Video playback on CBS.COM broke today


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I have run into a video playback problem on trhe CBS.COM website ... any video episonde rerun will not play in Maxthon 4.4.5.1800beta, 4.4.5.1600beta-b or in Nitro 1.1.0.800.  But the videos do play in Firefox.  AdBlock Plus is not the problem because they fail to startt with or without ABP enabled.

 

All I ever see is the black screen that comes up, but nevver see the loadingl progress spinner which I would see normally.

 

Further information, this morning about 3:30 am, the videos did play normally.  Notheer change oon my computer in the time between when it worked and now when the videos do not work was downloaing and instally 4.4.5.1800beta release.  But just in case that waas the problem I reverted to the previous test version 4.4.5.1600beta-b and also tried Nitro 1.1.0.800.  None work..  But Firefox 37.0.2 does.

 

I hope this may be a CBS glitch, but I'm not sure sindce Firefox works.

 

                          <<SL>>

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Confirmed but I bet you didn't try retro.

 

More likely a problem with Flash player 16.0????

 

I tried renaming NPSWF32 .dll in Maxthon core webkit folder but Maxthon is not able to find FP17.0.0.169 thats installed with win10....

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I think it's a problem with UA. Tried with Firefox UA and it works here, but unfortunately video can't be watch since my country!

 

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Never even thought of changing the UA, it does work! Thanx Oliver! I imagine an updated Maxthon UA would have worked too.

 

Any idea about the old trick of renaming NPSWF32 .dll so Mx can use the FP that's installed with win10???

I have FP17.0.0.169 installed but I can't find the NPSWF32 file anywhere, it doesn't even exist in the Macromedia folder, only a bunch of active x files there....

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Hi,

Thanks for your response. You can achieve it by changing user agent.Or you can achieve it by reverting to Retro mode.I hope this could help you.

Thanks much for all the suggestions.  I'll give them a try, though reverting to retro is so retro :)   The UA sounds b etter.  Hope the Win10beta users can dig up the FP location soon.

 

[EDIT1]  I gave the UAs a trial using the once posted in this board.  They did not work.  Switching to Retro mode did work, but ABP doesn't work in Retro, so  that was no good.  However, using the Firefox UA in Maxthon worked fine in Ultra mode .... so it restored the lost functionality.

 

I deleted the FP plugin, but that didn't do anything for the problem.

 

So for now, the antique Firefox string works.  Can anyone explain why the Firefox string is from Firefox 19.0?.  We should be at Firefox 37.0.

 

          <<SL>>

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Thanks much for all the suggestions.  I'll give them a try, though reverting to retro is so retro :)   The UA sounds b etter.  Hope the Win10beta users can dig up the FP location soon.

 

          <<SL>>

And as an Mx Master, shouldn't you have tried all of those options before all of these posts? :tap:

post3dmg4_zps398d3651.jpgWindows 10 64-bit build 10525/Windows 10 Mobile build 10512

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And as an Mx Master, shouldn't you have tried all of those options before all of these posts? :tap:

Quite probably I should.  But when something changes in Maxthon for the worse, it's time to report a bug even if there are work-aroundsd.  The work around just lets the bug survive.  In this case I've double reported here and on CBS.

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Quite probably I should.  But when something changes in Maxthon for the worse, it's time to report a bug even if there are work-aroundsd.  The work around just lets the bug survive.  In this case I've double reported here and on CBS.

But you could have saved a lot of valuable time and found the workaround yourself.  You have reported this as a bug for a long time and it's probably on the Dev's To-Do list but they still haven't gotten to it.

post3dmg4_zps398d3651.jpgWindows 10 64-bit build 10525/Windows 10 Mobile build 10512

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But you could have saved a lot of valuable time and found the workaround yourself.  You have reported this as a bug for a long time and it's probably on the Dev's To-Do list but they still haven't gotten to it.

Ah, but that is the problem.  There was no such bug before late morning last Thursday.  The CBS videos played normally in the early morning, but later in the day and ever since only the  black screen shows with no progress.  Something changed on Thursday morning.  And that looks like a new bug (or maybe a re-occurrence of one that was fixed until Thursday morning.)

 

But pretending to be Firefox does work around the problem; it doesn't fix it.  I have to leave those fixes to the devs.

 

                        <<SL>>

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Ah, but that is the problem.  There was no such bug before late morning last Thursday.  The CBS videos played normally in the early morning, but later in the day and ever since only the  black screen shows with no progress.  Something changed on Thursday morning.  And that looks like a new bug (or maybe a re-occurrence of one that was fixed until Thursday morning.)

