New Apple TV Giantbomb app GB Fan! Now in the app store.

Congrats! What an ordeal.

@conmulligan:More like a nightmare, but thanks!

congratulations @ev77! Well deserved full release of a great app!! Thanks @rorie for the support.

Now that it’s left TestFlight, any chance the artwork gets updated? This is the best GB app on Apple TV!

@tomydingo: It's definitely on my radar.

@ev77 Where can I find a link to the app or the name of the app? Did I miss it in the thread or the main channel?

@theadmin: No worries, search for "GB Fan" on the tvOS store.

ohhhhh!! I thought you were telling me about it as a GB fan! ha!

@theadmin: Haha, well I'm doing both =D

Hoping to have a new version out early next week with a few improvements:

- Brand new app icon and I've added/updated almost all the other icons in the app
- Search: You can now search for videos to add to your watchlist or play directly from search
- Did a little rework on carousels so you can quickly either minimize or delete a carousel once it becomes "empty" if you add the removed watched filter to it. (Minimize for a carousel that you think will get more content in the future or delete if it's a series that's already complete).
- Number of other small bug fixes and improvements

Got through review quicker than expected so it's now out!

Did you update how the multi-video watching works now? Seems like it pauses all videos at once now instead of one at a time and maybe even syncs them up?

Pretty rad duder.

Depending on what your previous version/build was the mutli-video screen has seem some major changes. But basically as it is now it has two modes: 1 - Synced and 2 - Unsynced.

When it is in the "Synced" mode the play/pause/forward/backward/pause-then-scrub will happen to all videos and it does some magic behind the hood to keep all videos in sync.

When "Unsynced" everything is done to the individual video you have in focus (outlined in red).

To switch between the modes while watching you touch (not press) on the touchpad until you see a prompt appear at the top to swipe down, then you swipe down and it should reveal a button you can press to switch between synced and unsynced.

Furthermore, if a set of videos have saved times and you play them together (from a carousel or wherever) it will start the videos in "Synced" mode, if no saved times are found for the videos then it starts them "Unsynced".

Hope that all makes sense, I've tried my best to make it work as best as possible given as little instruction as possible.

Basically you want to use unsynced mode to sync up the videos manually (which happens automatically on unwatched videos) then turn on synced mode and you shouldn't have to mess with them again.

New version released that updates the UI and does a complete refresh of the video info screen.

New version released with a few bug fixes I missed on the previous release. Working on a larger release that will refresh the create carousel screen(s) and flow.

@ev77: I just used the app to set up a custom carousel to display all the old happy hours. For some reason its not listed as an actual show so it doesn't show up on most of the other apps. Awesome work!

@xanadu: Thanks! Great to hear someone else shares the same feelings I had when I started making the app. There are a lot of old shows that aren't shows, and plenty of shows within a show that I was interested in watching but wanted to be able to put it all in once place to watch it.

I've also just released version 3.0 to the app store that refreshes the carousel building and editing experience. I know the old creation method had zero explanation and was pretty open ended; hopefully you find the new flow is much easier to navigate and better explains how all the different filters work.

Released an update (3.1) that adds a Date filter for custom carousels, as well as a few other bug fixes and improvements.

I've released another update (4.0) that adds top shelf support and fixes a number of bugs I've found.

I was messing around with the app and realized I had a pretty big bug on the video info screen with not being able to focus on the add/remove watchlist button.

So I’ve released a new build that fixes that and I figured out how to link into twitch for GB infinite so I’ve added that as well.

Now that I’ve got twitch linking working, my next goal is an update to check for all the twitch.tv streams that are hosted by the site and allowing you to view them and then link into them like GB Infinite from the app.

Extremely unlikely I’ll (ever) be able to show/play the twitch streams locally inside my app; but at least you’ll be able to click a button and be launched into the twitch app on the appropriate channel.

New version 4.2 has been released. I've added in support for all the twitch streams (you must have twitch installed) as well as other bugs and improvements.

@ev77: did something change with how custom carousels work? The one I made for happy hour doesn't seem to work anymore and I can't get it pull up happy hour at all anymore

I haven't made any major changes, but there is a possibility I've introduced a bug in one of my recent versions. Can you give me a little info to help debug it?

1) What version do you have installed? (You can check in settings)

2) What filters does your custom carousel have on it?
3) Also could you describe in detail what you mean by "doesn't work anymore"? Is the carousel visible? does it just say "timed-out" all the time? etc

@ev77: im on version 4.2(5). I had just a name filter for happy hour when it worked before and set to display oldest videos first. Ive tried just remaking the carousel now with same result: the carousel shows up on the app but it doesnt list happy hour videos. I think it might just be displaying all videos from oldest to newest? The first videos that show up in the custom carousel I made with only a name filter of "happy hour" or "whiskey media: happy hour" are: NON SUBCRIBER VIDEO, What Next Generation Looked Like Back In 2004, Reviews: Bad Company Review, Giant at E3 2008: Day 03 or 04. Giant Bomb Tour, Giant Bomb at E3 2008: Day 01...the list continues with just random videos that seem to be slightly out of order? I'm really not sure whats happening to be honest.

That is definitely weird behavior as the name filter should be an official filter by Giantbomb and not require anything special on my end. What you are describing definitely seems to be just returning videos from oldest to newest.

I think maybe 1 of 2 things is happening:

1) Can you see other premium videos in your other carousels?

2) Did you put the name filter in quotes or add any other non-alphabet symbols/characters in it?

Also: Do you have "Load content locally when available" on in the settings? If so, try turning it off.

And what tvOS version is your apple tv on? (13 or 14)?

@ev77: 1. I can def see and play other premium videos on other carousels.

2. I did not put them in quotes. I did have a : for Whiskey Media: Happy Hour. I tried creating a carousel without that and got the same results .

