Debugging unexplained Widevine installation failures

andymartinwork commented 2 months ago

We've had 14 customers so far report that they have had unsuccessful widevine installations. Usually when this number report this problem to us, the real numbers are higher.

Running Electron version: 31.2.1 and Chrome: 126.0.6478.127 Windows versions 10 & 11

Users have done the following and the problem is still there:

Widevine is updated
Updated OS
Run the App as Administrator
Disable Antivirus or Firewall Temporarily

I'm getting this error through but without additional information:

  "errors": [
    {
      "detail": {
        "id": "oimompecagnajdejgnnjijobebaeigek",
        "status": "not-installed",
        "title": "Widevine Content Decryption Module",
        "version": null
      }
    }
  ]

I asked the user to check their WidevineCDM folder, and it appears that the files have been downloaded just not installed.

What I'm asking is how do I debug this issue further? The error message is not informative enough.

andymartinwork commented 2 months ago

I got one of the user reports back. It seems, for them at least, the widevine directories are being quarantined by Windows 11 Enterprise, or BeyondTrust Enterprise management software:

In checking this, I seem to have simultaneously solved the problem. I'm including a printout of the folder contents at the end just for the sake of it, but the problem seems to be related to user privilege management. I am not quite sure if it's a general issue with Windows 11 Enterprise (since I haven't used that on any other PC) or if it's a specific issue with the BeyondTrust privilege management tool that is used on this PC.

Regardless, when I wanted to check the contents of the two subdirectories under the WidevineCdm directory (4.10.2830.0 and 4.10.2710.0) in Windows Explorer, there was a pop-up warning me that the folder contents were not accessible, and if I wanted to access them I would have to provide user credentials to open the directory for permanent access. (I didn't think to provide screenshots, but I'm pretty sure it's linked to BeyondTrust). After clicking "continue" and then providing user credentials in the BeyondTrust window that appeared, I could view the folder contents, and just on a hunch I tried starting Tidal regularly (not "run as administrator"), and it started normally.

So the problem seems to be caused by that subdirectory being "blocked" by default by presumably BeyondTrust (I guess it could be an issue with Win 11 Enterprise in general? I doubt it, though). At least I know how to fix it if the issue shows up again.

andymartinwork commented 2 months ago

Another report from a user:

I appears, Kaspersky is a problem here.

if I open tidal w/o admin privileges, the drm warning is back and it opens really slowly (Kaspersky off and one)

I open tidal with admin rights and Kaspersky off. Boom all works.

I open tidal with admin rights but Kaspersky protection on, I am logged out and any login fails.

I open tidal with admin rights, Kaspersky off. I can play a song. If I activate Kaspersky, tidal reports connection lost.

I checked Kaspersky if tidal is somehow restricted, but nothing appears blocked.

The user's anti-virus is blocking widevine. This didn't happen before, so something new?

castlabs / electron-releases

Debugging unexplained Widevine installation failures #187