1356942 - Playback error: cannot play HLS video source from foxnews.com on Fennec with Android 6 or lower.

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Audio/Video: Playback, enhancement, P3)

Description

[Tzuhao Kuo [:kaku]]

Spawn from bug 1350649 comment 24.

Videos of foxnews.com have several kinds of source formats and they try to load a .m3u8 source at the very beginning. If the .m3u8 fails to be loaded, they try other kinds of formats.

Fennec does not natively support the .m3u8 format, we use an external Android player to play .m3u8 videos as a work-around. However, the work-around does not work on foxnews.com because the check here: http://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/a7334b2896ed720fba25800e11e24952e6037d77/dom/html/HTMLMediaElement.cpp#1332-1335

So, at the moment, Fennec is not able to play a .m3u8 source for videos on foxnews.com, and the re-try logics of foxnews.com depends on the Android version.

(1) On Android 7, they try to load other format which Fennec supports and the playback starts.
(2) On Android 6 or lower, they re-load the same .m3u8 source again and playback fails.


Possible solutions:
(1) Modify the logics of using an external app to play .m3u8 format, especially remove the check at http://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/a7334b2896ed720fba25800e11e24952e6037d77/dom/html/HTMLMediaElement.cpp#1332-1335
(2) Wait until we support the .m3u8 format natively, bug 1345752.

Comment 1

[Tzuhao Kuo [:kaku]]

(In reply to Tzuhao Kuo [:kaku] from comment #0)
> Possible solutions:
> (1) Modify the logics of using an external app to play .m3u8 format,
> especially remove the check at
> http://searchfox.org/mozilla-central/rev/
> a7334b2896ed720fba25800e11e24952e6037d77/dom/html/HTMLMediaElement.cpp#1332-
> 1335
> (2) Wait until we support the .m3u8 format natively, bug 1345752.
:bwu, WDYT?

Comment 2

[Blake Wu [:bwu][:blakewu]]

The second solution should be better since it puts our resources to focus on what will continue to use in the future, not a temporary solution.

Comment 3

[Tzuhao Kuo [:kaku]]

Then, I will keep an eye on this bug.

Comment 4

[Kilik Kuo [:kikuo] (inactive)]

Just tested on a Z3C Android 5.1.1 with Fennec Nightly.
MSE will be used prior to HLS, and playback works correctly either using MSE or HLS now.