CNN Videos Do Not Play

[Puzzled Once Again]

I did not find anything about this in searching the forums: CNN videos have stopped playing recently. Using Firefox 15.0.1, NoScript 2.5.6. Even with allowing everything on the page, when I click on the icon to allow the video to load, I then get a large black image where the video should be. and a right-click shows that Flash is loaded; however, the video never plays. If I disable NoScript and restart FF, the videos work correctly.

[GµårÐïåñ]

I did not find anything about this in searching the forums: CNN videos have stopped playing recently. Using Firefox 15.0.1, NoScript 2.5.6. Even with allowing everything on the page, when I click on the icon to allow the video to load, I then get a large black image where the video should be. and a right-click shows that Flash is loaded; however, the video never plays. If I disable NoScript and restart FF, the videos work correctly.

There has been a lot of freezing and glitching lately and I have already reported this to Giorgio, but I am not 100% sure its NS fault yet, it may be something on the CNN server side, we'll just have to wait for Giorgio to take a look and let us know. It may even be a FlashGot glitch, at least for me.

[Tom T.]

What's interesting is that while I reproduced the freeze on Fx 15.0.1, the site seemed to work fine, and videos to play immediately, on (obsolete, testing purposes only, do not try this at home) Fx 3.6.28. Look in the changelog for how many times Giorgio has had to create workarounds for things broken by Gecko 15, 16, 17.

I suspect that this may be another case where something in "new, improved" Gecko is messing up NS in the interaction with CNN.

Scripts (temp-) allowed @ CNN for Fx 3 on Win XP:

+cnn.com
+turner.com
+http://turnerbroadcastingsy.tt.omtrdc.net

That's all.

[Giorgio Maone]

I tried the first video on the homepage (http://cnn.com) and a couple of the floating ones on the bottom left of this page, and they all work even though after a few seconds blank preroll (which happens without NoScript too).
Could you try on a clean profile with just NoScript installed and cnn.com + turner.com allowed?

[therube]

In my regular Profile, with <FRAMES> blocked & Apply these restrictions to whitelisted sites too, it is a PITA to get CNN to work. Hit or miss, & most often miss. One time, I got the clip to play. Lots of allowing, lots placeholder clicking & or Blocked object allowing, & most often I get nothing. Only once so far have I been able to get it to work.

Different Profile, Resetting NoScript settings, it looks like allowing cnn.com & turner.com is sufficient.

Perhaps in my normal Profile, a refresh of the page, neither a NoScript generated & or manual, is not sufficient, you actually have to open the URL in a different tab?

http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c3#/video/us/2012/09/26/jvm-too-fat-to-kill.hln
http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c3#/video/bestoftv/2012/09/25/evexp-pregnant-runway-model-milan.hln
http://www.cnn.com/video/?hpt=hp_c3#/video/showbiz/2012/09/22/mike-rowe-intv.cnn

Or maybe it is looking for a cookie that isn't being set based on my normal settings? (I may never have been to CNN before?) (After finally getting one clip to play, going back & doing a normal page refresh then allowed the others, which up to that point would not, to play.) Most often, the player controls never appeared for me.

I don't know?

If I revoke temporary permissions, then allow cnn.com & turner.com, then click the placeholder, the player frame appears, but no controls. And nothing more thereafter, no video. Opening the same clip in a new tab, again produces the placeholder. Clicked, & same results.

Open yet again in another tab, this time allowing the blocked object rather then clicking the placeholder, & the same.

Though then opening that in yet another tab, & the player loads fully (controls) & the clip plays.

And after that, a simple page refresh of the other tabs then allows them no play with no further actions.

Actually now all the window, tabs that I've opened will play.

So ...

