Audio files sometimes displaying error message

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1

Hi:

I am building an app for my students. This includes multiple MP3 audio files - not usually bigger than 3MB.

Sometimes (80% of time) they load perfectly. Other times they do not load and error message is displayed in the audio player. When this happens all audio files will not load until the app is restarted -then fine again.

I do not think it is my wifi / phone connection which is fast.

I am using Google Sheets and the link in Google Sheets is to audio files that are stored in Google Drive.

I would appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks

Paul

2

That is most likely the problem. GDrive is not optimised for serving media files. You’d be better off using Glide storage for your audio files.

3

OK Thanks. How do I do this: upload audio / video directly to Glide and then get a link for my data tables?

Thanks

Paul

4

You should be able to do that with a file picker component, when you add or edit your row.

5

OK thanks. I’ll try that.

Paul

6

Even I have found that to be the most reliable way to display the audio and videos in glide,
Use a file picker to upload the files directly to glide.

7

Actually: I don’t know how to do this. I am going to upload hundreds of short audio MP3 files. I am making an app rather than page. These are parts of questions. Some questions have audio files - others not. Usually I just have an audio column on the question sheet and insert the link to the Google Drive file. There I can upload many files and insert them where necessary (somtimes multiple locations).

I have tried the “file picker” component on new tab in the app - is this what you mean? - but cannot seem to upload several files and cannot control where they go in the data sheet.

Is there any video I can watch on this, or doc to read?

Thanks

8

A quick and dirty way to do it is to place a file picker on the detail screen for your questions. Then go through each question and upload the appropriate file. The file picker should be set to the column that contains your url. Once everything is updated, then you can remove the file picker component.

Another option is to switch the url column in the data editor to an image type column. Then click on each cell and upload your file that way.

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9

Thanks very much.

I’ve tried switching the url column to an image column to do the upload - that works for me because it is what I am familiar with. Is there any way to see the files that have been uploaded to Glide in some kind of directory structure? If I delete a file (video for example which may be large) from the data editor does it disappear from Glide and not count towards my storage quota - and if it is still there, how do I get the link to reuse it later without uploading it again?

Thanks again.

Paul

10

If the file is no longer referenced anywhere in your App (or any other App), it will be deleted from Glide storage after a period of time - I think about 30 days.

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11

Ok thanks. Got it.