Paratext Lite doesn't fully open just after installation [Fixed by updating Android System WebView]

Question

Hi,

  There are a few tablet users here in the Central African Republic

who would like to get more familiar with Paratext Lite. A large
number of low-cost tablets was ordered and delivered about a year
ago, and I’m familiar with 3 people who’ve installed PT Lite on
them (I did 2 of the installations). The problem we’ve now seen on
2 out of 3 tablets is that after installation, the user opens
Paratext and all you see are the buttons in the top bar of the app
and a blank white screen down below. For the 1 tablet that worked,
I seem to remember seeing the fields where the registration
information could be entered on a gray background.

  Is there some kind of log file I can consult to figure out why

the app is not fully presenting itself on these 2 tablets? Has
anyone else seen this kind of behavior before? Is this even the
right place to seek help for PT Lite? Uninstalling and
reinstalling hasn’t seemed to help, and I can’t otherwise find any
obvious difference between any of the three tablets. They all had
identical configuration initially and largely still do.

Thanks,

n8_in_car
SIL CAR

Answer 1

Unfortunately the log file is stored internally to the org.paratext.ptlite application, and so is difficult to get to.

The only way I can think of investigating this would be to install android development tools on a desktop/laptop and connect the device via USB (after enabling developer mode on the device) and then run a logging command in a command prompt.

adb -d logcat | findstr org.paratext.ptlite

Then start paratext lite on android device, and examine the log as it starts.

Obviously that is a fairly complex task.

Another option might be to reset the tablet back to its original manufactures clean state, to see if that helps (if that’s an option, obviously that deletes data).

Otherwise, could you share some more details about the tablets.
Eg. Make / model numbers, Android OS they are running etc.

Also are there multiple users accounts on these tablets? (sometimes that can cause hard to understand behavior when uninstall/installing apps)

Comments

Thanks for the clues. I already have adb on my laptop, so I’ll
find out what I can see when I get access to one of the “broken”
tablets again. I’ve attached (if it works when submitting a forum
reply by email) the log output of the working tablet. I don’t have
“findstr”, but the command I used “$ adb -d logcat | grep
org.paratext.ptlite” is surely analogous.

Here’s some more info:
Manufacturer seems to be MediaTek
Model #: TK-E101GCM
Android: 6.0
Build #: KT107_V01
RAM: at least 959 MB (1 GB?)
$ adb shell getprop | grep mediatek
…
[ro.mediatek.platform]: [MT6580]
…

  Let me know if anything else would help. I'll have to verify that

the other 2 devices are identical to this one, but they were
ordered in bulk and all appear to be the same on the outside and
as far as Android goes.

  Thanks for the help in getting me started. I'll report back once

I can look at the other two.

n8_in_car

(Attachment ptlite-good.log is missing)

---

n8_in_car:

I don’t have
“findstr”, but the command I used “$ adb -d logcat | grep
org.paratext.ptlite” is surely analogous.

Sorry assumed you were using Windows.

---

I did not have an opportunity to evaluate the log file as
mentioned in this thread, but for completeness’ sake I’ll conclude
by saying the solution that worked was to give PTLite a loooooong
time after first being launched before giving up on the
registration info pane to appear. I also made sure the tablet was
on wifi the whole time, in case that had some effect. I opened the
app and waited 10 or 15 minutes, periodically checking the screen
to see if there were any changes, and I never saw any. But since I
was also on childcare duty at the time, I went away from the
tablet for more than an hour before checking it again. At this
point, the registration page was finally loaded. I was able to
enter the user’s info and continue to send/receive.

  On subsequent efforts to launch the app it opened fine without

any long delays, and the app works as expected as far as I can
tell. I’ll keep the command in mind, though, if I encounter future
problems.

n8_in_car

Answer 2

Brand and model?

