1173848 - Play button indicates wrong state , and there is a need to click twice on the play button to start playing if media.autoplay.enabled = false

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Core :: Audio/Video: Playback, defect)

Description

[Alice0775 White]

[Tracking Requested - why for this release]:

Steps To Reproduce:
1. Make sure media.autoplay.enabled = false in about:config
2. Open any video
   (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BH0BNbwqNK8 )
   --- It indicates that the play button is playing a video [||] --- Bug

3. Click play button to start playback
   --- Video would not start, Play button is [>] --- Bug

4. Click play button once more
   --- Video start,  Play is [||]

Actual Results:
Play button indicates wrong state.
There is a need to click twice on the play button to start playing

Expected Results:
Play button should indicate correct state.
Video should be played with just a single click the play button

Comment 1

[Ritu Kothari (:ritu) (Inactive, please n-i to RyanVM, jcristau, or pascal)]

This is obviously a bad experience for an end-user as the play/pause buttons are indicating the wrong state. Adding a tracking flag for FF41.

Comment 2

[avada]

It's even worse if you decide to seek first. Then the button will be stuck showing pause and clicking it arbitrary times won't have any effect whatsoever. Playback only starts if you change resolutions in the player. I think it's a serious breakage.

FF38 and FF39 are unaffected. Don't know about 40 (aurora at the moment).

Maybe bug 659285 could be the cause? That's the only one that looks relevant, from my search results. And it landed on central this month.

Comment 4

[Alice0775 White]

(In reply to avada from comment #2)
> It's even worse if you decide to seek first. Then the button will be stuck
> showing pause and clicking it arbitrary times won't have any effect
> whatsoever. Playback only starts if you change resolutions in the player. I
> think it's a serious breakage.
> 
> FF38 and FF39 are unaffected. Don't know about 40 (aurora at the moment).
> 
> Maybe bug 659285 could be the cause? That's the only one that looks
> relevant, from my search results. And it landed on central this month.

Filed Bug 1178858

Comment 5

[Randall Barker [:rbarker]]

I'm not sure there is a fix for this. Being able to white list sites would help but there has been no traction on creating a UI for that.

Comment 7

[avada]

(In reply to Randall Barker [:rbarker] from comment #5)
> I'm not sure there is a fix for this. Being able to white list sites would
> help but there has been no traction on creating a UI for that.

I don't understand this comment. Can't make a player play a video when the play button is clicked? WTF?!
Also it was working normally until it was broken shortly before this bug was filed.

Comment 8

[Randall Barker [:rbarker]]

(In reply to avada from comment #7)
> (In reply to Randall Barker [:rbarker] from comment #5)
> > I'm not sure there is a fix for this. Being able to white list sites would
> > help but there has been no traction on creating a UI for that.
> 
> I don't understand this comment. Can't make a player play a video when the
> play button is clicked? WTF?!
> Also it was working normally until it was broken shortly before this bug was
> filed.

YouTube uses custom controls in their video player. If you have chosen to disable the media autoplay preference in Firefox, firefox will now not start media playback unless there has been human interaction to trigger the playback. This now includes js scripts invoking the media element play function without human interaction. Unfortunately, the YouTube video controls do not verify that the media it is attempting to autoplay has actually started and toggles the play button to the pause icon. Thus when it is clicked the first time, the player attempts to pause an already paused video. This also toggles the icon back to the play icon so that when it is clicked a second time, the video begins to play. This is why it takes two clicks to start a video on youtube when the autoplay has been blocked.

Comment 9

[Randall Barker [:rbarker]]

(In reply to avada from comment #7)
> (In reply to Randall Barker [:rbarker] from comment #5)
> > I'm not sure there is a fix for this. Being able to white list sites would
> > help but there has been no traction on creating a UI for that.
> 
> I don't understand this comment. Can't make a player play a video when the
> play button is clicked? WTF?!
> Also it was working normally until it was broken shortly before this bug was
> filed.

The patch that changed this behavior and the discussion around it is here: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=659285

Comment 10

[avada]

I see. Thanks for the explanation.
Though it seems to me that that patch is as much of an issue itself as it's a fix.

Comment 11

[Randall Barker [:rbarker]]

(In reply to avada from comment #10)
> I see. Thanks for the explanation.
> Though it seems to me that that patch is as much of an issue itself as it's
> a fix.

