Video player issue in browser

Support Tor Browser Desktop
1

I am using latest updated Tor browser but after this update videos are not playing in the browser. there is a green screen when we play on video.

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2

What is your OS? What is the video type? Can you give us an example so we can replicate?

3

Same problem.
Tor Browser 13.0.4
Windows 7
“html5: Video file not found” or just does not start.
This problem confirmed in KVC Player, JW Player and Fluid Player. Maybe in some others. Short videos (<10 minutes) sometimes work. Longer - no.
In Tor Browser 12.5.3 videos playing normally. If you do not open more than 9 browser tabs or do not start a video longer than 2 hours, of course. Otherwise the same error.

4

let’s try again … what is the video type? Can you give us an example so we can replicate?

what on earth are KVC/JW/Fluid players?

It helps if you can provide STR (steps to reproduce), for example

  • tor browser 13.0.4, clean setup
  • open the console (ctrl-k)
  • go to https://example.com/videos/cutekittens.html
  • click on the video titled secondbreakfast
  • expected results: video should play (and kitten gets second breakfast)
  • results: video did not play, got console error “TypeError: blah blah”
2 Likes
5

These are different JavaScript based video players.

@null, I appreciate that you’re trying to narrow down which types of videos trigger the bug!
In this case the problem may also involve layers such as the video codec, colorspace, and the system’s video drivers.

Example URLs would ve helpful, as @thorin mentioned. If there’s something about this that seems like it’s related to heavy resource use, it would also be great to see if there’s any observable limit you are reaching as the video stops working. Maybe the GPU memory info in taskmgr would help.

We’re just trying to narrow down the problem, and video especially generates a lot of hidden variables. Once we can find a reproducible case of the problem, we can get a closer look at what specific conditions might be triggering it.

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Did this happen only in TB13 or was it a problem in TB12 as well? You can download an older TB release from Index of /tor-package-archive/torbrowser/12.5.6 - unpack it to e.g. c:\TB12test, open it, go to settings and disable updates (so it stays on 12.5.6 for more tests if needed), and get testing

FWIW, In TB13 we increased media.memory_cache_max_size from 16384 to 65536.
We have browser.privatebrowsing.forceMediaMemoryCache = true which disables media cache from writing to disk in Private Browsing. MSE (Media Source Extensions) are already stored in-memory in PB. But this shouldn’t be an issue - just noting it, because stranger things have happened

7

@thorin , @beth
Okay
I spent a few tests.I used random sites and videos to versions 12.5.1 and 13.0.5
Next are examples:

  • https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8kt7b0 TB 12.5.1 result: video played. TB 13.0.5 result: video did not play, eternal loading

  • Twitch TB 12.5.1 result: video played. TB 13.0.5 result: video did not play, got console error “This video is either unavailable or not supported in this browser. (Error #4000)”
    As for Twitch, streams did not play in both versions, but clips play in version 12.5.1

new users can only put 2 links in a post, delete spaces.

  • (NSFW warning) hentaimama. io/episodes/hatsukoi-jikan-episode-1/ TB 12.5.1 result: video played. TB 13.0.5 result: video did not play, got console error “This video file cannot be played.(Error Code: 224003)”

  • (NSFW warning) rule34video. com/videos/3152814/bouquetman-compilation/ TB 12.5.1 result: video played. TB 13.0.5 result: video did not play, got console error “html5: Video file not found”

  • Youtube and most popular video sites work correctly in both versions.

1 Like
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There are a bunch of different things going on here

  • dailymotion + twitch work fine for me on windows (11) in TB13 series
  • the other two fail in my TB13 windows same as you
    • the hentai one pulls some console clearing etc when you open the console, so hard to see what is going on - works in Firefox (uses JW player)
    • the rul34 one throws a MediaError, code 4 - there’s also a Cross-Origin Request Blocked (not sure if related) - works in Firefox

What is your OS? e.g. there are known issues with codecs on linux

edit: HTML Audio/Video DOM error Property - code 4 is MEDIA_ERR_SRC_NOT_SUPPORTED

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I use win 7
Re-installation of video drivers and codecs didn’t help. And I think this is not the problem, since it works in version 12.5.1
Anyway, dailymotion and twitch are not important. :smile: Since you also saw the problem, at least fix hentai and rule34