If you are seeing an extra blank window appear when you are in the Jiveworld player, it may be related to a feature on some devices that prevents the screen from turning off during playback.
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What's the problem?
Most computers and mobile devices turn the screen off after a short time if there is no interaction. This is used to save battery power and / or preserve the screen. For Jiveworld — as with video players and some other visual media apps — you may be watching the screen for an extended time and you don't want it to turn off.
We can prevent the screen from turning off while playing a story using a "keep-awake" feature if it's available on the browser or device. When this feature isn't available, we can "trick" the device into a keep-awake behavior — and usually this works as a backstop without any problems.
Occasionally it trips up, which might manifest in a blank (black) window appearing in the player that you need to close. This affects some browsers, and certain older iOS devices.
The solution
First, make sure you are using one of our Recommended web browsers for your device.
If you are still seeing the problem, you can try:
- Open the Advanced Settings panel, linked from the bottom of your Account page
- Turn on "Don't force keep-awake"
- Use your operating system settings to keep the screen awake for at least 5 minutes — long enough to listen to a chapter in the Natural Listen Mode (dark themed) Jiveworld player
If your device / browser doesn't use this special trick then this setting will be disabled. If you're still seeing a problem it is likely unrelated, and you should reach out to customer service to help address.
More details
How does the "trick" work? Most devices will keep the screen on during video playback, so when we need the screen to stay awake — during story playback in the Jiveworld player — we loop a small blank video in a hidden player to trick the device. Such are the dark arts of software engineering — and remember we only use this trick if there isn't support on the device / browser for keep-awake.
In some (rare) cases the hidden video doesn't stay hidden. In these cases try the solutions above.