dequeueBuffer: can't dequeue multiple buffers without setting the buffer count

I'm getting the error below on Android 4.4.2 Moto X 2013 in a Rhomobile 5.0.2 WebView app. The app is compiled with SDK 19 and minAPI 17.

After some research it seems that this is an issue with Snapdragon 800 / Adreno GPU devices:

here and here are the links to this problem on google issue tracker

Disabling hardware acceleration is not really an option, because it makes the WebView very sluggish.

Since the error is:

dequeueBuffer: can't dequeue multiple buffers without setting the buffer count

How can I set the buffer count in the com.rhomobile.rhodes.RhodesActivity ?

11-08 18:28:31.227: I/SFPerfTracer(238):      triggers: (rate: 0:0) (423387 sw vsyncs) (0 skipped) (0:361861 vsyncs) (2:863582)
11-08 18:28:31.328: W/Adreno-EGLSUB(4749): <DequeueBuffer:593>: dequeue native buffer fail: Unknown error 2147483646, buffer=0x61213afc, handle=0x0
11-08 18:28:31.331: W/Adreno-EGLSUB(4749): <SwapBuffers:1343>: Invalid native buffer. Failed to queueBuffer
11-08 18:28:31.331: W/Adreno-EGLSUB(4749): <updater_thread:456>: native buffer is NULL
11-08 18:28:31.346: E/BufferQueue(238): [com.myapp.myapp/com.rhomobile.rhodes.RhodesActivity] dequeueBuffer: can't dequeue multiple buffers without setting the buffer count
11-08 18:28:31.346: W/Adreno-EGLSUB(4749): <DequeueBuffer:593>: dequeue native buffer fail: Invalid argument, buffer=0x61213afc, handle=0x0
11-08 18:28:31.347: W/Adreno-ES20(4749): <gl2_surface_swap:43>: GL_OUT_OF_MEMORY
11-08 18:28:31.347: W/Adreno-EGL(4749): <qeglDrvAPI_eglSwapBuffers:3596>: EGL_BAD_SURFACE
11-08 18:28:31.347: W/HardwareRenderer(4749): EGL error: EGL_BAD_SURFACE
11-08 18:28:31.352: W/HardwareRenderer(4749): Mountain View, we've had a problem here. Switching back to software rendering.
11-08 18:28:31.478: D/qdgralloc(4749): Invalid gralloc handle (at 0x0): ver(-1/12) ints(-1/12) fds(-1/2) magic(????/gmsm)
11-08 18:28:31.478: W/GraphicBufferMapper(4749): lock(...) failed -22 (Invalid argument)
11-08 18:28:31.478: W/Surface(4749): failed locking buffer (handle = 0x0)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749): Could not lock surface
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749): java.lang.IllegalArgumentException
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at android.view.Surface.nativeLockCanvas(Native Method)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at android.view.Surface.lockCanvas(Surface.java:243)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at android.view.ViewRootImpl.drawSoftware(ViewRootImpl.java:2466)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at android.view.ViewRootImpl.draw(ViewRootImpl.java:2440)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at android.view.ViewRootImpl.performDraw(ViewRootImpl.java:2284)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at android.view.ViewRootImpl.performTraversals(ViewRootImpl.java:1914)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at android.view.ViewRootImpl.doTraversal(ViewRootImpl.java:1024)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at android.view.ViewRootImpl$TraversalRunnable.run(ViewRootImpl.java:5796)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at android.view.Choreographer$CallbackRecord.run(Choreographer.java:761)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at android.view.Choreographer.doCallbacks(Choreographer.java:574)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at android.view.Choreographer.doFrame(Choreographer.java:544)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at android.view.Choreographer$FrameDisplayEventReceiver.run(Choreographer.java:747)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at android.os.Handler.handleCallback(Handler.java:733)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:95)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:136)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at android.app.ActivityThread.main(ActivityThread.java:5102)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at java.lang.reflect.Method.invokeNative(Native Method)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at java.lang.reflect.Method.invoke(Method.java:515)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit$MethodAndArgsCaller.run(ZygoteInit.java:779)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at com.android.internal.os.ZygoteInit.main(ZygoteInit.java:595)
11-08 18:28:31.531: E/ViewRootImpl(4749):      at dalvik.system.NativeStart.main(Native Method)

This is an out of memory problem as it is indicated here:

> 11-08 18:28:31.347: W/Adreno-ES20(4749): : > GL_OUT_OF_MEMORY

android.view.Surface is making more updates then the GPU can handle. I am not sure that you can even try-catch this one.
I also believe that on many devices where there is no crash the users will experience occasional UI lags.

I faced a similar problem a few years ago. In my case, it was primarily lags, but I believe that the problem is the same.

To solve it I added a counter to measure the frame rate. I saw that the frame rate is high but then all of a sudden it falls badly, so I applied a balance-logic to search for the highest FPS that will not lag.

• Start with 60 FPS
• If its lags, divide the FPS by 2
• If it's not, then set it to average between the last value and the current.
• repeat until you are happy ;)

It's basically a binary search for the perfect FPS.

In your case, it's a bit more tricky, since you experience crashes, so you will have to persist the FPS counter, and be more careful with the search.

Send FPS logs to your server. Once you have enough data, you can be smarter with the FPS staring point per device module.

As far as putting your hands on the WebView SurfaceView I guess this is not trivial as well, but we are talking about Android 4.4.2, so there nothing you can't do with reflection :)