386498 - edition.cnn.com - Videos Don't Work in Revamped CNN Page

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

(Tech Evangelism Graveyard :: English US, defect)

Description

[u52928]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.5pre) Gecko/20070701 BonEcho/2.0.0.5pre
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8.1.5pre) Gecko/20070701 BonEcho/2.0.0.5pre

CNN has recently redone its website (29Jun07) and now uses a different system for its videos. It's no longer possible for me to watch them using FF. As always I hate to say this, ... but when I use the IE rendering engine in FF, it works fine. This indicates to me that its something with FF or an extension and not not the other software I have on my computer. 

I get to the point where the videos are supposed to start without a problem, including the "Arrow" to start the video. (To get this far, I had to allow cookies and turn off the Ad Block, Flash Block, and RIP extensions).

What happens next is weird. When I click the arrow for the film to start, all the films in the "Next Up" list (red circle in screen shot) "load and play" (according to the "video description box" on the left under the video - blue circle in screenshot), but the screen remains black.

After all the films have "played", I get a screen like on YouTube that says "email / watch again". When I click Watch Again, the same thing happens, i.e. nothing except that all the movies appear to load ... but don't.

Interestingly, I can see an ad movie in the window (for h.m.i. Clarion, but with no sound) that doesn't appear at all when I watch the movies with the IE engine.

By the way, YouTube works fine. 

Here is a link to a screenshot.
http://www2.tu-berlin.de/zems/greenman/cnn_video.jpg


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Open CNN.com
2.Try to watch any video
3.
Actual Results:  
Videos don't play (although they appear to load in "Next Video" box)

Expected Results:  
Should be able to watch videos.

http://www2.tu-berlin.de/zems/greenman/cnn_video.jpg

Comment 1

[Zulith]

I can confirm this. Even when it was in Beta, the new cnn.com site has not worked in the Firefox3 alpha builds since it was first unveiled. 3+ weeks ago or thereabouts?

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; en-US; rv:1.9a6pre) Gecko/20070701 Minefield/3.0a6pre ID:2007070104

Comment 2

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

This is a CNN server-side issue.  They are using defective User Agent sniffing code.  Using the User Agent Switcher extension, I modified the browser to return a Firefox 2.0.0.4 User Agent string and the videos played just fine.

The good news is that they also play correctly if I force it to return a Firefox version 3.0 user-agent string, so this is only an issue for nightly builds.

Comment 3

[u52928]

Bill Gianopoulos is right. With User Agent Switcher set to FF version 3.0, the movies play fine. Since this isn't really a FF bug, I'm gonna mark it as "Invalid". Is that right?

Comment 4

[u52928]

Oh yes: Thanks to Bill Gianopoulos.

Comment 5

[u88484]

(In reply to comment #3)
> Since this isn't really a FF bug, I'm gonna mark it as "Invalid". Is that right?

No because Tech Evangelism has to kick in and get them to stop sniffing user-agents.

Comment 6

[philippe (part-time)]

Bad UA sniffing: Firefox only, which leaves other Gecko users in the cold (Camino, SeaMonkey).
Adding dependency on bug 334967.

Comment 7

[u52928]

(In reply to comment #5)
> (In reply to comment #3)
> > Since this isn't really a FF bug, I'm gonna mark it as "Invalid". Is that right?
> 
> No because Tech Evangelism has to kick in and get them to stop sniffing
> user-agents.
> 
OK, sorry I screwed up. 

Comment 8

[Demare Julien]

Hi,

The video service and CNN Video Live service does not work on Linux, with all user agent. Previously it worked very well (even CNN Pipeline (old name of "Video Live") with Firefox and VLC).

Tested with Firefox 2.0.x and Firefox 3.0a6 under Fedora.

Comment 9

[Frank Wein [:mcsmurf]]

Watching videos with a SeaMonkey trunk build on WinXP is WFM. Does someone still have problems with the CNN site? Especially the people using Linux.

Comment 10

[Bob Clary [:bc] (inactive)]

works for me on fedora7, minefield with a firefox ua and with the minefield ua with flash 9.0 r115

Comment 11

[Bill Gianopoulos [:WG9s]]

Same for me even with default UA string under fedora6.