1410688 - Firefox won't play videos on cbs.com, when tracking protection basic is enabled

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Web Compatibility :: Site Reports, defect, P3)

Description

[M Welinder]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Ubuntu; Linux x86_64; rv:56.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/56.0
Build ID: 20171003144318

Steps to reproduce:

Go to cbs.com, click on first full episode.  In my case that is

http://www.cbs.com/shows/48_hours/video/39_R7bxvncCoi_aIeZnz99GnrzXBAC3Q/love-hate-obsession/


Actual results:

Black area and "Please visit www.cbs.com to watch more videos" where video should have been playing.


Expected results:

Video playing.

Comment 1

[Kohei]

It works for me. Please make sure you have the latest graphics driver: https://support.mozilla.org/kb/upgrade-graphics-drivers-use-hardware-acceleration

Comment 2

[M Welinder]

Driver appears to make no difference at all.  I tried
1. Latest nvidia
2. Latest nouveau
3. Hardware accel disabled

The problem doesn't really manifest itself as a driver problem anyway: I don't get a
black or garbled screen while the video should have been playing: the page displays
an error message.

Possibly related: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1171858

Comment 3

[M Welinder]

Oh, and for what it's worth: Chrome displays the video.

Comment 4

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

I tried to play the link in comment 0 on my windows laptop and MacBook Pro with Firefox 56 and 57. Both of they can play it well. It looks it might be specific to Linux. 
Alfredo, 
Can you check it on Linux?

Comment 5

[Alfredo Yang (:alfredo)]

I can't reproduce it on FF 56 or 58 nightly on my local or disable/enable OpenH264 plugin.
Could you please try FF 57 or 58 nightly?

Comment 6

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

(In reply to Alfredo Yang (:alfredo) from comment #5)
> I can't reproduce it on FF 56 or 58 nightly on my local or disable/enable
> OpenH264 plugin.

Why are you talking about OpenH264? It has nothing to do with media playback.

> Could you please try FF 57 or 58 nightly?

I can reproduce on nightly on Windows, Mac and Linux. None of the machines I have handy have Flash installed. Can you try disabling Flash to see if that reprodces the issue?

Comment 7

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

Tracking protection breaks this site.

Comment 8

[M Welinder]

Confirmed with FF57.

Also confirming comment 7: turning off tracking protection for the site makes it work.

Comment 9

[David Baron :dbaron: (⌚️UTC-4, no longer working on Mozilla)]

bug 1416821 looks to me like the same bug.

Comment 11

[Michael Comella (:mcomella) [NI reported issues only: ex-Mozilla]]

I was able to reproduce this on CBS All Access, a paid service - having tracking protection enabled broke playback while disabling tracking protection allowed videos to play.

Comment 12

[Oana Arbuzov [:oanaarbuzov]]

Adam, can we get a test account from CBS, so I could investigate this issue?

Comment 13

[Adam Stevenson [:adamopenweb]]

Oana - I was able to use the site without an account by visiting https://www.cbs.com/watch/ with a US VPN. The tracking protection issue reproduced for me as well. With it disabled the video plays.

If you run into issues with testing it let me know.

Comment 14

[Oana Arbuzov [:oanaarbuzov]]

Thanks Adam, I used the URL you provided and was able to reproduce the issue. 
Using uMatrix I was not able to find any relevant domains that can be whitelisted in order to play the video. 

[Environment:]
Browser / Version: Firefox Nightly 63.0a1 (2018-08-12)
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro
URL: https://www.cbs.com/watch/
VPN: active poiting to USA

