How to remove duration and progress indicator in Android Auto when playing live stream

[jqi26]

I'm working on an app that plays a live-stream for a radio station that also needs Android Auto support. I'm trying to find a way to hide the progress indicator and duration (which seems to default to 1:40) on the Android Auto UI, given it doesn't make sense for a live stream. Looking at #339 I assumed maybe there was a player/session command to control this, but I've tried a few with no luck so far. Does a command (or any other way to control this programmatically) exist?

[tonihei]

We fixed #1256 in Media3 1.4.0, that sounds like the exact same issue. Which version are you using at the moment?

[albinus-sc]

@jqi26 I managed to remove the progress bar by setting the METADATA_KEY_DURATION extra to -1 on MediaMetadata.extras.

But I have the same issue, @tonihei, in that I don't know what to set to remove the duration in Android Auto, which is just showing the duration of the live buffer which is not very useful nor user friendly.

[tonihei]

@albinus-sc : Same question as above - is this still happening with 1.4.0 or are you on an earlier version? I believe we fixed this, so it would be good to know in which circumstances it still shows up the live buffer duration. If you have a reproducible example on the latest version, please share more details so we can take a look. You can also send test media links to android-media-github@google.com and report back here if you don't want to share it publicly.

[albinus-sc]

@tonihei Yes, we're using 1.4.1.

I'm not sure how to give a reproducible example. But I can say that our live buffer is about half an hour, and that half hour is what gets pasted into the duration on Android Auto. It works as intended in the media notification on Android 14. No duration is shown there, and no progress bar either.

[albinus-sc]

@tonihei I have sent the HLS stream link we use to the provided email address.

[jqi26]

Thanks @tonihei . No we're still on 1.3.1, can confirm I get the same result as @albinus-sc after upgrading.

1.3.1:

1.4.1:

Ideally it would be possible to get rid of the progress bar and time elapsed entirely? Though I see the bar is in the notification as well. Also tried seeing what happens in the Media3 sample when I stick our m3u8 file there; I get this:

Similarly the time elapsed keeps resetting to zero seconds, ideally these elements aren't there at all.

[billyjoker]

Hi the same issue for me, I added in this way but it has no effect

                val extras = Bundle().apply {
                    putLong(MediaMetadataCompat.METADATA_KEY_DURATION, C.TIME_UNSET)
                }
                val playbackStateBuilder = PlaybackStateCompat.Builder().apply {
                    setState(PlaybackStateCompat.STATE_PLAYING, C.TIME_UNSET, 1f, C.TIME_UNSET)
                    setActions(PlaybackStateCompat.ACTION_PAUSE)
                    setExtras(extras)
                }
                mMediaSession?.setPlaybackState(playbackStateBuilder.build())

            The same behaviour using a `-1` instead of `C.TIME_UNSET`. I am using legacy instead of Media3.
            
            POSSIBLE HINT: maybe it could be resolved by hiding the field using reflection ? @tonihei 

[albinus-sc]

@tonihei Hey, any update on this issue?