Answer 3

The first time Paratext Lite starts, it does a bunch of installation tasks. Subsequent starts don’t do this so should be much quicker. However even on the slowest tablet, I can’t imagine it taking more than a couple of minutes, let alone more than 15 mins. So I don’t have any explication. Now that it starts could you do a Problem Report / Submit Feedback from the device. Perhaps that log has some info in it…

Answer 4

This is an old thread, but I’ve encountered the same problem on another tablet from the same series of tablets. For various reasons, Paratext Lite was installed as an APK file shared from the most recent version of the app installed on my phone, v9.1.11.51. I hope to regain access to the Play Store tomorrow, once the owner re-confirms his Google account info on the tablet, and I can try installing again, but from the Play Store, but this is what I could do today.

After installing the APK, I rebooted the device (just for good measure), turned off the screen timeout, started capturing debug output on my laptop with the adb command below, launched Paratext Lite, and let it sit for about 1hr 45min. The screen remained white and the app never opened, then I eventually gave up.

This time I captured the log output like this:

adb logcat ActivityManager:I org.paratext.ptlite:D *:S | tee -a ptlite.log

And here is the log output file (the text file had to be compressed to ZIP to be approved for upload):
ptlite.zip (3.3 KB)

There doesn’t seem to me much there, but maybe it will help anyway. I would appreciate any advice you can give. Maybe these devices just simply aren’t cut out for the demands of Paratext Lite? I don’t know, but it’s definitely a recurring problem now.

Comments

Thanks for the trace!

1. Since you know how to do debugging stuff , and the device is already in developer mode, could you try the following (when Paratext Lite is running, showing the whitescreen):
   a. open chrome on the device you are running adb on.
   b. navigate to “chrome://inspect/#devices”
   c. after a few seconds, it should hopefully show your tablet, and a link to a ‘remove debugging session’ (“inspect”)
   d. Click inspect
   e. In the window that appears, Click on the “Console” tab. are there any errors? If there is content, could you it?

2. updating “Android System WebView” from the play store is worth trying.

---

Thanks for the tips. I wasn’t able to try out #1, but I’ll keep it in mind for possible future issues. I was on a short timetable with these two users, who were only visiting the main office for a few days. But I was able to confirm that updating “Android System WebView” fixed the problem.

Hopefully if anyone (read: me) encounters this problem again a year or two from now, then they’ll be able to find this thread and be pointed to at least one solution.

Answer 5

FYI @hindlemail

Answer 6

Unfortunately, the Android tablet market is pretty diverse and some tablets just don’t work well with certain apps. A different brand of tablet might be a good option at this point, but hopefully Paratext Support can help sort out the issue.

Answer 7

Hey all,

This is not an answer but to add another similarly related issue.

Someone came in with a new tablet that he wanted to use for Paratext Lite. He's been using Paratext Lite on a smartphone no problem for a while now and it still works fine there. However, upon installing Paratext Lite on the tablet, it only opens to a blank white screen. Even after waiting over 1.5 hours...

Tablet information: Manufacturer, iDeal; Model, NoteBook 12 PRO; Tablet system version, Android 12.0

Related threads (from 2022!) I found but still didn't resolve the issue:

1.) https://support.bible/9957/paratext-lite-white-screen-will-not-start

Yeah, tried updating Android System WebView, but I cannot find it on Google Play Store, and found that Chrome interferes with Android System WebView (if one is enabled the other is or must be disabled...) See related thread #3.

2.) https://support.bible/5966/paratext-doesnt-installation-updating-android-system-webview

For this second thread, it's a bit more involved, I didn't have the time to try and by now the individual has returned to the village with the tablet.

3.) Issue with Android System WebView & Chrome compatibility

This third link (not a support.bible thread) was what came up on my research when I had trouble updating Android System WebView (ASWV) and also found the incompatibility of both ASWV and Chrome being enabled at the same time. While Chrome is up-to-date, for some reason the tablet is preventing the update of ASWV! The tablets ASWV version is in the 60s while the current version out there is in the 120s!

Seems like, one of the thing that needs to be taken care of first is to get the tablet to update ASWV to the current version in the 120s...! But the tablet is not having that... I found THIS concerning addressing the updating ASWV issue. But the tablet is no longer with us to test. So, maybe something to look into when the tablet returns into hour hands to troubleshoot again.

So, until then, any thoughts? Suggestions? Reactions?!

Thanks!