[ShakaPlayer] HLS in-band captions missing

[will.harris]

Before you continue

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NOTE: PLEASE ONLY REPORT A SINGLE BUG USING THIS TEMPLATE.
If you’re experiencing multiple issues, please file a separate report for each.

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Bug Description

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1. Summary

Using ShakaPlayer to play HLS Live streams with CEA-608/708 in-band captions, the captions are not being parsed and added to the text track.

App Name:
App Link on Amazon Appstore (found through Developer Console → Actions column in App List → View on Amazon.com):

Bug Severity
Select one that applies

• [ x] Impacts operation of app
• Blocks current development
• Improvement suggestion
• Issue with documentation (If selected, please share the doc link and describe the issue)
• Other

2. Steps to Reproduce

1. Build the KeplerVideoApp
2. Play an HLS stream with in-band captions

3. Observed Behavior

Explain what actually happened, noting any discrepancies or malfunctions.

No text tracks are found. Captions cannot be displayed.

4. Expected Behavior

Describe what you expected the SDK to do under normal operation.

Captions to be displayed.

4.a Possible Root Cause & Temporary Workaround

Fill out anything you have tried. If you don’t know, N/A is acceptable

This appears to be an issue in the ShakaPlayer versions used for Kepler. This behavior can be observed in ShakaPlayer versions before 4.9.0.

5. Logs or crash report

(Please make sure to provide relevant logs as attachment and share VPKG file with your Amazon contact)

For crash issues, please refer this guide for faster troubleshooting: https://developer.amazon.com/docs/kepler-tv/detect-crash.html.

• App/Device Logs
• Crash Logs
• Crash Report
• For issues with Kepler Studio Extension, please share log files from below folders:

   ~/.vscode/extensions/amazon.kepler-extension-<version>/ExtensionLogs
   ~/.vscode/extensions/amazon.kepler-ui-extension-<version>/ExtensionLogs
  

6. Environment

Please fill out the fields related to your bug below:

• SDK Version: 0.20.3207
• App State: [Foreground]
• OS Information
  Please ssh into the device via kepler exec vda shelland copy the output from cat /etc/os-releaseinto the answer section below. Note, if you don’t have a simulator running or device attached kepler exec vda shell will respond with vda: no devices/emulators found

NAME="OS"
OE_VERSION="4.0.0"
OS_MAJOR_VERSION="1"
OS_MINOR_VERSION="1"
RELEASE_ID="2"
OS_VERSION="1.1"
BRANCH_CODE="VegaMainlineTvIntegration"
BUILD_DESC="OS 1.1 (VegaMainlineTvIntegration/4410)"
BUILD_FINGERPRINT="4.0.146129.0(3072cab629675a74)/4410N:user-external/release-keys"
BUILD_VARIANT="user-external"
BUILD_TAGS="release-keys"
BUILD_DATE="Mon Aug 11 19:35:31 UTC 2025"
BUILD_TIMESTAMP="1754940931"
VERSION_NUMBER="201010441050"
## 7. Example Code Snippet / Screenshots / Screengrabs

Include any relevant code or component setup in React Native that can help reproduce the bug.

import { ExampleComponent } from 'custom-sdk';

<ExampleComponent config={{ key: 'value' }} />

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Playback Issues

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If this is a playback issue, please provide your VPKG and/or content URL, any pre-conditions (like geo-location) [Share privately with your Amazon contact] , and let us know if it’s x86 or arm7.

<!-- Describe your playback issue if applicable -->

Please share the following details in addition:_

• Player SDK: [Shaka]
• Player SDK Version: [4.8.5]
  • Audio Codecs: [AAC, ...]
  • Video Codecs: [h.264, mp4]
  • Manifest Types: [m3u8]

Q: Would you like to be contacted to share your latest VPKG compiled with latest SDK:

Y

Q: VPN or Login needed to verify functionality in VPKG?

N

Q: If applicable, please provide your media/content url
If this is created dynamically, tokenized, etc please provide a way for us to access it

Share privately with your Amazon contact]

Q: Are there any special headers required to reproduce the issue you are facing?

N

Additionally please provide the following if possible
Provide Screenshots / Screengrabs / Logs. Please include as much information as you can that will help debug.

<!-- Answer here if applicable --> 

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Additional Context

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Any Additional Context you would like to provide?
Add any other relevant information, such as recent updates to the SDK, dependencies, or device OS that may affect the bug.

<!-- Answer here if applicable  --> 

[Amz_Rsk]

Hi @will.harris ,

Could you please provide logs for this issue and share the vpkg with your Amazon POC please?

Thanks,
Rohit

[satish_amazon]

@will.harris

Per our chat, you are no longer able to repro this issue on your end, so closing this post. Our guidance is to use W3CMedia for CEA608/708 caption decoding.

Ref: https://developer.amazon.com/docs/kepler-tv/media-player-faq.html