⚠️ Program Limitations

This document outlines the current technical constraints, functional limitations, and performance considerations of FastMediaSorter v2.

📱 System Requirements

Android Version: Android 8.0 (API 26) or newer is required for Standard / Lite / Photos. The Legacy flavor extends support down to Android 6.0 (API 23) or newer. XR / noLegal builds require supported headset hardware and the current OpenXR / sideload runtime path for your build.
Hardware: Performance may vary based on device CPU and RAM, especially for large collections (5000+ files).
Storage Access: Full functionality requires the “All Files Access” (MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE) permission on newer Android versions.

SMB: Best performance on local Wi-Fi. Supports SMB v2/v3 (v1 is deprecated but may work in some configurations).
Cloud (Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox): Files are streamed/cached on demand. There is no background sync for offline use.
Undo Operation: The “Undo” feature for move/delete operations is NOT available for network and cloud resources. Once deleted, they are gone (unless the server provides its own trash bin).

Local Files: Works completely offline.
Network/Cloud: Requires an active connection.
OCR/Translation: Requires a one-time internet connection to download language models (~15-50 MB depending on the language).

Lite flavor: Progressive http/https audio streams only. HLS (.m3u8), DASH, and RTSP are unsupported and will show an unsupported-format message.
Photos flavor: The Streams feature is entirely absent.
Live HLS/DASH: Only VOD (on-demand) HLS/DASH is supported in this release. Live-offset / live-edge HLS/DASH playback is deferred.
Playlist formats: Only .m3u playlist import and the curated FastMediaSorter catalog are supported. .pls, .xspf, and custom-JSON imports are deferred.
Playback position: Stream playback position is not saved or restored (dynamic source by nature).
DRM: No DRM-protected streams.
Closed platforms: YouTube, Twitch, and similar closed-platform URLs are not supported.
EPG / DVR / Timeshift: Not supported.

Images: JPG, JPEG, PNG, GIF, BMP, WEBP, HEIC, HEIF, AVIF. RAW formats (CR2, NEF, ARW, DNG, etc.) are NOT supported.
Videos: MP4, MKV, MOV, WMV, FLV, WEBM, TS, M2TS, VOB, OGV, DIVX, MTS and more. If a file uses an unsupported codec (e.g., HEVC on older devices), you may see a black screen. Solution: Use the “Open in External Player” option.
Text: Large text files (>100MB) may load slowly in the internal viewer.
EPUB: Supports DRM-free EPUB files only. Encrypted or DRM-protected books will not open.

Performance: Folders with 5000+ files may experience scrolling lag while thumbnails are generating.
Thumbnail Cache: Limited to 2GB by default (configurable in settings).

Local Only: Favorites are stored in a local database on your device. They are not synced to the actual files or across different devices.

Soft Delete: Local files are moved to a hidden .trash/ folder. This takes up space until you manually select “Empty Trash” in settings.

Limited Scope: The Wear OS companion app currently supports local media only. Network and cloud resources are not accessible from the watch.
Performance: Image and video processing on watches is significantly slower than on phones.

Hardware: Runs only on Meta Quest 2/3/Pro and Android XR headsets (arm64-v8a + OpenXR runtime). On a phone without an XR runtime, the app shows a fallback screen and does not start playback.
Distribution: Two channels - Meta Horizon Store / Google Play (vr flavor, Store-clean: no GPL extractors / no yt-dlp) and ADB sideload (noLegal flavor, all-inclusive: VR + Python + yt-dlp + GPL extractors, runtime-gated on non-XR devices).
No Wear OS Companion: headsets have no paired watch.
See VR Edition for the full constraint list.

Engines: The app uses a hybrid engine (ML Kit + Tesseract).
Latencies: Tesseract (for Cyrillic) initialization takes 1-2 seconds longer than ML Kit.
Accuracy: Recognition quality depends heavily on image clarity and lighting.

Last Update: 2026-06-05 Version: Current public docs set