1427223 - Media playback requires page refresh after bluetooth disconnect

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Core :: Audio/Video: Playback, defect, P2)

Description

[Lloyd Wallis]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:58.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/58.0
Build ID: 20171218174357

Steps to reproduce:

On Firefox DE, 58.0b12 (64-bit), Windows 10 Insider, version 1709.

Sites I tried:
- Originally noticed on https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00pk7ls/doctor-who-the-end-of-time-part-two
- Reproducible on YouTube (not geoblocked, and not BBC's player)
- Something that doesn't use MSE (i.e. simple video src="thing.mp4"): https://ystv.co.uk/watch/drama/Checkmate/
- Just loading a video in the browser direct: http://download.blender.org/peach/bigbuckbunny_movies/big_buck_bunny_720p_h264.mov

1. Have a Bluetooth headset connected and set as the default audio output
2. Go to a web page that plays back video content
3. Start playing the content
4. Switch off the Bluetooth device
5. Observe results
6. Switch on (and reconnect if not automatic) Bluetooth device
7. Observe results


Actual results:

When the device is disconnected, playback stops, but there are no API/UI updates to indicated this. There's no JS 'paused' or 'waiting' event, or change to playbackRate, and interrogating those APIs suggests playback is still continuing, except for currentTime no longer incrementing.

Additionally, in the tab bar, the speaker icon remains active suggesting the browser believes there is still an active media playback session.

When reconnecting, this state does not change. A force play/unplay does not change this state, however a mediaElement.currentTime = mediaElement.currentTime does. This means a page reload for someone who doesn't permanently have the dev console open when watching something.

In one attempt, http://download.blender.org/peach/bigbuckbunny_movies/big_buck_bunny_720p_h264.mov did not fail in this way, it carried on playing switching between output devices.


Expected results:

I'm not the best at UX, but something that should be more seamless to the page/user. Most likely in the form of the media entering a paused state, or media playback moving between output devices.

Comment 1

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

Hi Lloyd,
Thanks for your input.
I use Firefox Nightly and Developer version as well on my windows 10(1709) Dell laptop and didn't see this problem. When I disconnect my BT headset, the playback doesn't stop but my system audio is muted.  

Munro,
Can you help check if you can see the same problem?

Comment 2

[Munro Mengjue Chiang [:mchiang] Be Mozillian since 1/19/2018]

I can reproduce the bug with the following settings
Microsoft Surface Book
Firefox DE, 58.0b16
Sony bluetooth headset MDR-EX750BT
Play Youtube and follow the steps.

Comment 3

[Munro Mengjue Chiang [:mchiang] Be Mozillian since 1/19/2018]

It's intermittent bug.
I cannot reproduce it now, although I can notice there is a glitch while turning the headset off.

Comment 4

[Ralph Giles (:rillian)]

Thanks for the report. We're reworking the output device switching code, which should address this, but it will take a few releases. Unfortunately, we won't be able to resolve this particular issue until that work in complete.