315701 - cnn.com - video playback no longer works

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: English US, defect)

Description

[Steve Wardell]

Playing videos in Firefox used to work but now no longer. When I attempt to play any video, it doesn't work. The video window pops up but does nothing. I'm using one of the Firefox 1.5 RC's but don't think it's a Firefox bug. When I click in the play button I get the following:

Error: document.cnnVidPlayer.controls has no properties
Source File: http://www.cnn.com/.element/ssi/js/1.3/videoplayer.js
Line: 815

Comment 1

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

works for me in winxp with firefox 1.5 rc2. What extensions do you have installed and what preferences have you customized?

Comment 2

[Steve Wardell]

This was definitely broken when I tested it.

Comment 3

[Steve Wardell]

CNN seems to have fixed their site.

Comment 4

[Steve Wardell]

This is broken again. I think this affects WMP 10 and not 9. Initially this would not work at all as they updated their video controls. Then I removed my cnn.com cookies and it wasn't detecting that I had WMP installed correct. I'm running Firefox 1.5 RC3 on XP. I've submitted a technical problem on cnn.com's site.

Comment 5

[Steve Wardell]

*** Bug 302335 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

Comment 6

[Devo]

I am using Firefox 1.5 RC3 on XP with WMP 10 and experienced same behavior as Wardell in Comment # 4.  

Comment 7

[Steve Wardell]

Attachment: screen shot of the issue

Comment 8

[Steve Wardell]

I'm seeing improvement on this when using the trunk nightly builds of Firefox. Did something change on the trunk to make this work or does it have to do with something else?

Comment 9

[mmortal03]

Is this still the same bug that is currently not allowing cnn.com videos to work?

I am seeing this in Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9a5pre) Gecko/20070527 Minefield/3.0a5pre ID:2007052704 [cairo].

Comment 10

[Tony Chung [:tchung]]

I can repro this on today's trunk.  Screen shows up black, without any message about downloading plugin:
 
Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X; es-ES; rv:1.9a7pre) Gecko/2007070304 Minefield/3.0a7pre

On FF2.0.0.4, same thing happens, except it prompts a message to download the plugin.  Is it possible that cnn.com is not sniffing the "minefield" or "gran paradiso" word?

Comment 11

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

(In reply to comment #10)
> Is it possible that cnn.com is not sniffing the "minefield" or "gran
> paradiso" word?

Tony, not only is it possible, it's extremely likely.

See also bug 386498, which really sounds like the same thing to me.

Comment 12

[mmortal03]

CNN Videos have been playing for me for a while, but now they are broken again in the latest nightly.  If I leave the user agent value as default, the page states:

The web browser you are using to view this video is not supported. Please use one of the supported browsers:
Windows
Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 and above
Firefox 1.5 and above

If I set the user agent value to Mozilla/2.0 (compatible; MSIE 3.0; AOL 4.0; Windows 95), the video just stays black.

Comment 14

[mmortal03]

I can confirm that based on Bug 423362's report, that this bug, in its current iteration, is just a user agent issue.  I installed User Agent Switcher, and set it to Netscape 4.8, and it fixed it, the videos play again.

Is the original description of this bug even reproducible anymore?

Also, see Bug 334967 for other sites broken by the UA string change.

Comment 15

[Biju]

(In reply to comment #14)
> I can confirm that based on Bug 423362's report, 

it should also work if you append just "Firefox/2.0.0.0" or above to current UA string

even following

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9pre) 
Gecko/2008051406 Minefield/3.0pre Firefox/5.0.0.0

Comment 16

[Diego cassinera]

On my machine firefox crashes when the video loads

Comment 17

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

Diego, you should file a separate bug for that issue.

Comment 18

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

INCOMPLETE due to lack of activity since the end of 2009.

If someone is willing to investigate the issues raised in this bug to determine whether they still exist, *and* work with the site in question to fix any existing issues, please feel free to re-open and assign to yourself.

Sorry for the bugspam; filter on "NO MORE PRE-2010 TE BUGS" to remove.

Comment 19

[Biju]

Actually WORKSFORME, I think this was an issue at http://www.cnn.com/pipeline/ 
now http://live.cnn.com/
http://www.cnn.com/video/flashLive/live.html?stream=stream1

It is working now.

I have also checked all other CNN video pages, which all worked and could not find any broken one.

Comment 20

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

Since this was a site bug, FIXED.

If there are any outstanding issues, such as failure to work when the word "Firefox" is not present, they should be filed as new TE bugs against CNN.

Comment 21

[Biju]

(In reply to comment #20)
> Since this was a site bug, FIXED.

On other products at b.m.o if we cant identify the PATCH which fixed a bug our convention is to mark them as WORKSFORME.

So here, as no Mozilla Action fixed this issue, my advice will be to mark this as WORKSFORME.

Also you should have asked whether this bug still exist and wait for response before marking as INCOMPLETE, otherwise it is really insulting to the person who took trouble and time to file the bug in first place.

Comment 22

[Chris Lawson (gone)]

(In reply to comment #21)
> (In reply to comment #20)
> > Since this was a site bug, FIXED.
> 
> On other products at b.m.o if we cant identify the PATCH which fixed a bug our
> convention is to mark them as WORKSFORME.

But this is not "other products", and you are not on the TE team, so I'll thank you to learn *our* conventions first before criticizing my actions.