"An unknown error occurred." when trying to play inline using TV icon on Firefox

Rafael Linux User

Tvheadend 4.2.7-44 ~ LibreELEC Tvh-addon v9.0.118

Despite I know this version is unsupported, as I can't upgrade, I'll try to get an answer.

I have been using TVheadend for years, but I was forced to use remote clients for Android, as Firefox always shows the message "An unknown error occurred." when I try to play from the Firefox browser using the small TV icon.

Also, the Firefox debug console shows.

Cannot play media. No decoders for requested formats: video/MP2T, video/webm; codecs="vp8.0 vorbis", application/x-mpegURL; codecs="avc1.42E01E mp4a.40 .2", application/vnd.apple.mpegURL; codecs="avc1.42E01E mp4a.40.2", video/MP2T; codecs="avc1.42E01E mp4a.40.2", video/x-matroska; codecs="avc1.42E01E mp4a.40 .2", video/MP2T, video/webm; codecs="vp8.0 vorbis", application/x-mpegURL; codecs="avc1.42E01E mp4a.40 .2", application/vnd.apple.mpegURL; codecs="avc1.42E01E mp4a.40.2", video/MP2T; codecs="avc1.42E01E mp4a.40.2", video/x-matroska; codecs="avc1.42E01E mp4a.40.2"

However, I have found that browsers like Chrome, Chromium or MSEdge for Linux do allow to play the TV directly by clicking on the mentioned icon, being under the same configuration on the same computer. Any idea why the error is only shown in Firefox?

Thanks

DeltaMikeCharlie

I'm not sure if this is helpful, but streaming to Firefox (v123.0) works for me with: Tvheadend 4.2.8-36 ~ LibreELEC Tvh-addon v11.0.0.0.

Have you tried selecting another stream profile from the drop-down list?

Rafael Linux User

DeltaMikeCharlie sincerely, I don't remember if I tried (time ago) that option. I'll do tonight. But if it's related to codecs , why Chrome-based web browsers have no issues???

Jonas Lang

These changes should allow you to use the default player in the TVH web gui https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/block-autoplay#:~:text=Always%20allow%20or%20block%20media%20autoplay,-To%20always%20allow&text=Click%20the%20Settings%E2%80%A6,for%20all%20media%20with%20sound.

Rafael Linux User

Thank you both for your answers.

Indeed, I had already tried the other available streaming profiles some time ago, and the same thing happens with all of them.

As for the "autoplay" that Jonas suggested, it doesn't solve the problem either. In fact, it was activated, and deactivating it doesn't change the situation. It always shows the same error.

Jonas Lang

I’ve never bothered using the inbuilt player as presented in the TVH GUI and indeed can confirm it doesn’t work under Firefox but does work under Chromium. It’s definitely not a TVH issue so I imagine digging a little deeper into Firefox you’ll find a solution. Quite possibly missing codecs as far as Firefox is concerned. If Firefox is not essential for your needs I’d settle for Chromium. Both open source too.

Make sure you have the latest FFmpeg and libavcodec packages installed too.

Rafael Linux User

Jonas Lang Thank you for confirming!!
Thank you for confirming the problem. I must say that I had read that it may indeed be - as the console error in my first message said - something to do with the codecs. Apparently, there are some internal codecs in the browsers and it could be that Firefox doesn't have any of them installed, but it's very strange, because I can play almost any video and audio (and I have many types of formats). In Tumbleweed I have the "codecs" package installed, which installs all the necessary codecs. Anyway, I'll revise libavcodec, but I would bet that both are installed.

As for using Firefox, the truth is that I like to continue supporting free and independent software that uses other technologies and above all prioritises privacy and denounces the lack of it. The share of Firefox users is already low enough for me to remove my daily support for Mozilla, both at work and at home, so I only use Chromium for urgent cases that don't give me time to find out why something doesn't work in Firefox.

Jonas Lang

Again as I mentioned Chromium is also an open source project so to make the switch would not impact on your ideals of using the open source solution. It would also save you a lot of time digging around Firefox looking for a solution.

The error message “unknown error occurred” in the TVH GUI player is not particularly helpful either. You could run debug to see if that yields more informative details.

My final suggestion is to follow the steps here to see if these solutions resolve your issue. If so you could post back here for the benefit of others https://askubuntu.com/questions/1274143/firefox-not-playing-videos-on-ubuntu-20-04-4-lts

Rafael Linux User

Jonas Lang As we both know, both options are open source but - and this is the important thing - they do not use the same rendering engine. Blink, based on Webkit) is used among others by Chrome, Edge, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi and Chromium. Gecko is only used by Firefox. That is where the difference lies. Without user support, Firefox will disappear and there will be no choice and no innovation from competition. But that's my choice, nobody has to share it and support what simply doesn't work for them.

I put in my message the internal error displayed by the page, which is too generic to know which codec is missing.

Regarding the link, while it is interesting that you mention it, it is not useful for users of non-Ubuntu based distributions.

