Crash on LG V40 / S9 / Note 9 etc. (IllegalArgumentException: bufferInfo … presentation time)

Title

Crash on LG V40 / S9 / Note 9 etc. (IllegalArgumentException: bufferInfo … presentation time) — please bump Transcoder to ≥ 0.10.11 (or 0.11.x)

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TL;DR

video_compress 3.1.4 ships with Transcoder 0.10.5.

That version still forwards buffers whose presentationTimeUs (PTS) is negative to MediaMuxer.writeSampleData(), triggering:

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: bufferInfo must specify a valid buffer offset, size and presentation time

The bug was fixed upstream in 0.10.7 (and all 0.11.x releases).

Real-world data suggest ~0.5 % of Android devices (mostly 2018 flagships on Snapdragon 845 / Exynos 9810) are affected.

Proposal: update the Maven dependency in android/build.gradle to at least io.deepmedia.community:transcoder-android:0.10.11 (current stable is 0.11.2). No API changes required.

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1 Crash log (LG V40, Android 11)

E/TranscodeEngine: Unexpected error while transcoding.

java.lang.IllegalArgumentException: bufferInfo must specify a valid buffer offset, size and presentation time

        at android.media.MediaMuxer.writeSampleData(MediaMuxer.java:683)

        at com.otaliastudios.transcoder.sink.DefaultDataSink.writeTrack(DefaultDataSink.java:163)

        at com.otaliastudios.transcoder.internal.utils.EosIgnoringDataSink.writeTrack(eos.kt:28)

        …

Same trace on Galaxy Note 9 (Exynos) and Xperia XZ2.

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2 Reproduction steps

1. 
   

   Flutter app with video_compress 3.1.4 (no manual overrides).

   
   


2. 
   

   Call

   
   

   await VideoCompress.compressVideo(path,
   
       quality: VideoQuality.MediumQuality);
   
   

   
   


3. 
   

   On LG V40, S9, Note 9, Poco F1… the app crashes within seconds.
   
   Pixel emulator and Pixel 8 real device do not reproduce (software codec).

   
   

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3 Root cause timeline

Transcoder version | Change | Status
-- | -- | --
0.10.4 | Ignore size == 0 buffers (PR #158) | included
0.10.7 | Ignore presentationTimeUs < 0 buffers (PR #176) | missing
0.11.x | Same fix + misc clean-ups | latest

video_compress currently pins 0.10.5, i.e. the fix for negative PTS is not present.

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4 Field impact snapshot (Play Store, Apr 2025)

• 
  

  Android ≤ 11 share ....................... 32 %

  
  


• 
  

  Devices on SD845 / Exynos 9810 ..... ≈ 1.5–2 %

  
  


• 
  

  Those actually emitting PTS < 0 ... 30–40 %

  
  

➡ ≈ 0.5 % of all active phones will hit the exception whenever they compress a video

(~500 crashes/day for 500 k DAU if 20 % of sessions use compression).

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5 Work-arounds we tried

• 
  

  Catch exception and fall back to “send original” → saves crash, but no compression.

  
  


• 
  

  VideoCompress.setDeleteAudio(true) on black-listed models → works (bug sits in AAC track) but kills audio.

  
  


• 
  

  Local fork with one-liner guard

  
  

  if (bufferInfo.presentationTimeUs < 0) return
  
  

  
  

  → fully resolves the issue on LG V40.

  
  

All work-arounds disappear if we just bump Transcoder.

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6 Proposed fix

// android/build.gradle (library module)

implementation "io.deepmedia.community:transcoder-android:0.11.2"

// or at minimum 0.10.11

No API or pro-guard changes; build size delta is <15 kB.

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Thanks

Happy to provide more logs or a sample project.

Upgrading the dependency would eliminate hundreds of daily crashes for legacy-flagship users while leaving everyone else untouched.