Revoke Temporary Permissions
Open a clip
Allow cnn.com & turner.com
Click placeholder

Code: Select all

<OBJECT>, shockwave-flash@http://z.cdn.turner.com/xslo/cvp/assets/container/2.0.4.0/cvp_main_container.swf#!flashvars#context=cc_controls&autostart=true&site=cnn&profile=1&domId=cvp_1&cvpSessionToken=xWPOxo1cbUxsOV0aJIlBoPm8J

-> == Nothing

Revoke Temporary Permissions
Open a clip
Allow cnn.com & turner.com
Allow Blocked Object, shockwave-flash@http://www.cnn.com/
Click placeholder

Code: Select all

<OBJECT>, shockwave-flash@http://z.cdn.turner.com/xslo/cvp/assets/container/2.0.4.0/cvp_main_container.swf#!flashvars#context=cc_controls&autostart=true&site=cnn&profile=1&domId=cvp_1&cvpSessionToken=E6dGJioiz0RRqpsHOtmNCkzG6

-> == Nothing

Revoke Temporary Permissions
Open a clip
Allow cnn.com & turner.com
Allow Blocked Object, shockwave-flash@http://z.cdn.turner.com/
(no placeholder appears)
-> == Nothing

Revoke Temporary Permissions
Open a clip
Allow cnn.com & turner.com
Allow Blocked Object, shockwave-flash@http://z.cdn.turner.com/
(no placeholder appears)
-> == Nothing
Allow Blocked Object, shockwave-flash@http://www.cnn.com/
-> == At that point, the player has loaded fully, i.e. the Play button appears, but still is ineffective in getting the clip to play
Refresh the page
-> == Nothing
Forced Refresh of the page
-> == Nothing
Open clip in new tab
-> == Still nothing

(And I thought I was about to have this figured out ...)

Disable Adblock Plus & refresh the page...

Ah, that worked, so lets try again...
(And I do seem to recall something in the ABP forums about pages detecting ABP & ...)

[Puzzled Once Again]

I had a nearly-clean profile, with only four extensions, one of which was NoSquint; I believe NoSquint was there when I was doing some testing for an earlier problem that seemed to be NoS-related, but turned out not to so be.

Started FF with that profile, disabled all except NoS, added cnn.com and turner.com, and found that a CNN video played correctly. I then returned to my regular profile, and disabled all the extensions lower in the list than NoS, which is where I had stopped testing yesterday when disabling NoS allowed the videos to play; that did not allow videos to work. The only way I can now get CNN videos to play with my regular profile is to disable NoS.

Were I able to provide the date on which CNN videos stopped working, that information might be helpful, but I don't have that. I can postulate that the problem arose with the release of Firefox 15.0.1, but that would be nothing more than a statement for which I could not provide any proof; I only know that the problem arose a few days ago, where `few' is an undefined number.

[therube]

Don't hold me to it ...

Disable ABP

---

Revoke Temporary Permissions
Open a clip
Allow cnn.com & turner.com
Click placeholder
-> == Nothing
Allow Blocked Object, shockwave-flash@http://www.cnn.com/
Click placeholder
-> == Nothing
Open in new tab
-> == Nothing

Revoke Temporary Permissions
Open a clip
Allow cnn.com & turner.com
Allow Blocked Object, shockwave-flash@http://www.cnn.com/
Click placeholder
-> == Nothing

Revoke Temporary Permissions
Open a clip
Allow cnn.com & turner.com
Allow Blocked Object, shockwave-flash@http://z.cdn.turner.com/
(no placeholder appears)
-> == Nothing
Open that tab in a new tab
-> == At that point, finally, the clip plays

Alternatively had you refreshed that page (instead of opening in a new tab), the clip would play.

So it seems that ...

Clicking the placeholder is not sufficient
Allowing blocked objects is not sufficient

Only allowing blocked objects (shockwave-flash@http://z.cdn.turner.com/ is what is needed) & refreshing the (or opening in a new) page works.
(And keep ABP disabled, or remove the blocking item that CNN doesn't like.)

[redwolfe_98]

just to add my 2 cents, i didn't have any problems with playing any of the videos that i tried to play, at CNN..

i am running FF 15.1 and noscript 2.5.6.. i also use "adblock plus", for the record.. (i use the fanboy blocklists with all "exceptions" disabled)..

i should add that i am using "flash player 10.3.183.25".. maybe that makes a difference? i know that lots of people have had lots of problems with "flash player 11.x"..

one thing that i would suggest is, if you think that you have "allowed" everything that needs to be allowed, in "noscript", and a video, or game, still isn't playing, try refreshing the webpage so that everything, there, reloads, and see if the video, or game, then plays, as it is suppose to, after having reloaded the webpage..

p.s. giorgio, thanks for the work that you are doing, with "noscript"..

