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Firefox on Ubuntu won't play some sites' video - DRM-related?

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 3 views
  • Last reply by tom.k.cook

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A few weeks back, videos on some sites stopped working. Facebook and Netflix are notable examples, though YouTube doesn't seem to be affected. I've tried netflix in private mode (ie with extensions disabled) and have the same problem.

I'm running:

  • Firefox 79.0
  • Ubuntu 20.04 LTS
  • OpenH264 Video Codec add-on version 1.8.1.1
  • Widevine CDM add-on version 4.10.1582.2
  • libavcodec-extra and libavcodec-extra58 Ubuntu packages version 7:4.2.4-1ubuntu0.1

All the plugins have automatic updates enabled and I've checked that the "Play DRM-controlled content" option in firefox preferences is enabled.

Have I missed something I should check? Are others having this problem?

A few weeks back, videos on some sites stopped working. Facebook and Netflix are notable examples, though YouTube doesn't seem to be affected. I've tried netflix in private mode (ie with extensions disabled) and have the same problem. I'm running: * Firefox 79.0 * Ubuntu 20.04 LTS * OpenH264 Video Codec add-on version 1.8.1.1 * Widevine CDM add-on version 4.10.1582.2 * libavcodec-extra and libavcodec-extra58 Ubuntu packages version 7:4.2.4-1ubuntu0.1 All the plugins have automatic updates enabled and I've checked that the "Play DRM-controlled content" option in firefox preferences is enabled. Have I missed something I should check? Are others having this problem?

All Replies (2)

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Do you also have the latest FFmpeg packages ?

Did you check the Web Console for possible messages related to this issue ?

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I've installed the latest ffmpeg. The developer console doesn't show up anything very obvious, though on netflix it does show up several dozen messages of the form:

"unreachable code after return statement cadmium-playercore-6.0025.202.011.js:1:554690"

They are all on different column numbers. Chrome does not show the same messages. The errors are on code such as:

         for (; h00 !== 1; ) {
           switch (h00) {
             case 2:
               return [p,
               c.Ta][b];
               break;
             case 4:
               return [p,
               c.Ta][b];
               break;
               h00 = 1;
               break;
           }
         }

To my jaundiced eye, that looks pretty broken, but without understanding more of this 130,000-odd line file, it's hard to say.