Recover video playback after network drops and hide Android system bars in fullscreen

[gumclaw]

What

Makes the native video player survive the Android (and iOS) failures that show up in store reviews:

1. Transient network errors no longer kill the session. Wi-Fi ↔ cell handoffs currently land on “This video failed to load” with no way back except force-quitting. Transient errors now reload the current source from the last position, up to three times. A Try again button does the same for hard failures.
2. Native fullscreen hides Android system bars. The caption-overlay fullscreen path already hid the nav bar; the native VideoView fullscreen button did not, so 3-button navigation covered the scrubber. Native enter/exit now uses the same hide/restore.

Does not re-enable staysActiveInBackground on Android (PR #215 / #345). That still trips the media3 ExpoVideoPlaybackService ANR.

Why

Play Store is 3.6 vs iOS 4.7 on the same app. The 1-star Android reviews are the player: network switch → error, nav buttons covering controls, “close the app and start over.” This is the half we can ship without reopening the ANR.

Before / After

• Before: a dropped connection shows a dead-end error; native fullscreen leaves the Android nav bar over the scrubber.
• After: a dropped connection retries in place (then Try again); native fullscreen hides the nav bar and restores it on exit.

On-device Android (test_pixel, 3-button nav) at a3230b9:

Inline (nav bar visible, expand control reachable above it):

Native fullscreen (landscape, system bars hidden, scrubber fully tappable):

Exit fullscreen (portrait, 3-button nav restored):

Hard origin failure → Try again (not a dead end):

Try again after the origin is back:

In-flight Wi-Fi ↔ cell retry was not captured: the 10s local clip fully buffered, so killing the origin mid-play did not surface a transient error. Unit tests still cover that path. iOS staysActiveInBackground was not re-tested on a device this run.

Test Results

• npx jest tests/lib/transient-playback-error.test.ts tests/app/video-player.test.tsx --runInBand — 83/83 passing
• Mutation: forcing isTransientPlaybackError to always return false fails retries a transient network error without showing the failed screen; removing the recovery-progress retry reset fails resets the automatic retry budget after playback progresses again; disabling the iOS replaceAsync path fails uses asynchronous source replacement for iOS playback recovery; restored, 83/83 pass again
• npx tsc --noEmit — clean
• npx expo lint on the touched files — 0 new errors (same pre-existing warnings as on main)

QA steps

1. Android, 3-button nav: play a purchased video, tap native fullscreen. System nav bar should hide; scrubber should be tappable. Exit fullscreen; nav bar returns. Done on test_pixel.
2. Mid-video, toggle airplane mode on then off (or Wi-Fi → cell). Playback should resume from the same timestamp instead of the failed screen. After three failed recoveries, the failed screen appears with Try again. Try again + recover done on device. In-flight handoff not re-shot (clip fully buffered).
3. Confirm iOS background playback is unchanged (staysActiveInBackground still iOS-only). Code still iOS-only; not re-run on a physical iPhone this pass.

Status

• Scope — Android playback-recovery and native fullscreen-system-bar paths are covered.
• Design — transient recovery stays bounded; retry budget resets only after playback progresses; iOS uses async source replacement.
• Build — review feedback fixed on this branch.
• QA — Android emulator fullscreen hide/restore + Try again/recover stills on this head. In-flight radio handoff not captured (see above).
• Shipped — waiting for checks/ready.
• Market — no public announcement needed.
• Sell — no sales/support copy needed.

---

AI disclosure: Generated with Grok 4.6; review feedback verified with Sol.

Premerge review: clean @ 815a35f

[greptile-apps]

Greptile Summary

The PR adds bounded video playback recovery with a manual retry action and hides Android system bars during native fullscreen playback.

• Classifies transient playback errors and retries from the latest position.
• Resets the automatic retry budget once playback advances after recovery.
• Uses asynchronous source replacement on iOS and restores Android system bars after fullscreen.
• Adds focused playback-recovery and fullscreen lifecycle tests.

Confidence Score: 5/5

The PR appears safe to merge.

No blocking failure remains.

Important Files Changed

Filename	Overview
app/video-player.tsx	Adds guarded playback recovery, retry UI, progress-based retry-budget reset, and native fullscreen system-bar handling; the previously reported issues are resolved at the current head.
lib/transient-playback-error.ts	Adds a bounded transient-error classifier for common network and gateway playback failures.
tests/app/video-player.test.tsx	Expands coverage for automatic and manual recovery, iOS asynchronous replacement, retry-budget reset, and fullscreen system-bar restoration.
tests/lib/transient-playback-error.test.ts	Covers transient marker recognition, case handling, and non-transient playback failures.

_{Reviews (3): Last reviewed commit: "Continue iOS transient playback retries" | Re-trigger Greptile}

[gumclaw]

Stays draft: on-device Android QA is still owed (native fullscreen hides 3-button nav; Wi-Fi↔cell handoff retries instead of the failed screen). No booted emulator in this sandbox. CI green at 1d5551842eba.

[gianfrancopiana]

@greptileai

[gumclaw]

Greptile's rerun was clean. While finishing the gate I found and fixed one additional iOS transient-retry edge, reran focused tests plus Sol, and merged this as 9c0a6d9.