logotv.com video not viewable

[amychurchwell]

URL: http://www.logotv.com/video-clips/ohrh4a/rupauls-drag-race-meet-the-queens-katya

Browser/Version: Firefox Mobile

Operating System: Android 7.0

What seems to be the trouble?(Required)

• [ ] Desktop site instead of mobile site
• [ ] Mobile site is not usable
• [x] Video doesn't play
• [ ] Layout is messed up
• [ ] Text is not visible
• [ ] Something else (Add details below)

Steps to Reproduce

1. Navigate to: http://www.logotv.com/video-clips/ohrh4a/rupauls-drag-race-meet-the-queens-katya

Screenshot

[softvision-sergiulogigan]

Thanks @amychurchwell for this report! Strangely enough, every time I try to access the website, I am being redirected to the Twitter page. https://twitter.com/logotv/

Is there a way to circumvent this?

[amychurchwell]

@softvision-sergiulogigan hm, not experiencing that issue. Any details that differ from above?

[softvision-sergiulogigan]

I use a fresh instance of Firefox Nightly 67.0a1 (2019-02-28) - Cleared app's Data/Cache. And then navigate to the provided URL.

The same happens on Desktop too. Oh! And also on Chrome!

Let me try with a US VPN connection... Same...

@amychurchwell I don't know how to not go to twitter.

[amychurchwell]

@softvision-sergiulogigan that is really strange because I am not getting that behavior in Firefox Developer Edition or Chrome. I wish I had some solutions, but I don't understand why this is happening. It is clearly some sort of redirect on their end that is being triggered.

[softvision-sergiulogigan]

Let's see if @wisniewskit can reproduce, without the redirect I'm experiencing.

[wisniewskit]

Yes, I can reproduce it, so it's likely some sort of region-specific redirect.

The video works fine for me when Firefox is spoofing it's user-agent as Chrome, so this is almost certainly just a faulty UA-check the site is making.

[softvision-sergiulogigan]

Let me try with a US VPN connection... Same...

Weird...

[wisniewskit]

The faulty user-agent check is right here in their player script:

Player.isPlaybackSupported = (function () {
var userAgent = navigator.userAgent,
output = false,
execResult;
if (/iP(hone|ad)/.test(userAgent)) {
  execResult = /OS (\d+)[_\d]+? like Mac OS X/.exec(userAgent);
  output = 6 <= parseInt(execResult && execResult[1]);
} else if (/iPod/.test(userAgent)) {
  output = false;
} else if (/Android/i.test(userAgent)) {
  if (/Chrome/i.test(userAgent)) {
    execResult = /Android\s([0-9\.]*)/.exec(userAgent);
    output = 4.43 <= getVersion(execResult && execResult[1]);
  }
} else if (/Windows Phone|IEMobile|WPDesktop|XBLWP7/i.test(userAgent)) {
  output = false;
} else if (/MSIE/.test(userAgent)) {
  execResult = /MSIE (\d+\.\d+);/.exec(userAgent);
  output = 10 <= parseInt(execResult && execResult[1]);
} else {
  output = true;
}

It hits the Android case, and only considers "Chrome" a valid Android browser. They will have to update this check to also allow Firefox, if they want to insist on using UA-sniffing:

  if (/Chrome|Firefox/i.test(userAgent)) {

It would probably be better for them to just check that the video types they serve as supported by the browser this way, though (note, this may not be the only type they support, but it's what my phone seems to be getting):

  if (document.createElement("video").canPlayType("application/vnd.apple.mpegurl") {

As for the redirect issue, I honestly don't know what's going on there. I'd presume it's just a region lockout of some sort.

[softvision-oana-arbuzov]

The issue is still reproducible on my side.

Tested with: Browser / Version: Firefox Nightly 68.3a1 (2019-11-06), Firefox Preview Nightly 191107 (🦎: 72.0a1-20191104094118) Operating System: Huawei P20 Lite (Android 8.0.0) - 1080 x 2280 pixels, 19:9 ratio (~432 ppi density), Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge (Android 8.0.0) - Resolution 1440 x 2560 pixels (~534 ppi pixel density) VPN active poiting to USA

[wisniewskit]

Wow, this one slipped under the radar. Sorry! @amychurchwell, the video clip link given no longer works, could you confirm if this is still an issue, and provide another link?

The specific Javascript file I checked long ago seems to still be the same, so if the problem still exists I think our best bet will just be to spoof Firefox on Android as Chrome for this site (just adding Chrome to the user-agent string should hopefully be enough).