Closed Bug 1353273 Opened 7 years ago Closed 7 years ago

Background media playback not working any longer

Categories

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: Audio/Video, defect)

52 Branch
All
Android
defect
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1355407

People

(Reporter: erlenmayr, Unassigned)

References

Details

(Keywords: regression, reproducible)

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0
Build ID: 20170323105023

Steps to reproduce:

I wanted to listen to a Youtube video like a podcast, just like I used to do often. Since I usually do this on train rides, it is important to switch off the screen to save battery and to have good buffering because of unreliable network connections.


Actual results:

Contrary to my expectation, it stopped playing in the following cases:
- switching to another tab
- switching to another app
- locking the screen

Even worse was the fact that the video did not just stop pausing, but also cleared the buffer. Switching back to the tab required complete new buffering of the video stream to play again. This renders Firefox for Android completely useless for browsing the web on a train.


Expected results:

It should have played in the background as it used to do.
Component: General → Audio/Video
OS: Unspecified → Android
Hardware: Unspecified → All
See Also: → 1339379
Huawei Honor 6 with Android 6

No system software update or configuration change happened that could be linked to the changed behavior. The change of behavior happened in the last few weeks.
Stephan,
Unfortunately, it could be 52 specific bug like bug 1339379 and might not be able to be fixed on 52. Could you try to use 53 to see if you still hit this problem?
Flags: needinfo?(erlenmayr)
I will not install a beta now, but I will happily report an update when version 53 hits the regular distribution channels.
Flags: needinfo?(erlenmayr)
(In reply to Stephan from comment #3)
> I will not install a beta now, but I will happily report an update when
> version 53 hits the regular distribution channels.
Great! 
FYI, 53 is going to be released around 18th, April.
Firefox Beta is a completely self contained app. It will not in any way interfere with your usage of Firefox. You can install it safely along side Firefox then uninstall Firefox beta immediately after your test. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.firefox_beta
Beta version has no problems with background playback.

By the way, in my opition this is quite a huge bug not to be fixed for weeks. Media playback is one of Firefox's killer features why people even care to install another browser on Android in the first place. I know several (non-IT) people who just installed it for this purpose of podcast playback.
I got some comments from users on Twitter about this. Confirming, and adding regression keywords.
Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Kaku,
Please check this bug as well. It looks similar to bug 1355407. 
Thanks.
Flags: needinfo?(kaku)
(In reply to Blake Wu [:bwu][:blakewu] from comment #8)
> Please check this bug as well. It looks similar to bug 1355407. 
Yes, I think they are just the same case.



Stephan,
Thanks very much for reporting this issue!
We're now tracking this issue on bug 1355407, and we suspect that Youtube.com is the one who stops the videos. We think that they're performing something like A-B testing so that users might load different versions of Youtube.com, one stops the video, the other one doesn't.

Could you please help to verify it? The steps are as follows:
(Maybe on the beta version only since the steps ask you to reset your profile.)
Step 1: reset your Firefox via the "Android setting" > "App info" > "Firefox" > "Storage" > "Clear data".
Step 2: restart your Firefox, go to Youtube.com, and load on video.
Step 3: unfocus the video (switching to another tab, switching to another app, locking the screen).
Step 4: observe the behavior (audio keeps playing or audio stops).

Every time you rest your Firefox and reload the Youtube.com, you might load different versions randomly, so, you might need to repeat the steps several times to observe different behaviors. According to my experience, it won't takes more than 5 times.

If you got time to help to verify, please also kindly help to report your result so that we will have more information, thanks again.
Flags: needinfo?(kaku) → needinfo?(erlenmayr)
See Also: → 1355407
(In reply to Tzuhao Kuo [:kaku] from comment #9)
> we suspect that Youtube.com is the one who stops the videos. We think that they're
> performing something like A-B testing so that users might load different
> versions of Youtube.com, one stops the video, the other one doesn't.

It's high possibility that the mobile version of the youtube website calls video.pause() after the page is invisible, because the video can still be playing after the app went to background if you changed youtube website as desktop version.
It now happened to the beta version as well. Deleting app data solved the problem, but that of course is not an option for regular use.
Flags: needinfo?(erlenmayr)
Stephan, 

Thanks for verifying, we'll track this issue in bug 1355407.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 7 years ago
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
Product: Firefox for Android → Firefox for Android Graveyard

Removing regressionwindow-wanted keyword because this bug has been resolved.

Removing regressionwindow-wanted keyword because this bug has been resolved.

Removing regressionwindow-wanted keyword because this bug has been resolved.

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