@DaveH , as you can see in fact, I have practically all the codecs available in Packman installed.

S  | Name                    | Type    | Version            | Arch   | Repository
---+-------------------------+---------+--------------------+--------+----------------------------
i+ | gstreamer-plugins-libav | paquete | 1.24.0-1.1         | x86_64 | Repositorio principal (OSS)
i+ | gstreamer-plugins-libav | paquete | 1.24.0-1.1         | x86_64 | openSUSE:Tumbleweed
i+ | libav-tools             | paquete | 12.3-2.1           | x86_64 | Repositorio principal (OSS)
i+ | libav-tools             | paquete | 12.3-2.1           | x86_64 | openSUSE:Tumbleweed
i+ | libavahi-client3        | paquete | 0.8-31.4           | x86_64 | Repositorio principal (OSS)
i+ | libavahi-client3        | paquete | 0.8-31.4           | x86_64 | openSUSE:Tumbleweed
i+ | libavahi-client3-32bit  | paquete | 0.8-31.4           | x86_64 | Repositorio principal (OSS)
i+ | libavahi-client3-32bit  | paquete | 0.8-31.4           | x86_64 | openSUSE:Tumbleweed
i+ | libavahi-common3        | paquete | 0.8-31.4           | x86_64 | Repositorio principal (OSS)
i+ | libavahi-common3        | paquete | 0.8-31.4           | x86_64 | openSUSE:Tumbleweed
i+ | libavahi-common3-32bit  | paquete | 0.8-31.4           | x86_64 | Repositorio principal (OSS)
i+ | libavahi-common3-32bit  | paquete | 0.8-31.4           | x86_64 | openSUSE:Tumbleweed
i+ | libavahi-core7          | paquete | 0.8-31.4           | x86_64 | Repositorio principal (OSS)
i+ | libavahi-core7          | paquete | 0.8-31.4           | x86_64 | openSUSE:Tumbleweed
i+ | libavahi-glib1          | paquete | 0.8-31.2           | x86_64 | Repositorio principal (OSS)
i+ | libavahi-glib1          | paquete | 0.8-31.2           | x86_64 | openSUSE:Tumbleweed
i+ | libavc1394-0            | paquete | 0.5.4-20.1         | x86_64 | Repositorio principal (OSS)
i+ | libavc1394-0            | paquete | 0.5.4-20.1         | x86_64 | openSUSE:Tumbleweed
i+ | libavc1394-0-32bit      | paquete | 0.5.4-20.1         | x86_64 | Repositorio principal (OSS)
i+ | libavc1394-0-32bit      | paquete | 0.5.4-20.1         | x86_64 | openSUSE:Tumbleweed
i+ | libavcodec58_134        | paquete | 4.4.4-1699.14.pm.7 | x86_64 | Packman
i+ | libavcodec60            | paquete | 6.1.1-1699.3.pm.18 | x86_64 | Packman
i+ | libavdevice58_13        | paquete | 4.4.4-1699.14.pm.7 | x86_64 | Packman
i+ | libavdevice60           | paquete | 6.1.1-1699.3.pm.18 | x86_64 | Packman
i+ | libavfilter7_110        | paquete | 4.4.4-1699.14.pm.7 | x86_64 | Packman
i+ | libavfilter9            | paquete | 6.1.1-1699.3.pm.18 | x86_64 | Packman
i+ | libavformat58_76        | paquete | 4.4.4-1699.14.pm.7 | x86_64 | Packman
i+ | libavformat60           | paquete | 6.1.1-1699.3.pm.18 | x86_64 | Packman
i+ | libavif16               | paquete | 1.0.3-1.2          | x86_64 | Repositorio principal (OSS)
i+ | libavif16               | paquete | 1.0.3-1.2          | x86_64 | openSUSE:Tumbleweed
i+ | libavif16-32bit         | paquete | 1.0.3-1.2          | x86_64 | Repositorio principal (OSS)
i+ | libavif16-32bit         | paquete | 1.0.3-1.2          | x86_64 | openSUSE:Tumbleweed
i+ | libavresample4_0        | paquete | 4.4.4-1699.14.pm.7 | x86_64 | Packman
i+ | libavtp0                | paquete | 0.2.0-2.2          | x86_64 | Repositorio principal (OSS)
i+ | libavtp0                | paquete | 0.2.0-2.2          | x86_64 | openSUSE:Tumbleweed
i+ | libavutil56_70          | paquete | 4.4.4-1699.14.pm.7 | x86_64 | Packman
i+ | libavutil58             | paquete | 6.1.1-1699.3.pm.18 | x86_64 | Packman

Anyway, thanks both. If I found the way to fix issue I'll wrote it here 😛

DaveH

You mention that you use Tumbleweed. Do you obtain your media packages from packman? If not then you should know that the packages supplied directly by opensuse are crippled for legal reasons.

DaveH

OK, another thought then. Have you tried playing all the videos from somewhere like https://tools.woolyss.com/html5-audio-video-tester/ ? That might show you any particular problems with formats.