Looking at the devtools console, here are the blocked resources:
The resource at “https://www.googletagservices.com/tag/js/gpt.js” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.
The resource at “https://static.criteo.net/js/ld/publishertag.js” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.
The resource at “https://c.evidon.com/sitenotice/evidon-sitenotice-tag.js” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.
The resource at “https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.
The resource at “https://cbsi.demdex.net/event?d_stuff=1&d_dst=1&d_rtbd=json&d_cb=aam_optimizely” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.
The resource at “https://sb.scorecardresearch.com/b?c1=2&c2=3000023&rn=0.861826986228674&c7=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbs.com%2Fwatch%2F&c3=&c4=&c5=&c6=&c15=&c16=&c8=Watch%20Full%20Episodes%2C%20Videos%2C%20Interviews%20and%20Clips%20-%20CBS.com&c9=&cv=1.6” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.
The resource at “https://secure-us.imrworldwide.com/cgi-bin/m?ci=us-304254h&cg=0&cc=1&si=https%3A//www.cbs.com/watch/&rp=&ts=compact&rnd=1534144413616” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.
The resource at “https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.
The resource at “https://ad.doubleclick.net/ddm/ad/nup/jofap/;ord=1534144413685?” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.
The resource at “https://gum.criteo.com/sync?r=2&c=158&j=STRCriteoCallback&callback=STRCriteoCallback” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.
The resource at “https://match.adsrvr.org/track/rid?v=1.0.0&ttd_pid=sharethrough” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.
The resource at “https://sharethrough.adnxs.com/getuidp?callback=STRAppNexusCallback” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.
The resource at “https://s0.2mdn.net/instream/html5/ima3.js” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.
The resource at “https://ssl.google-analytics.com/ga.js” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.
The resource at “https://js.agkn.com/prod/v0/tag.js” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.
The resource at “https://pixel.mathtag.com/event/img?mt_id=1181523&mt_adid=129541&v1=sb%7C0&v2=%2Fwatch%2F&v3=null&s1=&s2=&s3=” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.
The resource at “https://dpm.demdex.net/id?d_visid_ver=2.5.0&d_fieldgroup=AAM&d_rtbd=json&d_ver=2&d_orgid=10D31225525FF5790A490D4D%40AdobeOrg&d_nsid=0&d_mid=13490729751716501060224811967630135033&d_blob=6G1ynYcLPuiQxYZrsz_pkqfLG9yMXBpb2zX5dvJdYQJzPXImdj0y&d_cid_ic=AVID%012DB897B68507D55C-40000108800007AD&d_cid_ic=other%01%012&ts=1534144414485” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.
The resource at “https://sp.analytics.yahoo.com/sp.pl?a=10000&jsonp=YAHOO.ywa.I13N.handleJSONResponse&d=Mon%2C%2013%20Aug%202018%2007%3A13%3A34%20GMT&n=-3d&b=Watch%20Full%20Episodes%2C%20Videos%2C%20Interviews%20and%20Clips%20-%20CBS.com&.yp=10020522&f=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbs.com%2Fwatch%2F&enc=UTF-8&et=custom” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.
The resource at “https://analytics.twitter.com/i/adsct?p_id=Twitter&p_user_id=0&txn_id=nv4v2&tw_sale_amount=undefined&tw_order_quantity=1&events=%5B%5B%22pageview%22%2C%7B%22currency%22%3A%22USD%22%2C%22num_items%22%3A%221%22%2C%22content_ids%22%3A%22%22%7D%5D%5D&tw_iframe_status=0&tpx_cb=twttr.conversion.loadPixels&tw_document_href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cbs.com%2Fwatch%2F” was blocked because tracking protection is enabled.

So below are the domains to test:
- www.googletagservices.com 
- static.criteo.net
- c.evidon.com
- connect.facebook.net
- cbsi.demdex.net
- sb.scorecardresearch.com
- secure-us.imrworldwide.com
- platform.twitter.com
- ad.doubleclick.net
- gum.criteo.com
- match.adsrvr.org
- sharethrough.adnxs.com
- s0.2mdn.net
- ssl.google-analytics.com
- js.agkn.com
- pixel.mathtag.com
- dpm.demdex.net
- sp.analytics.yahoo.com
- analytics.twitter.com

Looking at https://cbsi.secure.force.com/CBSi/ViewArticle_allaccess?popup=true&aId=kA00L000000Hfaq&categories=CBS_Entertainment%3AAll_Access&template=template_cbsvod&referer=cbs.com/vod&data=&cfs=SFS_FT, it seems that it is expected behavior for videos not to play while Tracking protection is enabled on Firefox.

Comment 15

[Oana Arbuzov [:oanaarbuzov]]

Attachment: CBS_videoNotPlaying.png

CBS info.

Comment 16

[Oana Arbuzov [:oanaarbuzov]]

After further investigation I manage to make the video work by WHITELISTING the below domains (including frames and related domains):
- 2mdn.net  
- akamaihd.net
- cbsinteractive.com
- cbsstatic.com 
- cedexis-test.com
- doubleclick.net
- fastly.net
- google.com
- googleapis.com
- optimizely.com
- theplatform.com

So in conclusion:
- 2mdn.net is in Disconnect list in Advertising category = [tp-ads]
- akamaihd.net is in Content category = [tp-content]
- cbsinteractive.com is in Content category = [tp-content]
- cbsstatic.com is not listed
- cedexis-test.com is not listed
- doubleclick.net is in Disconnect list in Advertising category = [tp-ads]
- fastly.net is not listed
- google.com is in Disconnect list = [tp-social]
- googleapis.com is in Content category = [tp-content]
- optimizely.com is in Content category = [tp-content]
- theplatform.com is not listed

Comment 17

[Oana Arbuzov [:oanaarbuzov]]

Attachment: uMatrixResults.png

Added uMatrix results.

Comment 18

[François Marier [:francois]]

(In reply to Oana Arbuzov [:oanaarbuzov] from comment #16)
> After further investigation I manage to make the video work by WHITELISTING
> the below domains (including frames and related domains):
> - 2mdn.net  
> - akamaihd.net
> - cbsinteractive.com
> - cbsstatic.com 
> - cedexis-test.com
> - doubleclick.net
> - fastly.net
> - google.com
> - googleapis.com
> - optimizely.com
> - theplatform.com

Wow, that's quite the list!

Comment 19

[Oana Arbuzov [:oanaarbuzov]]

I can no longer reproduce the issue on Windows with ETP - Standard enabled.
https://prnt.sc/vmwm6f

Tested with:
Browser / Version: Firefox Nightly 85.0a1 (2020-11-19)
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro

Cipri can you check on Linux also?

Comment 20

[Ciprian Ciocan [:ciprian]]

I am not able to reproduce the issue on Mac having ETP Standard enabled.

https://prnt.sc/vpxf9g

Tested with:
Browser / Version: Firefox Nightly 85.0a1 (2020-11-25)
Operating System: macOS 10.15.6

Comment 21

[Oana Arbuzov [:oanaarbuzov]]

Thanks Cipri. M Welinder can you reproduce it on your Linux machine?