iOS application improvement: manage short term wifi disconnects

[Anonymous User]

I'm using the latest version of the app on my iPhone with latest iOS version; I switched on the option to allow streaming on wifi only in order to avoid exhausting my 3G allowance.

The nowtv app repeatedly shows a very annoying behavior: the streaming stops and a popup error message tells me that wifi is not available. However the wifi connection is still shown as available on the iPhone status line and the streaming continues if I restart it manually. What I suspect it's happening is that the phone has a short term interruption of the wifi connection that restores itself immediately but not before the app notices the interruption and breaks the streaming. I noticed this firsts at home with my BT home hub, but it also happens when connecting to other routers.

What I would expect to happen is for the nowtv app to be smart at dealing with these wifi micro-interruptions, possibly take advantage of buffering and keep streaming or freezing the stream for a short while before prompting the error message.
With the current behavior it's very annoying having to restart the stream, especially because since the last app updates the app often fails to memorize at which point the stream was interrupted and I have to manually seek the right spot in the stream for resuming the viewing.

Is this something the app developers could have a look and improve the app? I'm also heavy user of the BBC iPlayer and the Amazon video app and no such a problem ever happens with them.

Thanks in advance.

[Anonymous User]

I'm on iOS 9.3.4

[Anonymous User]

Thanks @Anonymous User

I will pass this onto our iOS team and ask the question.

Thanks

Andy

[Anonymous User]

Thanks. How long do you think before an improvement?

[Anonymous User]

It won't be a quick fix @Anonymous User , the team need to investigate, develop, test etc etc

[Anonymous User]

Hi @Anonymous User

Our team have asked if your WI-FI assist connection is switched to on ?

If it is would it be possible to switch this off and see if any differance.

To do this follow these steps

1. Go to Settings
2. Select Mobile Data or Cellular
3. Scroll right to the bottom and disable Wi-Fi Assist

Let us know how you get on 

Andy

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the suggestion.

I tried disabling wifi asisst as you suggest however the problem still appears, so no improvements there. In addition, according to the apple documentation https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205296 the video streaming application should not be able to trigger the wifi assist feature: "Wi-Fi Assist doesn’t activate with some third-party apps that stream audio or video, or download attachments, like an email app, as they might use large amounts of data."

From the same settings page I then tried as well to completely disable access to mobile data for the nowtv app, but also this setting option did not change the behaviour of the nowtv app.

In all cases I get the wifi unavailable error message every 10 minutes or so, at highly irregular intervals, sometimes it's just few seconds, sometimes is several minutes; still I'm not able to watch an 1/2 hour tv show without a few interruptions.

Thanks for looking into the nowtv app issue.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks for the update @Anonymous User, I will go back to the team with your reply.

Thanks

Andy

[Anonymous User]

I am having this exact same problem using an iPad Air 2 wifi only model. 

I've had no such problems using Amazon Prime, or any other streaming service I use, yet with NowTV I've never managed more than 20 minutes before receiving a message that mentions the wifi connection. 

[Anonymous User]

I noticed the app update to version 6.4 yesterday.

The "wifi unavailable" issues is still present, but I noticed some differences:

1) previously, atfer the "wifi unavailable" popup message appeared the only way to continue streaming was to close the stream, reopen the same stream and manually seek the correct spot to continue watching; as of yesterday however, after dismissing the "wifi unavailable"  popup I can resume streaming immediately by clicking the pause/start button twice (this seems new with the app v 6.4, but honestly I'm not completely sure having tried exactly the same with the previous version of the app, so there's a chance this is only a coincidence)

2) sometimes, at random, instead of "wifi unavailable" the error message on the popup is "your cinema pass expired" instead; note there's nothing wrong with my cinema pass and I was also watching something from the entertainment pass, so clearly a bogus error message there

In summary, unless I missed something with the previous version, there seems to be some improvement but still far from resolution: other streaming apps seems to be a lot more robust in dealing with short term wifi interruptions...

[Anonymous User]

Hi @Anonymous User

Is this still ongoing for you ?

Thanks

Andy