suddenly getting HTML5 error on many youtube vids

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ginahoy
Posts: 245
Joined: October 18th, 2007, 8:32 pm

Re: suddenly getting HTML5 error on many youtube vids

Post by ginahoy »

@James, thanks for your reply. I wasn't aware there's a Shockwave player other than the flash plugin. Thanks for the clarification.

I already have a Linux machine (on which I'm currently posting this), but my wife doesn't have that option, at least not any time soon. Before I built my new machine I tried setting up Linux dual boot on my XP desktop and in the process I toasted my XP machine (probably because I'm a novice at Linux, gparted, etc). That ended up costing me many hours of troubleshooting before I finally was able to restore my machine. So I'm a bit hesitant to try that on my wife's laptop ;->

I started this thread because I suddenly saw a problem that wasn't expected. Now I understand exactly what caused it. If the MSFN thread posted by therube provides a work-around or solution, that's great. If not, at least I know now that if I get that error, I just need to wait until youtube converts the video to webm.
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Reflective
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Re: suddenly getting HTML5 error on many youtube vids

Post by Reflective »

You could conceivably play a yt video which hasn't been converted to WebM yet on Flash player by setting media.webm.enabled to false in about:config
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Grumpus
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Re: suddenly getting HTML5 error on many youtube vids

Post by Grumpus »

I tried the link to the You Tube video in your first post and had no problem playing it.
I'm thinking you have done something which is causing interference.
As the link is for CNN, have you enabled the DRM content switch in /edit/preference/ (either in the Applications tab or the General tab for later versions than 55?
Also, because of the way Ubuntu/Mint have been modified you can go into about:config and toggle plugin.load_flash_only to false and it will show your other plugins.
In my case the only thing I have activated is Widevine and haven't run into a problem with any YouTube videos. DRM needs to be checked in order for Widevine to work.
On one of the systems I still have the VLC but that is set to ask.
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ginahoy
Posts: 245
Joined: October 18th, 2007, 8:32 pm

Re: suddenly getting HTML5 error on many youtube vids

Post by ginahoy »

Reflective wrote:You could conceivably play a yt video which hasn't been converted to WebM yet on Flash player by setting media.webm.enabled to false in about:config
When I do that I can't play any youtube videos!
Grumpus wrote:I tried the link to the You Tube video in your first post and had no problem playing it.
Yes, as i mentioned in a previous comment, that video plays now because youtube added the webm versions since my original post. When a video first gets uploaded in mp4 format, it won't play on my machine. Some time later, I think less than a day, youtube converts mp4 to webm and then I can play it. I explained previously how I discovered this is what's happening. I posted a log from youtube-dl showing the formats that were available at the time of my original post, and then again yesterday. As you can see, the webm versions were not there initially.

My questions relate only to my XP machine, not my Linux machine. I don't have any problems with youtube videos on the Linux machine, including videos that have not yet been converted to webm.

Regarding DRM... As I mentioned previously, I tested this in v51 and v52. I reverted to v51 last night and there's no DRM setting. There was a DRM setting in v52, and it was checked when I was testing this yesterday.
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therube
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Re: suddenly getting HTML5 error on many youtube vids

Post by therube »

that video plays now because youtube added the webm versions since my original post. When a video first gets uploaded in mp4 format, it won't play on my machine. Some time later, I think less than a day, youtube converts mp4 to webm and then I can play it. I explained previously how I discovered this is what's happening. I posted a log from youtube-dl showing the formats that were available at the time of my original post, and then again yesterday. As you can see, the webm versions were not there initially.
Yep, that's it.
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