It will only affect you if you flip the preference (accessible through about:config -> media.autoplay.enabled on desktop and settings->display->Allow Autoplay on Android). It probably isn't for everyone but we had users complaining about autoplaying media. This feature address the issue they were having at the expense of breaking some custom media players that are not listening for events from the media element.

Comment 12

[Matthew Turnbull [Bluefang]]

(In reply to Randall Barker [:rbarker] from comment #11)
> ... This feature
> address the issue they were having at the expense of breaking some custom
> media players that are not listening for events from the media element.

I see this breakage happen in Firefox's native player implementation. If I open an MP4 directly, it will only play if I click on the play button in the control bar. If I click on the large play button superimposed on the video, nothing happens. Same thing happens in the YouTube player.

If this brokenness isn't going to be fixed, then has there been any evangelism with player developers (i.e. YouTube) to get their players fixed?

Comment 13

[Anthony Jones (:ajones, :kentuckyfriedtakahe, :k17e)]

Getting rid of the pref would fix the issue.

Comment 14

[avada]

(In reply to Anthony Jones (:kentuckyfriedtakahe, :k17e) from comment #13)
> Getting rid of the pref would fix the issue.

And would create a bigger one:
One searches youtube videos of something. Opens a few results in a new tab. All of them start playing in the background.

Comment 15

[Anthony Jones (:ajones, :kentuckyfriedtakahe, :k17e)]

(In reply to avada from comment #14)
> One searches youtube videos of something. Opens a few results in a new tab.
> All of them start playing in the background.

media.block-play-until-visible=true covers that case.

Comment 16

[avada]

(In reply to Anthony Jones (:kentuckyfriedtakahe, :k17e) from comment #15)
> (In reply to avada from comment #14)
> > One searches youtube videos of something. Opens a few results in a new tab.
> > All of them start playing in the background.
> 
> media.block-play-until-visible=true covers that case.

Well it's definitely better that way provided you always want to view the videos in the order you opened them and/or only switch tabs with the mouse.

Comment 17

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

This is a YouTube player bug.

Comment 18

[Adam]

Chris, you may have missed this comment:

(Matthew Turnbull [Bluefang] from comment #12)
> I see this breakage happen in Firefox's native player implementation. If I
> open an MP4 directly, it will only play if I click on the play button in the
> control bar. If I click on the large play button superimposed on the video,
> nothing happens. Same thing happens in the YouTube player.

I see the same behavior that Matthew mentions with the native player. I also see a similar problem on Air Mozilla (bug 1196726).

STR:  

0. Set media.autoplay.enabled = false  
1. Load a video directly in a tab (e.g., drag one onto a blank tab)  
2. Click on the big Play button in the center  

Result: nothing happens  
Expected: video plays

For the native player, clicking the video itself never gets it to play initially. All it does is dismiss the center Play button on the first click, and subsequent clicks on the video do nothing. Once the video has started playing at least once (by the control bar or context menu), clicking on the video will toggle between playing and pausing.

On Air Mozilla, clicking on the middle Play button once turns it into a spinner. After clicking it twice more, it actually plays (the first click "pauses" an already-paused video, which suggests JWPlayer is managing state itself and dispatching to the element, the second starts it playing).

Comment 19

[Chris Peterson [:cpeterson]]

Thanks. I can reproduce the Air Mozilla problem, too. This does look like a Firefox issue, probably a regression from bug 659285. We can retriage this bug. However, since this bug can only happens with a non-default pref value (media.autoplay.enabled = false), fixing it may be a lower priority than other video bugs.

Comment 20

[Ritu Kothari (:ritu) (Inactive, please n-i to RyanVM, jcristau, or pascal)]

Based on comment 19, I do not believe this is a release blocker for FF41. With default prefs, YouTube play and pause work as expected in the browser. Setting FF41 status to wontfix. Moving the tracking flag to 42 and 43.

Comment 21

[Anthony Jones (:ajones, :kentuckyfriedtakahe, :k17e)]

This is a problem with the player ignoring the browser's idea of the play state. It is not fixable except in the player.

Comment 22

[Liz Henry (:lizzard)]

Setting flags to wontfix from discussion in previous comments.