed the CSS so that it has 100% height. If you get a chance can you check your device to see if it will scroll? if it does scroll what did you have to do to get it to work (restart, clear cache etc.) Thanks, Greg

Same problem, it’s not scrolling. My app’s problem was that the page didn’t load correctly and I was able to fix it by enabling hardware acceleration. Keep trying to modify the css code, height, max-height, overflow or and I know this is a lot of work but use menu with image plugin. I also suggest you search the web for page scroll problems there are lots of solutions.

Why not use the easyforms plugin?

The problem will disappear if instead of HTML page he downloaded a menu of any kind. That in turn means the page should return JSON instead of HTML and not that many people are keen on that kind change.

Louie, Since you are the only one that I can find with the app that will not scroll, are you able to access the web page through a regular browser http://transtec.com/mobile/webapp/#_makes and does it scroll properly? CMCOFFEE It looks like easyforms allows me to create forms but I need to be able to access the database through a PHP page. Dusko, Don't think I can access the SQL data using the JSON

Yes I was able to access the Web page using Firefox on Samsung note 4 and it did scroll to the bottom of your list, however it scrolled back up automatically. So you have something wrong with your site code.

the main reason it seems that, easy forms plugin was made, was to interact with a php form. You just post to the php form on your server. The php form on your server can still interact with the database. And Dusko is right, you can access sql data using php(or other server languages) to create json. Using webview in an app for forms are a horrible experience. In my opinion webviews and web apps are terrible.Most of the time web browsers on mobile devices are better than in apps. You could just open it up in a web browser.

@Dusko and @CMCOFFEE : I'm working with Greg on this issue, and I would be very interested to understand if you guys know exactly what the problem is, and how these potential solutions solve it. Thus far we've not been able to reliably reproduce it...and having been a QA guy most of my career, if we can't reliably reproduce a problem, then we don't really know for sure if a fix takes care of it (because we can't reliably test it). The thing that concerns me is that his app has worked flawlessly for the past couple years, and all of a sudden started having issues in just the past week or so. Nothing has changed on the Buzztouch side, and Greg didn't make any changes in the Control Panel. That makes me think the issue is somewhere with Android, and updates that people have made to their devices that they don't realize, or aren't disclosing. I'm hesitant to throw potential solutions at a problem that hasn't been clearly identified. Any thoughts? If we can figure out how to reliably reproduce the problem, I'm all for testing these solutions. Thanks! Mark

So, all of a sudden I've been able to repro this issue on my Nexus 7 tablet running Android 5.1.1. Strange thing is that I had the app on my tablet when Greg let me know about the problem...ran it, and it worked fine. I uninstalled, messed around with some debug versions generated using Android Studio, uninstalled those, just reinstalled the published version, and have now hit the issue. Working on debugging... Mark

So, I may be on to something here... Was exploring my Nexus 7 tablet, trying to figure out...well...anything at all related to this problem. I was scrolling through Settings > Apps, and noticed something called "Android System WebView." I know that the Custom URL plugin (and many others) uses Android WebView to display information, so I tapped on it to see what was up. Standard app info, but also the option to uninstall updates. I figured I'd give it a whirl and see what happens. I uninstalled the updates, returning that app to factory default, which is the following: Android System WebView Version 39 (1836172-arm) Low and behold, the app works as advertised. So, I went back to the Google Play store, installed the updates to that app, bringing it to the following: Android System WebView Version 47.0.2526.100 Low and behold, the app DOES NOT work anymore! So, my concern is that something in the WebView code has broken something. Here's what Google Play has to say about this app: "Android WebView is a system component powered by Chrome that allows Android apps to display web content. This component is pre-installed on your device and should be kept up to date to ensure you have the latest security updates and other bug fixes." Based on that description, and the fact that it worked/didn't work/works after messing with this component, we may have a smoking gun? I suspect why it worked initially on my tablet, after not having used my tablet in several months, was because after I turned it on, and it started updating everything and anything, I tested TransTec before that component was updated. Once it got updated, things started failing. For those of you for whom TransTec currently works: Can you go to Settings > Apps, verify the level of your Android System WebView app (if it's present), and post back here? And, if an update is available (you can check in Google Play store), try and update and see what happens? Thanks! Mark

