Problem showing VR tour on Android devices

[skyfocus]

Hi,

I have searched the forum but can’t find anyone with the same issue.

I’m on Apple devices and I have no Android devices to test it with

A customer complains that she cannot view the tour on a cardboard VR viewer. The side by side view is opened but the screen stays black.

I asked a view friends to open the same tour and they report the same issue.

It is the following tour:
https://www.skyfocus.nl/SkyFocus/Tours/ ... estinkhof/

The VR button on the right-bottom switches the tour to the VR mode.

This tour was build around august 2020 and to test it I have rebuild the tour with the latest 6.1.11 version. Same result:
https://www.skyfocus.nl/SkyFocus/Tours/ ... nkhof-new/

Is this a known issue? Can somebody with an Android device test the above links if the VR mode works ?

Regards,

Arjan

[Hopki]

Hi Arjan,
I also get this with a Pixel3 on Android.
But...
You are using an old player, without digging into the past I seem to remember there were issues with Android.
Please rebuild using the latest build of Pano2VR.
Regards,

[skyfocus]

Hi Hopki,

Because of this issue I did rebuild the tour as I mentioned with 6.1.11 .... as far as I know this is the latest version. I have downloaded this version two days ago ?!

This is the link to the latest build:
https://www.skyfocus.nl/SkyFocus/Tours/ ... nkhof-new/

Regards,

Arjan

[Hopki]

Hi Arjan,
I made a test using 6.1.11 and it all works on my Google Pixel 3.
It is up to date running Android 11 and Chrome is up to date.

Did you update the webxr folder?
Regards,

[skyfocus]

Hi Hopki,

No, this is the first time I hear about a webxr folder.

I have just reinstalled pano2vr with the pano2vr_install64_6_1_11.exe like I always do and I assume everything is updated automatically.
Normally I check the "HtmlTemplates/html5" directory if there are some changes in the .ggt files (I have some small mods in there for Google analytics and the favicon icon).

Where is that folder located ? And most of all, why should I update that manually ?

Regards,

Arjan

[skyfocus]

Hi Hopki,

I've dived into this a little bit deeper, to get rid of the probably old config files that (as I think you say) are not updated when installing pano2vr, I have moved the "HtmlTemplates" directory and reinstalled Pano2VR version 6.1.11 .... In the previous generated (for android not working VR option) virtual tour I discovered a "webxr"directory containing two files:

three.min.js 606 kB with MD5 chksum a2b58245eb263175208615cf46c64402
webxr-polyfill.min.js 162 kB with MD5 chksum c647ddad110559cd4edb7836e35e1caf

In the newly generated virtual tour (also not working for android) the same directory is generated with ..... the same files

three.min.js 606 kB with MD5 chksum a2b58245eb263175208615cf46c64402
webxr-polyfill.min.js 162 kB with MD5 chksum c647ddad110559cd4edb7836e35e1caf

Same files and same MD5 checksums .....

The only difference I see is that inside the newly generated "HtmlTemplates" directory a folder has changed name from "webvr-polyfill" to "webxr-polyfill" with inside the xr version the file that is generated in the output and inside the old vr version there is a file named "webvr-polyfill.min.js" .....

So, I don't know what is wrong here but I do think something goes wrong when installing a newer version over the old one. Where is the webxr-polyfill.min.js file coming from in the old "HtmlTemplates" directory ....

Regards,

Arjan

[Hopki]

Hi Arjan,
I was referring to the folders on your web server.
I did not know if you just updated an existing project online or this was a completely new project built with 6.1.11.
In the output folder, you will see the webxr folder.

