1740487 - Video does not play at as.com with ETP set to STRICT

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Core :: Privacy: Anti-Tracking, defect, P3)

Description

[Raul Bucata]

Attachment: Screenshot_8.png

Environment:
Operating system: Android 11
Firefox version: Firefox Nightly 96.0a1 (2015844771 -🦎96.0a1-20211109093712🦎)

Preconditions:
Private browsing mode
Clean profile

Steps to reproduce:

1. Navigate to :https://as.com/futbol/2021/11/09/videos/1636477160_226847.html?autoplay=1&omnil=vtop-home&pbsvideo=top
2. Tap on the ""Play"" button inside the video placeholder
3. Observe the result

Expected Behavior:
The video plays

Actual Behavior:
The video does not play

Notes:

• Not reproducible with ETP set to STANDARD
• Works as expected using Chrome
• Screenshot attached

Comment 1

[Thomas Wisniewski [:twisniewski]]

It appears that our IMA shim is simply missing an isSkippable method on its Ad class stub. Defining it fixes this breakage.

Comment 2

[Thomas Wisniewski [:twisniewski]]

Attachment: Bug 1740487 - add Ad.isSkippable to the IMA SmartBlock shim; r?ksenia

Comment 3

[Thomas Wisniewski [:twisniewski]]

While the patch I'm landing soon seems to fix the problem on mobile, I'm not sure if it fully fixes the problem on desktop, so I'd like to leave this bug open until I have time to investigate further.

Comment 4

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/4323d4e8f236
add Ad.isSkippable to the IMA SmartBlock shim; r=ksenia,webcompat-reviewers

Comment 5

[Andreea Pavel [:apavel]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/4323d4e8f236

Comment 6

[Thomas Wisniewski [:twisniewski]]

On desktop there is indeed a little more to the story on this page. If a video is initially unable to autoplay, then an attempt to play a tracking ad before it will also fail, and IMA detects this failure and handles it differently from how our shim does right now. Basically, their code expects requestAds to send an error message in that case, and they will then try again when the user clicks on the video (and it should then work as the shim does now). With that the video also works on the desktop page, regardless of autoplay settings (from what I can tell).

In addition there is an extra console error triggered due to the page which can be prevented by delaying our Amazon apstag shim a little (the same solution as in bug 1764041, except that here it doesn't seem to actually break anything, just spam a console message).

Oh, and it's worth noting that the first time one visits this video's page (regardless of ETP settings) there is some kind of race condition which causes it to fail to be able to play the video at all. The user has to reload the page after accepting their cookie banner before things start working (at least that's how I'm experiencing it). It seems to be a case where they are calling their prebidder script before it has loaded.

At any rate, I have a patch almost ready to land to fix this.

Comment 7

[Thomas Wisniewski [:twisniewski]]

Attachment: Bug 1740487 - have the SmartBlock IMA shim test for autoplay on calls to requestAds, and error appropriately if needed; r?ksenia

Comment 8

[Pulsebot]

Pushed by [e-mail]:
https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/61fa00a38574
have the SmartBlock IMA shim test for autoplay on calls to requestAds, and error appropriately if needed; r=ksenia,webcompat-reviewers

Comment 9

[Sandor Molnar[:smolnar]]

https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/61fa00a38574

Comment 10

[Thomas Wisniewski [:twisniewski]]

I've confirmed that this is now working on the latest nightly release on desktop.