>Dusko, >Don't think I can access the SQL data using the JSON You access data in MySQL format through PHP, the PHP then converts these data into JSON, your page returns JSON instead of HTML, the app reads JSON and shows it as a menu. That is exactly how Buzztouch is functioning -- click on the JSON Data option in control panel for any BT app to see JSON generated from MySQL through PHP.

good find GoNorthWest

OK, been digging around with this for hours. I CAN reproduce the issue, AND I can get it to "work" as expected (scrolling). I'm with @GoNorthWest, it's 100% related to the Android System WebView. I don't have the actual project so I'm not 100% sure what BT code it's using. Fragment based? Activity based, etc. However, this shouldn't matter. All the WebView plugin I've worked on use the standard Android provided WebView. This, like @GoNorthWest suggests, means that the version of Android and the version of the WebView "engine" is the issue. I'll post here when I learn more.

I've provided David with the project so he can work his magic!

@David When we suspected WebView I asked for people that were having the problem to send me info on their version. ----------------------- Here's the first: Android Webview version 47.0.2526.100 I will tell you though, that we have an Android user here that is NOT having the scrolling issue and her phone's Webview is the same version as this gentleman's. The second one in is the same: The Web view version is 47.0.2526.100 This is all I have received so far. Hope this helps.

@David this morning our client asked if these problems would still exist if we recreated their app in a different app development program. They have had almost a 5 star rating in the Play Store and iTunes for years but now the Android app is unusable because it no longer scrolls and the maps don't work on the Apple side. They are very frustrated because they get calls and emails everyday because the app no longer works and their 5 star is now a 4 star with a lot of negative reviews. I would rather stay with Buzztouch if these things can work here. Let me know if this looks like it is fixable, I need to do what is best for the client. Thanks, Greg

You can write back to the reviews on the play store and explain that google changed some things and you are fixing. Developers do it all the time as it shows the review.as a user I consider downloading it

Like I said in post# 9, WebView component is now based on Chromium and requires API level 19 to work correctly. BT targetSdkVersion is 14 and it needs to be updated. Here is more info: http://developer.android.com/guide/webapps/migrating.html

Yes, replying to the negative reviews is a good idea, thanks. Already been there and apologized and said we were working on a solution. I gave them an option to mail us if they wanted a notification when we get it working. That might be the only way we will ever hear from them again. I hope they get a notice from the Play store that we have replied because I think many are just uninstalling so they will never know if we get it working.

Thanks Louie, hopefully this will help out David.

>I would rather stay with Buzztouch if these things can work here. Let me know if this looks like it is fixable, While David is working his magic, here are a few ideas how it might work within BT: 1) As already mentioned, have the page return JSON instead of HTML and write a custom plugin to receive and display that data. This is the best solution if the data shown on screen tend to change in time. 2) Instead of Custom URL, make the first page any kind of menu, say, Menu Simple. In the control panel of that plugin, insert the names of the parts makers together with their URL addresses. That should fix things immediately. You can use the dataURL of the menu plugin. To that end, rewrite the HTML as JSON manually -- that would probably be the quickest fix now. 3) Rewrite the app from scratch, but within BT. It is possible, thanks to the ultimate openness of Buzztouch. 4) And of course, rewrite the app with some other framework. You probably lose on flexibility but hey, you get the app running and the nightmare stops for now.

That page is dynamically generated by pulling the manufacturers from the SQL database so I don't have an option to manually place them in the app. I don't know if this can be done with a plugin or hand coding JSON. Is that possible?