[Puzzled Once Again]

1. I've tried reloading a given CNN video page several times, to no avail.

2. I am using Flash 11,4,402,278, which is the latest update as of a few days ago. I don't know when I moved from 10x to 11x, so unfortunately cannot determine if the CNN problem arose with that change; however, I am encountering no other problems with 11,4,402,278.

3.Of course, I have to hope that no other sites see #2 supra, as their so doing is quite likely to cause my statement in the last part of #2 to be invalidated....

[Puzzled Once Again]

I shall not go into the strange details as to why I needed to create a new Firefox profile this morning; suffice it to report that I deleted Flash, rebooted, installed the latest 10x version in place of the 11x I was using, and created the replacement profile. Unfortunately, after doing that, I just tried a CNN video; it did not play.

[Puzzled Once Again]

Just a note that I had to reinstall Flash 11.x this morning, as XM Radio on-line requires it; my wife and I listen to their four-hour Baroque concert on Saturday mornings. This, I cannot experiment with the CNN video problem while using Flash 10.x.

[Tom T.]

Just a note that I do in fact have to use Flash 10.x, because I keep working copies of both Fx 3.6 and Fx 2.0 for diagnostic and testing purposes.
I don't know if that adds any diagnostic information.

Strange: Just went there with FX 15.0.1 and got it to work. After several page refreshes from temp-allowing turner and cnn, some "Recently blocked sites" started appearing. This happens if you have *all* of the NS Embeddings checked, as I do. One was TA all from svcs.cnn.com, and the other, TA all from content.dll-rms.com.

Also, if you have RequestPolicy add-on, akamahd.net shows -- as already temp-allowed. Possibly content.dll-rms is an alias for akamahd.net?
But then, "akamai", with the usual "I" at the end, showed in RequestPolicy as "akamaihd.net", and needed to be allowed.
Then I had to click the Flash placeholder on the featured video.
Then they all work.

If you choose to whitelist cnn.com and turner.com permanently, and especially if you uncheck "Apply to whitelisted sites too", this process would probably be much simpler.

In any case, please try that sequence of events.

[therube]

Now that's real strange.

On my Win7 computer, I can just allow cnn.com & turner.com, then click the placeholder & the clip plays.

On my XP computer, that was not the case. (Cannot recheck there till Monday.)

---

No, that is not going to be it.

A change was made between 2.5.6rc2 & 2.5.7rc2.

Almost certain I still have 2.5.6rc2 on my XP system.

In any case, alternating between the two on Win7, the behavior changes, so there is a change between the two affecting this.

[Puzzled Once Again]

2.5.6rc2: I just reinstalled in in place of the current release version, and can again play CNN videos. The behavior on CNN video compilation pages is strange: I can start one video, but if I then try to start another in a new Firefox tab, I get the same video as the first one. If I go to a single-video CNN page, that video works. I'll have to try this with CNN RSS feeds, but given that, until recently, I could play videos provided through that mechanism, I can only conjecture that the recent failure of them to play is due to some abstruse change in NoScript after 2.5.6rc2.

I don't recall just why I decided to switch back to NoScript release versions, although I do know that I had switched to development versions not long ago, in trying to track down another problem which turned out not to be caused by NoS, even though if I disabled NoS the problem went away. I even tried the 2.5.7rc2 version a day or two ago, in place of the current release version, which did not work, and did not think to find and reinstall 2.5.6rc2.

Thanks to `therube' for the pointer to 2.5.6rc2.

[therube]

Strange that reverting worked for you, yet for me I had to go forward?


> A change was made between 2.5.6rc2 & 2.5.7rc2.

Actually it is a change between 2.5.7rc1 & 2.5.7rc2.


noscriptService.js:

Code: Select all

8c8
< const VERSION = "2.5.7rc1";
---
> const VERSION = "2.5.7rc2";
4727c4727
<     for each (var r in replacements) {
---
>     for each (let r in replacements) {
4734c4734
<           r.object.parentNode.insertBefore(p, r.object);
---
>           r.object.parentNode.replaceChild(p, r.object);