1636790 - Google drive can't play videos if URL contains an fbclid parameter

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

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

Description

[dolphinling]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/78.0

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open a link to google drive which has an ?fbclid parameter in the URL. (The normal way this would happen is if you sent a link to a google drive through facebook.)
2. Attempt to play a video in that drive

Example:
(example links to a publicly accessible drive containing wrestling videos; I don't control its contents)
Has fbclid parameter; fails: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1oo1JfTid5Kxd--rLfBuYV21NoNRIFRB9?fbclid=x
Doesn't have fbclid parameter; works: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1oo1JfTid5Kxd--rLfBuYV21NoNRIFRB9

Actual results:

The video does not play, and a message appears "An error occurred. Please try again later."

Expected results:

Video should play.

Problem happens in Firefox, does not happen in Chrome. Happens in both Firefox 76.0.1 and Nightly (in Nightly, tracking protection also had to be disabled to play the video.)

Comment 1

[Firefox Bug Husbandry Bot]

Because this bug's Severity is normal and has not been changed, and this bug's priority is -- (none,) indicating it has has not been previously triaged, the bug's Severity is being updated to -- (default, untriaged.)

Comment 2

[Alastor Wu [:alwu]]

Attachment: fbclid.png

It seems to me more like an issue for Youtube or Google Drive.

From the network panel you can see there is a rejected response for the POST to the youtube API. In this whole process, we even haven't started download any media resouce. So my guess is that either the Youtube or Google drive has a bug when providing a fbclid in URL.

Comment 3

[Alastor Wu [:alwu]]

Adam, do you mind to contact Youtube first, to see if this is a known issue or not?

Comment 4

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

In case this helps anyone else: I encountered a similar error playing videos from Google Drive. In my case I had to reset the prefs network.http.referer.XOriginPolicy and network.http.sendRefererHeader to their defaults. Grr.

Comment 5

[Bryce Seager van Dyk [:bryce] (he/him) - Not reading bugmail]

Clearing NI since Adam is no longer with Media.

Comment 6

[Alastor Wu [:alwu]]

Hi, Jonathan,
Do you have a link which we can use for debugging? The link in the comment0 is already invalid.
Thank you.

Comment 7

[Jonathan Watt [:jwatt]]

Unfortunately not. Maybe close as INCOMPLETE?

Comment 8

[dolphinling]

Upon testing with a private video, it appears Google Drive has changed and this is no longer an issue. It appears they now strip fbclid parameters from folder links.