And "Load content locally when available" was turned off.

Ok, that was the problem. Try making a carousel that just filters on the name "happy hour" (no quotes). That should do it. I did make a small change for dates with how I handle URL stuff so the : is not getting encoded correctly and causing the call to "fail" and just return basic results (in your case all videos from oldest to newest). I'll fix the issue and it should be in the next release for future carousels that do need special symbols and such in them. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

@ev77: sorry but im getting the same exact videos populating when I just did a filter for happy hour.

hmm, that's super strange. I'll do some digging on my end but just to make sure I've got it right:

1) Load content locally is off

2) Carousel details are: Sort = Date Old-> New, filters = name is "happy hour" (no other filters)

3) app version 4.2(5)

4) You are getting other premium videos back in other carousels

5) You've tried creating a brand new carousel (not just editing an existing one) with the same sort and filter of "happy hour" and still got the same results

That all sound right? I'll see if I'm able to reproduce it, otherwise I'll need to add some console logging into the app so on the next app update you can go into the logs and read my off what is happening to better help me figure out what is going wrong.

A final 2 questions for you:

1) What tvOS version are you on?

2) Do you have any other custom carousels with the name filter or any other filters? Could you try making another one with a name filter (of your choosing) and see if it works for them?

@xanadu: While I'm trying to figure out what is going wrong and working on adding debug logging to the app, I think if you make a carousel that sorts from oldest to newest and add a premium=true filter on it you should get back (most) of the happy hour videos; along with a few others you can skip over if you want.

@ev77: sorry for the late reply. adding the premium filter seemed to do the trick!

@xanadu: I've released a new version on the app store (4.3), download it and try making a new happy hour carousel again. If you still have issues and would like to send me some logs, go into the Apple TV settings -> Apps -> GB Fan and find the "enable error logging" setting and turn it on. Then force close the app (double tap menu then swipe up on the app to force close it) and re-launch it. After scrolling to the carousel and attempting to load it go into the app's settings and scroll down to the bottom and find "Error Logs" and click on it.

If you then could take a screenshot(s) of the logs you see (scroll down if necessary) and send them to me in a PM here and hopefully those should be able to help me determine what is causing the issue.

I've released a new version (5.0) that adds sorting by video length and a new filter for who posted the video.

I just got a new Apple TV box instead of a normal cable box from my cable provider. Does that mean that I can use this app now? I have no clue what I am doing.

@htr10: Maybe? If it's an Apple TV with the funny remote that has a touch pad on it for movement you should be good. Just open the apple TV app store, search for "GB Fan" and download it.

But it shouldn't be able to replace an actual cable box, so if it has the coax cable plugged into it I don't think it's an Apple TV.

@ev77:

Thanks for the help.

It does have that funny remote and does not have a coaxial cable running into it. It works with WiFi and uses an App to watch what you would normally watch on a cable box. I’ll search for GB Fan when I get home. Excited to try it out.

This is likely just an Apple TV running tvOS. It can function as a "cable" box using TV Provider Authentication, so some providers have replaced their existing boxes with Apple TVs.

@conmulligan: Huh, that's actually very interesting; I've never heard of companies doing that before. Learn something new every day!

@htr10: Thanks, feel free to post about any bugs/suggestions/comments/etc!

Just wanted to report back that the GB Fan app works great and I’ve really enjoyed using it so far. I haven’t encountered any bugs and I think the interface is very smooth.

@htr10: That's great to hear, and I'm always happy to hear any suggestions or things for improvement you might think of. Thanks.

I just started using it, but its been great so far. So nice to watch videos without ads on my tv again.

can't get this to work. I tried to activate the app on the site.

first I entered the token.

the next page loads and it's enter the token again.

which I did.

and now on the Apple TV app it will keep saying Retry. click Retry. it will just pop up again

it's stuck on this loop

@bathala: Could you be a little more specific about what errors you are getting and where you are getting them?

Are you getting the retry errors on the website or in my app?

On the latest version of my app you shouldn't see any "Retry" alerts when hitting the "I entered the code" button. The app should only give a generic alert with an "Error!" title, a message, and an "Okay" button. If you are seeing something different you might want to check the App Store and make sure you've downloaded the latest version of my app.

If you are getting errors on the giantbomb.com website when trying to put in the code (after logging into your account) the code is case-sensitive so make sure you are typing it exactly as it appears. Potentially I think the code can time out as well, so if you didn't get it working within a minute or two I'd force close and restart the app to get a new code and try with that one.

Let me know if you are still having issues.

I've released a new version that has made very large changes to the underlying code to enable the ability to group video content together. A number of other small bug fixes and improvements were made as well. So if you run into any bugs or weirdness let me know, thanks!

App is broken for me, its impossible to navigate to the top off the app.

All i can do is scroll through Continue Watching, Latest and Latest Premium

@stevevice: Are you on the latest version of the app?

I think you might be able to "fix" it by scrolling down to the last carousel on your home screen and then scrolling back up to the very first carousel.

I am having the EXACT same issues. A workaround I found is to go into another menu (I went into the Breaking Brad main page), and the menu bar appeared. When I navigated back to the main page, the menu bar stayed.

Note that to navigate to the main page, I had to hit the “Home” button on the menu. If I pressed “Menu” on my Apple TV remote, the menu bar disappeared again.

@superpower:Would you answer a few questions? They'll hopefully help me figure out what is causing the issue:

1) What version of the app do you have installed? (Version can be found in settings at the bottom)

2) How many carousels do you have on the home screen?

3) Can you describe the sequence of events that caused the menu to disappear?

And thank you for the detailed steps on the workaround! That will very helpful in figuring out any edge cases I might have missed while trying to fix it.