Of course, I did not know if you just updated the player etc and not these.
But I am trying to think of a reason why a new build works for me and your project does not.
Regards,

[skyfocus]

No ... what I did was moving the output directory aside and completely regenerated the old tour with 6.1.11 and then uploaded it to a new directory

https://www.skyfocus.nl/SkyFocus/Tours/ ... nkhof-new/

But to get this going .... I now have completely removed pano2vr from my (Windows 10 up te date) PC and cleaned all directories that I could find concerning pano2vr or GardenGnome, in local and in Roaming. I even removed all entries from the registry.
I rebooted my machine and completely fresh installed Pan2VR version 6.1.11 ... entered my pro license and I leave all settings to default .... I then re-regenerated the old Hoestinkhof tour and uploaded it to my web-server in:

https://www.skyfocus.nl/SkyFocus/Tours/ ... hof-newer/

I asked a friend to test this version and he reported back that it still does not work !?!?!

You are on Mac aren't you ? Did you try the Windows 10 version ? And do you have a working link for me ?
Could there be something inside the (old) configuration file or (old) skin-file that messes this up, because that is the only difference now with your working version ?

I really need to sort this out, my customer is not happy now and needs a fix ...

Regards,

Arjan

[skyfocus]

Hi,

Yesterday I received an android device (Galaxy A6) to test this more into details. I now don't have to rely on a statement that it "does not work" but can see for my selves what is happening and when.

To test it I stripped a tour to the bear minimum with only two panoramas. I have used the simplex skin and added my VR button to see the difference. I have installed Pano2VR Pro 6.1.11
And here are the results:



The tour I'm testing with is here: https://www.skyfocus.nl/SkyFocus/Tours/Test7/

I'm surprised how much browsers are just not showing the VR-tour correctly on Android ....

Anyway .... the difference in both buttons is that the Simplex button is SVG item and my button is converted to a button. Don't know if that is something that results in this different behavior ?
The actions on both buttons are "Enter VR" nothing else .....

I will attach my test skin ... I have used the latest standard normal.ggt as html template ....

Regards,

Arjan

[Hopki]

Hi Arjan,
What I find odd is a test I make works ok, but open yours and it is still not correct.
Is it possible for you to send me your complete tour so I can open it up in the office and then test it with all my devices and see why it is different from anything I build?
The best way to do this is from the File menu, select Save with assets which will create a new folder with all assets in.

Make sure this new project is functional and does the same thing.
Then zip it up and send it to support.
Regards,

[skyfocus]

I have sent you a PM ...

[skyfocus]

Hi,

After some excessive testing and diffing between a working and a not working tour I think I have found
the problem!
There is a container (left from a previous configuration) in the skin that contains only one button. Both the container and the button have an action “Enter VR”. Removing the “Enter VR” action from the container solves the difference I experienced in the Android browsers.

But ... only 4 of the 14 browsers I have tested on Android can be used for VR viewing. Thats not a very good score ....

Regards,

Arjan

[Hopki]

Hi Arjan,
I would say as long as it works in Chrome and Firefox then that would be the majority of users covered.
Unfortunately if a browser does not support WebXR then not much we can do about it.
Regards,

[skyfocus]

Hi Hopki,

I do agree that those are the most used, but then again the old way with the cardboard output works on all browsers you throw at it. You don't have to ask your customer to use
a specific browser to see the tour. Ok it is not WebVR but I do not have clients with the expensive real VR-headsets (although they come down in price).
My customers want to show occasionally the Virtual Tour on a Google Cardboard and don't understand complicated VR setups. It has to be as simple as
switching to VR-mode, put your smartphone in a Google Cardboard and look around .... without switches and settings to be tweaked.

What I also do not like about the WebVR version, and I have mentioned that in an earlier post, is that the small spheres are very difficult to spot and I find myself
explaining blindly in words to someone who is wearing the VR headset where to spot the very tiny turning spheres and hold the stare-icon (which is also not very visible) on
that sphere for little while. And there is no way to change those icons to make them stand out more.

So I give up on the WebVR and go back to the cardboard output. I do like the explanation screen when the phone is in landscape mode, it would be nice to have that on the
cardboard output, I have looked for a switch in the skin that can sense the orientation of the phone, but there seams to be none ....

Regards,

Arjan

[Hopki]

Hi Arjan,
There is a logic Trigger, Aspect Ratio, which detects portrait and landscape.
See: https://ggnome.com/doc/skin-logic-triggers/
But in cardboard you will see this is each side.
Regards,