>Is that possible? Of course it is possible with a plugin. Have a look here: https://www.buzztouch.com/plugins/plugin.php?pid=334A4B840178A021CF61919 You will see in the very end of that page what the JSON should look like: Here it is for easier reference: =========================== If you provide menu item data from a remote file there is no childItems array in the screen definition in the BT_config.txt file. Instead, the menu items are pulled from a remote file. { "itemId":"1111", "itemType":"BT_screen_menuListSimple", "navBarTitleText":"My Simple Menu", "dataURL":"http://www.domain.com/theMenuItemData.php" } In this case the menu items would come from a backend script at the dataURL. Loading the dataURL in your browser would produce output like this.... { "childItems":[ { "itemId":"menu_1", "itemType":"BT_menuItem", "titleText":"This is row 1", "loadScreenWithItemId":"1234" }, { "itemId":"menu_2", "itemType":"BT_menuItem", "titleText":"This is row 2", "loadScreenWithItemId":"5678" }, { "itemId":"menu_3", "itemType":"BT_menuItem", "titleText":"This is row 3", "loadScreenWithItemId":"2948" } ] } =========================== There are two places that need to be fixed: -- the PHP on the server, which has to produce JSON like shown above, and in -- the plugin that will display the data natively. It is not easy but if you are a programmer that specializes in BT programming, it is a routine job. There are several people here that can do that, and (apart from me) -- they all have published plugins in the market here. Just to put things in perspective, when a BT plugin shows a video from YouTube, it has to ask for JSON from YouTube, download it, and then show it on mobile screen. Almost all apps that access servers from the Internet ask for JSON, get it, and put it on screen of the phone or tablet.

Thanks Dusko, I think we will have to try what you suggest. We have to do something. Not sure I can wait and hope that David can get the custom URL on Buzztouch to work properly with the latest Android. I just received an Alert from Google that there is a large jump in our uninstalls we are now at over 30 a day. We may need to pick your brain as we work on it.

>We may need to pick your brain as we work on it. Be my guest. Send me a private message here through forums or email me through http://duskosavic.com/blog/contact-dusko-savic/

@David @ Buzztouch any idea of how long it will take to implement the fixes to get the scrolling to work on Android? We could try reprogramming as Dusko suggested if it will take some time. We received another warning from Google Play. Last week uninstalls were up 50% and this week 69%. Let us know if it would be better off putting the PHP in the app. Thanks, Greg

The login screen can post to php, you would just change the form. Just need to change some of the code in that plugin

Can it populate the list from a SQL database?

Not sure what you mean exactly, but anything is possible with buzztouch. Would just require extra coding.

Hi Greg, Yes, you can populate the screen from a mySQL database. You can create, for instance, a Simple Menu List by querying a SQL database, creating the JSON from the results in a way that would create the menu list items, and then having that construct the screen. It's exactly like that sample PHP code I sent you last week. You can't run PHP directly in the app, though, because that's a client-server sort of thing, and you'd have to actually install PHP in the app, and, so far as I know, that's not possible. So, you have to make a PHP call to a LAMP server somewhere. Mark

As it is set up now the app uses a custom url page to access a PHP page on our site. This page is an unordered list that is populated from the SQL database.

Thanks Mark, I'm trying to come up with a plan B if it doesn't look like this will work or it will take long. I just checked Google Play and uninstalls are increasing exponentially.

David @ Buzztouch, Just an update on the custom URL plugin. Before it did not scroll on some Android devices but now it no longer works to view any remote pages on any of the devices we tested. The app appears to be dead on the entire Android platform as far as I can tell. Any news on when any solution may arrive. Thanks, Greg

David @ Buzztouch, Mark had said you thought there should be a solution to the scrolling problem towards the end of the week, so that is what I passed along to my client. Does it look like we are still on track? Thanks, Greg

Dusko, We need some help! Sent you an email through your site. Thanks, Greg

David @ Buzztouch, I need to know where we stand on the CustomURL. Are you still working on getting Buzztouch to work or have you decided not to update it to work with the new OS update. I have not heard anything from you. My client calls or emails every day since their app no longer works. I need to let them know tomorrow what the options are. Please let me know as soon as possible. Thanks, Greg

I don't have a new Android device to test on, but wonder if we are approaching this incorrectly. Can you work with the web programmer to see if he or she can make a change to how the viewport handles scrolling? What happens when you go to the same URL directly from a the Android Chrome browser? What happens with other webpages that require scrolling on the newer devices? Here is a link to the options. http://www.w3schools.com/cssref/pr_pos_overflow.asp

Hi Susan, We tried all that. I've been working with David on this...he actually found some Android issues due to a recent Android update. He fixed them, but needed to fix some additional items, so that's what we're waiting on! Mark