1560955 - msnbc.com video does not play

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

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

Description

[Timea Zsoldos [:zstimi/tzsoldos], Desktop QA]

Attachment: blocked-video.avi

[Affected versions]:
Fx 69.0a1
Fx 68.0b9
Fx 67.0

[Affected platforms]:
Windows 10 x64
Ubuntu 16.04 x64
Mac OS X 10.13

[Steps to reproduce]:

1. Open Firefox.
2. Go to in about:config to turn on the "Block autoplay" feature, set media.autoplay.default = 1 (block)
   media.autoplay.enabled.user-gestures-needed = true
   preferences (if they are not already set by default).
3. Access the following site: http://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/ranking-house-intel-member-reacts-to-cohen-trump-audio-recording-1284721219624
   The audio is blocked.
4. Try to interact with play button.

[Expected result]:
The video starts to play.

[Actual result]:
The video doesn't play.

[Additional Information]:
If I interact with context menu after a few click on mute/unmute, play/pause menu item then click on play button from control bar the play button change his state but the video still doesn't play, please see the attached screen cast.
This is a regression I verified Fx 61, Fx 64 and the video is playing. I will come back with regression range as soon as possible.
In chrome the video at first access was blocked but after click on play button the video starts to play.

Comment 1

[Neha Kochar [:neha]]

Please set 'has regression range' to yes when you post the regression range. Setting it to no for now.

Comment 2

[Neha Kochar [:neha]]

Adding ni for you, Timea, to provide the regression range so we can assess if this is a new regression introduced in 67.

Comment 3

[Timea Zsoldos [:zstimi/tzsoldos], Desktop QA]

I found this regression range:

Last good: 2018.07.19
First bad: 2018.07.20
Pushlog:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/pushloghtml?fromchange=fe3e4345a4a369167ced9a30664bbf8c93e12994&tochange=8dcdd881fd09a220150f2931fda326b01996627e

Bug 1476853 - Remove obsolete use of media.autoplay.enabled. r=rbarker

Comment 4

[Alastor Wu [:alwu]]

I can reproduce this issue in low pecentage on Unbuntu 18.04 with latest Nightly, and can't reproduce it on my osx 10.14.4.

However, it seems to me more like a website issue. From the log I saw, we indeed allowed the video to start after user clicking on the page. But when issue happened, I didn't see site was calling video.play() when I clicked video. In addition, the video element didn't load any resource at that time.

I would suggest to contact this site and let them investigate from their side, they propably didn't handle the video play&load process well when we block autoplay.

---

Hi, Adam,
Could you help me report this issue to MSNBC?
Thank you.

Comment 5

[Steven Bock]

I've noticed this bug too on Firefox 67. Even with autoplay enabled, it still sometimes behaves in the way the reporter is describing.

An alternate thought: what if breaking or bypassing the Firefox autoplay block is the intended effect of MSNBC? I'm thinking about how media companies love autoplay for viewership metrics and how blocking autoplay could lower those numbers, so I can't rule out that this isn't intentional.

Comment 6

[Adam Stevenson [:adamopenweb]]

Trying Twitter first, leaving the NI for now.
https://twitter.com/AdamOpenWeb/status/1148745208990969856

Comment 7

[Adam Stevenson [:adamopenweb]]

I just noticed that using uBlock allows the video to play, so it's possibly an interaction with the advertisement and autoplay but not the video.
Testing in Nightly 69 on MacOS.

Comment 8

[Adam Stevenson [:adamopenweb]]

Also reporting the problem to http://www.msnbc.com/contact.

Comment 9

[Nils Ohlmeier [:drno]]

I tested this in 68 Release, 69 Beta and 70 Nightly and I get the same behavior: as soon as block autoplay is set to not allowed audible videos the page fails to play the advertisements before the actual video. In fact I see initial pictures from several advertisements cycling through until the page gives up trying to show me more advertisements. At that point the video player is not functional any more at all.

So to me it looks like the page simply can't handle block autoplay in general.

Comment 10

[Adam Stevenson [:adamopenweb]]

No response so far, trying some contacts on LinkedIn.

Comment 11

[Timea Cernea [:tbabos][inactive]]

Reproduced on latest Nightly 71 and Beta70.0b6 on Windows 10 x64

Comment 13

[kfss]

1582510 is the bug report I put in... this fixed my current browser...

THE PROBLEM IS SOLVED BY CLICKING ON THE "i" IN THE URL ADDRESS BAR -> SELECT PERMISSIONS -> AUTOPLAY -> SETTINGS -> ALLOW AUDIO AND VIDEO!

This setting, as well as turning hardward acceleration off are remedies that are not intuitive. It might be useful to have a multimedia button on the firefox toolbar to open settings that are directly related to audio/visual media settings.

Comment 14

[Liz Henry (:lizzard) (relman/hg->git project)]

We can try again to contact MSNBC, Mike, can the web compat team help? Should this be a webcompat bug?

Comment 15

[Mike Taylor [:miketaylr]]

Sure thing. (leaving ni?)

Comment 16

[Mike Taylor [:miketaylr]]

Update here: Adam has attempted getting in touch with MSNBC a few times, but no luck yet.

Comment 17

[Mike Taylor [:miketaylr]]

Actually, someone has replied and are trying to loop in the right people. Setting to site wait.

Comment 18

[Daniel Bodea [:danibodea]]

This issue is also reproducible on www.today.com when opening a video in a new tab. Seems like it's the same issue.

Comment 19

[Alin Ilea, Desktop Test Engineering]

Reproduced on latest Nightly 72.0a1 (2019-11-04) on Windows 8.

Comment 20

[Pascal Chevrel:pascalc]

Hi Mike, did you get any feedback from the MSNBC people? Thanks

Comment 21

[Pascal Chevrel:pascalc]

We have shipped our last beta for 71 and there is nothing actionable on our side, so this is wontfix for 71.

Comment 22

[Mike Taylor [:miketaylr]]

We haven't gotten a response yet, unfortunately.

Comment 23

[Oana Arbuzov [:oanaarbuzov]]

This seems to be fixed, I was able to play the videos.

• https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/ranking-house-intel-member-reacts-to-cohen-trump-audio-recording-1284721219624
• www.today.com

Tested with:
Browser / Version: Firefox Nightly 103.0a1 (2022-06-22)
Operating System: Windows 10 Pro

Timea can you still reproduce this?

Comment 24

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

Redirect a needinfo that is pending on an inactive user to the triage owner.
:denschub, since the bug has recent activity, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.