1468024 - "media.videocontrols.lock-video-orientation" doesn't work for pages using custom video controls

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: Audio/Video, defect, P5)

Description

[kolAflash]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:60.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/60.0
Build ID: 20180605171542

Steps to reproduce:

Short: I'd suggest Firefox should make an exception to the Android auto-rotate system setting when showing videos in fullscreen mode.


I disabled auto-rotate in my Android system settings, because most of the time this is what I want. (e.g. when walking and writing a text message, I don't want my phone to start rotating by just bouncing it a little)

Settings (Android settings) -> Display -> Device rotation -> Auto-rotate screen: off

Nevertheless, when watching videos I definitely want my screen to rotate accordingly to the video. 


Actual results:

I played this video in fullscreen mode, but my screen didn't rotate to landscape mode.

https://www.ndr.de/fernsehen/sendungen/hamburg_journal/Plastik-im-Biomuell-Stadtreinigung-macht-mobil,hamj66436.html


Expected results:

Firefox should have rotated the screen to landscape mode and ignore that auto-rotate is disabled in the system settings.


Sadly rotation in Firefox like described here doesn't seem to work when the system setting for auto-rotation disabled.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/play-videos-full-screen-firefox-android
  Tip: If you rotate your device while the video is in full screen mode, it will stay in landscape.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=842782

"media.videocontrols.lock-video-orientation" is set to the default value. (true, and setting it to false also doesn't help)


Other apps offer a setting for this behaviour. E.g.

https://f-droid.org/packages/com.simplemobiletools.gallery/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.simplemobiletools.gallery
Menu -> Settings -> Rotate fullscreen media by: System setting, Device rotation, Aspect ratio

https://f-droid.org/packages/org.sufficientlysecure.viewer/
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.sufficientlysecure.viewer
Menu -> All Settings -> Rendering -> Rotation mode: Unspecified, Automatic, ...


Phone: Fairphone 2
OS: Android 7.1 / LineageOS 14.1-20180328
Firefox: 60.0.2 from PlayStore

Related but different bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1433554

Comment 1

[Jan Henning [:JanH]]

I can't test your link right now because the player is giving me some error and offers me a direct link to the file instead, which in turn is showing an HTTPS error (which is probably why playback through the player failed in the first place). If I ignore that error, everything works fine and in fullscreen mode the orientation is forced to landscape regardless of the global system setting.

At a guess however, that could be because "media.videocontrols.lock-video-orientation" so far only works for videos that are actually played back using our own video controls (which interestingly enough includes Youtube).

I tried a Vimeo video instead (they use custom video controls even on their mobile page, too) and am seeing the same problem you're reporting for ndr.de.

Comment 2

[kolAflash]

(In reply to Jan Henning (on vacation in June) [:JanH] from comment #1)
> I can't test your link right now because the player is giving me some error
> and offers me a direct link to the file instead, which in turn is showing an
> HTTPS error (which is probably why playback through the player failed in the
> first place).
It's still playing for me. So I'm unsure what's happening there.
Nevertheless, the behaviour should be reproducible with a lot of other video websites.

> If I ignore that error, everything works fine and in fullscreen mode the
> orientation is forced to landscape regardless of the global system setting.
I guess you're playing the MP4 file directly and do not use the website's player!? Because in that case it also works for me.

> At a guess however, that could be because
> "media.videocontrols.lock-video-orientation" so far only works for videos
> that are actually played back using our own video controls (which
> interestingly enough includes Youtube).
Works for me too on YouTube.

> I tried a Vimeo video instead (they use custom video controls even on their
> mobile page, too) and am seeing the same problem you're reporting for ndr.de.
Same for me again. The bug is reproducible on Vimeo.

So I guess it's something between Firefox and the Websites player and Firefox. Maybe the only solution is to always switch so landscape mode or at least enable auto rotation when a website goes to fullscreen (regardless if it's playing a video).

Comment 3

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

Re-triaging per https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1473195

Needinfo :susheel if you think this bug should be re-triaged.

Comment 4

[Djfe]

twitch.tv and rwth.video are also affected

Comment 5

[BMO Automation]

We have completed our launch of our new Firefox on Android. The development of the new versions use GitHub for issue tracking. If the bug report still reproduces in a current version of [Firefox on Android nightly](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fenix) an issue can be reported at the [Fenix GitHub project](https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/). If you want to discuss your report please use [Mozilla's chat](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Matrix#Connect_to_Matrix) server https://chat.mozilla.org and join the [#fenix](https://chat.mozilla.org/#/room/#fenix:mozilla.org) channel.