Stream request results in multiple requests

[juliusspencer]

Description

When the ExoPlayer is used to play certain audio files by streaming them from the network, the ExoPlayer makes 2 attempts to retrieve the file at varying byte offsets before commencing playback.

Steps to reproduce the problem from the demo application:

1. Install the demo application
2. Select Google Play (MP3 Audio)

Details
One execution of the example above, connected over wifi on a Nexus 6P, produced the following network requests:

GET /exoplayer-test-media-0/play.mp3 HTTP/1.1
User-Agent ExoPlayerDemo/1.5.2 (Linux;Android 6.0.1) ExoPlayerLib/1.5.2
Accept-Encoding identity
Host storage.googleapis.com
Connection Keep-Alive

GET /exoplayer-test-media-0/play.mp3 HTTP/1.1
Range bytes=313-
User-Agent ExoPlayerDemo/1.5.2 (Linux;Android 6.0.1) ExoPlayerLib/1.5.2
Accept-Encoding identity
Host storage.googleapis.com
Connection Keep-Alive

Expected behaviour
Only a single network request is made by the ExoPlayer.

Notes
We encounter this problem with AAC/MP4 files as well.

When we test this file (/exoplayer-test-media-0/play.mp3) with the Android MediaPlayer, it loads in one request.

GET /exoplayer-test-media-0/play.mp3 HTTP/1.1
User-Agent stagefright/1.2 (Linux;Android 5.0.2)
Host storage.googleapis.com
Connection Keep-Alive
Accept-Encoding gzip

[ojw28]

Yes, this is a known sub-optimality related to how stream selection works in ExtractorSampleSource at the moment. We plan on fixing it.

[juliusspencer]

Thanks for the quick response, can we expect this behaviour for all tracks (MP3, AAC etc) or just some?

[ojw28]

I believe this currently happens for all container media types. It does not occur for DASH or SmoothStreaming playbacks.

[swxch1985]

Will you have the plan to fix this issue?

[ojw28]

We're currently working on a 2.0 version of ExoPlayer, in which this issue will be fixed. We do not have an ETA as of now.

[ojw28]

This is fixed in the 2.x.x experimental branch.