Some of the users whom I’ve distributed the screensaver to get a lank screen showing “Error loading item named ‘Noise 2560x1600.mp4’ from id=0E021C6643@1x.mp4”
I have verified that the movie (Noise 2560x1600.mp4) is in the correct location with proper permissions, but the error persists. Only a handful of users get the error, and it does not seem to be OS specific (10.14 and 10.15).
Any thoughts?
-tep
What version of iScreensaver are you using? When a user sees the error, does it always fail or does it sometimes work?
Also, you say “loading image” but the file is apparently a MP4 video file, not an image file. Is that correct?
One thing to try is re-encode the video file again using a high quality encoder.
See https://iscreensaver.com/help/notes/video_encoding/video_encoding.shtml for some examples and tips.
I’m running 6.2.0.1301.
The user will always see the error, but not all users do. Does that make sense? So, the screensaver works for 90% of people, but when it fails for an individual user, it does so consistently.
Correct - the file is indeed an MP4 video file. I got the file from our media group, and can ask them to re-encode it.
Would I need to repackage everything, or could I just send the re-encoded video to the user?
That does sound like it may be a video encoding issue - there are many variaions of the MP4 file format, and some specific encoder options may not play back on some computers.
Can you ask the users what specific computer models they are using?
As for re-encoding: You can’t swap out individual assets. iScreensaver is self-contained, so to distribute an update you’d build a new version of the screensaver with the new video, and then send the screensaver installer to the users to install as usual.
It’s a 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro (Mid 2015). I’ll give the re-encoding a go - well, I’ll ask our media dept to do it 
Thanks!
We wouldn’t expect a fairly modern computer (2015 is new-ish in terms of macbook pros) to have any trouble.
If you email us with a way to download files, we’d be happy to take a look at your project and screensaver and run it through our test systems.
Some other ideas:
- Antivirus software malfunctioning.
- Unusual monitor situations (such as USB or WiFi monitors)
- Another way to test is to send the user the raw video file and have them open it in Safari. Since iScreensaver uses the WebKit playback engine internally, if the file plays OK in Safari it will usually work fine in iScreensaver.