Bug 161963 – [GTK] Gifv videos from Imgur.com don't get displayed when opened from a "direct" link

• Component: WebKitGTK
• Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

[Julián Unrrein]

Created attachment 288813 [details]
Video showing the difference when loading the same video using different URLs

Using:
Opensuse Tumbleweed
Epiphany             3.20.3
WebkitGtk            2.13.91 (It also happened on 2.12.x)

This issue happens with the custom gifv video format used by Imgur.com.

When viewing one of these using the "main" webpage, the video gets loaded correctly.
Sample link: http://imgur.com/8RXhbLz

When viewing one of these using a "direct" link, the video doesn't get loaded correctly.
Sample link: http://i.imgur.com/8RXhbLz.gifv

I don't know whether the issue lies within WebitGtk or not, but I don't have the knowledge or expertise necessary to determine where it is. Hopefully you can help me with that.

I'm attaching a video showing the issue.

[Carlos Garcia Campos]

It's weird, it flashes and then it doesn't work, but if you resize the window it works again.

[Julián Unrrein]

(In reply to comment #1)
> It's weird, it flashes and then it doesn't work, but if you resize the
> window it works again.

Woa, I didn't notice that, and I can reproduce that here too.

If you don't think it's a WebkitGtk issue, I'll appreciate any other information you can give so I can forward it to the Imgur developers.

[Michael Catanzaro]

FWIW: I see no video at either link, resizing the window doesn't make any difference for me, and I can't view your attachment since you uploaded an mp4 rather than a webm. The gif plays fine if I click the download link and open it in image viewer, but then it's downloading a gif and not a gifv. The groomsman in the gif is excellent.

Note this imgur was working fine until a month or two ago; it's not a WebKit regression, rather, imgur recently changed something on their server.

(In reply to comment #2) 
> If you don't think it's a WebkitGtk issue, I'll appreciate any other
> information you can give so I can forward it to the Imgur developers.

More likely a WebKit bug IMO, but not enough info here to know yet. The best people to debug are almost always the website developers anyway.

[Julián Unrrein]

(In reply to comment #3)
> FWIW: I see no video at either link, resizing the window doesn't make any
> difference for me, and I can't view your attachment since you uploaded an
> mp4 rather than a webm.

It turns out that's because imgur's gifv format is some form of mp4 and/or h264 (I'm not very knowledgeable in this area either). See "Gifv with Firefox"[0] for more.

> The groomsman in the gif is excellent.

Glad you found it of taste.

> Note this imgur was working fine until a month or two ago; it's not a WebKit
> regression, rather, imgur recently changed something on their server.

I don't remember this working correctly on Epiphany 3.18 last year either (that's one of the reasons I stopped using it) but I didn't report it back then.

> > If you don't think it's a WebkitGtk issue, I'll appreciate any other
> > information you can give so I can forward it to the Imgur developers.
> 
> More likely a WebKit bug IMO, but not enough info here to know yet. The best
> people to debug are almost always the website developers anyway.

How can I help? Bringing in the Imgur devs?

https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/210528026-Gifv-with-Firefox

[Michael Catanzaro]

(In reply to comment #4)
> How can I help? Bringing in the Imgur devs?
> 
> https://help.imgur.com/hc/en-us/articles/210528026-Gifv-with-Firefox

It never hurts to remind them that depending on encumbered codecs is evil and costs them users; they probably don't know any better. It used to be such a nice image hosting site. Reddit is a lot less fun now. :(

That window resize starts playback is probably a WebKit bug, though.

[Eddy Castillo]

I will only add, as of version 2.16.2 of WebKitGTK+ it's reproducible.

2 additional ways to make the video visible:

- Changing zoom.
- "Rigth click > view media controls".

[Carlos Garcia Campos]

I think we fixed this in r216758.

[Michael Catanzaro]

No, that revision was merged to 2.16.3, but imgur is still broken.

[Adrian Perez]

This seems to be working now with WebKitGTK+ 2.20.1 + Epiphany 3.28.1.1

[Michael Catanzaro]

It's broken for me with 2.21.1. I actually just reported a duplicate of this yesterday.

The workaround I found is to resize the window.

[Michael Catanzaro]

*** Bug 185168 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

[Adrian Perez]

(In reply to Michael Catanzaro from comment #10)
> It's broken for me with 2.21.1. I actually just reported a duplicate of this
> yesterday.
> 
> The workaround I found is to resize the window.

I have right now tried trunk, and the video works fine for me.
Could it be some difference in the GStreamer codecs available
in your setup and mine?

[Michael Catanzaro]

No clue. I'm using Ephy Tech Preview.

[Lionir]

It works for me on latest Epiphany, can you still reproduce Michael?

[Julián Unrrein]

This issue is now resolved for me in Epiphany 3.32.2 and webkit2gtk3 2.24.1.