 

But pretending to be Firefox does work around the problem; it doesn't fix it.  I have to leave those fixes to the devs.

 

                        <<SL>>

And you have been reporting problems with abc.com since September of 2014.  http://old-forum.maxthon.com/thread-13021-1-1.html

post3dmg4_zps398d3651.jpgWindows 10 64-bit build 10525/Windows 10 Mobile build 10512

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And you have been reporting problems with abc.com since September of 2014.  http://old-forum.maxthon.com/thread-13021-1-1.html

The prooblm with abc.com were ad blocking problems ... long since solved by Wilser in his SuperQuick List.  Sometimes when he makes an update, some rule he aded or changed messes with abc.com.  I was never able to get adblockng to work on abc.com until Wilser figured it out.  For that and his contiued interest in the list I'm thankful.

 

I never had those kind of problems with cbs.com.  Suddenly, cbs.com just closed down and wouldn't play any videos with no changes in Maxthon except a few hours time lapse on Thursday morning.  This is a completely different problem .... and in case it isn't Maxthonn's I also filed a bug report with cbs.com ... no response yet.  

 

Although there is a UA workaround, it is not available for Nitro which is also blocked from playing videos on cbs.com though it can anywhere else.  So it's not just an Mx4 problem.

 

Anyway, until a solution arrives, there is a workaround in Mx4 for as long as it works. 

 

[uPDATE - 5/21/15] After a clean install (Mx. 4.4.5.2000 Final) some of the cbs.com problems cleared up.  But the vidoes do not play problem remains with the default Maxthon UA.  The Firefox UA bypasses the problem leaving it unresolved.

 

EDIT(6/6/15):  I've been dong some more UA testing today and discovered what appears to be the factor in the UAstrings that blocks vidoes from playing on cbs.com ... the browser engine.  If I specify the Gecko engine and give it a version (revision) within the Windows elements, cbs.com plays correctly even if it identifies the browser as Maxthon/4.4.5 or Maxthon/4.  But if AppleWebkit is specified with or without the parenthetical element "like Gecko", the vidoes do not play.

 

I confirmed this by trying to play them in Safari and they behaved just as they have in Maxthon in Ultra mode.

 

I currently have set the following as UA and it parses as shown by the website whatsmyua.com:

{

"ua": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1, rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Maxthon/4.4.5",

"browser": {

"name": "Maxthon",

"version": "4.4.5",

"major": "4"

},

"engine": {

"name": "Gecko",

"version": "38.0"

},

"os": {

"name": "Windows",

"version": "7"

},

"device": {},

"cpu": {}

}

 

With this UA CBS.com plays the videos.  They will also play in Retro mode but not without pauses and stuttering along the way, though no sign indicating buffering appears.  Ultra mode doesn't suffer from pauses or stuttering.

 

The engine being used has a problem on this particular website which happens to be the one I watch the most.

 

Thanks ...

 

                    <<SL>>

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  • 3 weeks later...

[deleted...]

EDIT(6/6/15):  I've been dong some more UA testing today and discovered what appears to be the factor in the UAstrings that blocks vidoes from playing on cbs.com ... the browser engine.  If I specify the Gecko engine and give it a version (revision) within the Windows elements, cbs.com plays correctly even if it identifies the browser as Maxthon/4.4.5 or Maxthon/4.  But if AppleWebkit is specified with or without the parenthetical element "like Gecko", the vidoes do not play.

 

I confirmed this by trying to play them in Safari and they behaved just as they have in Maxthon in Ultra mode.

 

I currently have set the following as UA and it parses as shown by the website whatsmyua.com:

{

"ua": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1, rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Maxthon/4.4.5",

"browser": {

"name": "Maxthon",

"version": "4.4.5",

"major": "4"

},

"engine": {

"name": "Gecko",

"version": "38.0"

},

"os": {

"name": "Windows",

"version": "7"

},

"device": {},

"cpu": {}

}

 

With this UA CBS.com plays the videos.  They will also play in Retro mode but not without pauses and stuttering along the way, though no sign indicating buffering appears.  Ultra mode doesn't suffer from pauses or stuttering.

 

The engine being used has a problem on this particular website which happens to be the one I watch the most.

 

Thanks ...

 

                    <<SL>>

Update to the UA problem.

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