[RESOLVED] Multiple browsers but HTML streams not displayed corectly

[shag00]

I have a very infuriating problem where I wish to watch a HTML stream but I am unable to reliably switch to fullscreen or change the volume. The reason being that the pop-up bar containing the volume and fullscreen controls that normally/should appear at the bottom of the stream only is visible for a second or 2 then disappears and cannot be brought back. The vast majority of the time these controls are not highlighted and clicking on them does not turn audio on or display fullscreen. Very occasional, say 1 in 40 reloads the the fullscreen and audio controls will highlight and work. That said once I am lucky enough to get into fullscreen mode the pop-up will appear as expected and I can change audio and revert to small size video.

I have the same result using Firefox, Chrome and Vivaldi web browsers. To complicate matters 1 of my 4 PCs works as expected and displays the pop-up bar with highlighted controls all the time.

All of my PCs run Nvidia cards with the 525 driver and 23.04. The stream in question is: https://me.webcric.com/watch-world-c...treaming-1.htm

A couple of questions:
1/ can anyone reproduce this problem
2/ Is there a keyboard control that can be used to convert video to fullscreen - f does not work
3/ does anyone know how to determine what the problem is, pressing F12 is not showing anything that I recognise as a problem, there are errors but the same error appears on the PC that works.

[Schwarzer Kater]

Quickly gave it a try in macOS with Firefox:

the controls are only displayed when I use the "picture-in-picture" button:

[Goeroeboeroe]

I don't think there's much you can do about this. I tried it on Linux:
Google Chrome: get with every click only an advertisement in a new tab. After about thirty I stopped. No streaming at all.
Vivaldi: after about ten videos with advertisements the stream starts, without buttons.
Firefox (heavily customized): the stream starts right away, but without buttons.

I had a look at the code in Firefox. Some lunatic got a completely free hand to do everything you can think of. Four (!) nested iframes. A complete mess of nested divs, tenths of levels deep.
In one div there's a class 'media-control-hide'. If I remove that class, the controls show up. But they don't work.
I looked further. Every button from the player is separately disabled on different ways, if I see it well. With things like ponter-events: none; or putting a little transparent window over it to block clicks/touches. Or by hiding it with position absolute.
Buttons are even hidden/disabled in different ways for different browsers. I guess (just a guess) the coder was really paranoid about the possibility that even one person on earth should be able to miss one advertisement, or something like that.

If I open it a second time, I get a bit different code. So there's probably also some kind of counter that changes some of the code dependent how often you've looked, or something like that.

Long story short: impossible to do something about it, I'm afraid.

Edit, because I forgot: that's probably the reason you get different results. It looks like the site (tries to) detect browser/os and changes the code, depending on that.

[claydoh]

The problems is the site itself.
The only way to get controls to show is to click on the video, to get a new window (for an ad) THEN I can see a mute icons and a play/pause button. For a moment or two. Then you have to click the video again....to get another ad in order to play/pause or adjust volume. Every time you want to do this.

If you are using extensions for things like ad blocking, etc. they might be interfering with this. No ad, no controls.

Firefox's pop-out video window feature gets around this, as Schwarzer shows.

the coder was really paranoid about the possibility that even one person on earth should be able to miss one advertisement, or something like that

Well, duh!
That is the entire purpose for the site .
Broadcast someone else's content for free, but you still need to pay for at least the bandwidth costs, let alone the price of the stream (if it isn't already pirated).
Ad revenue is not all that high per ad, so you need to generate a LOT of views to pay for things, let alone make some sort of living.

[shag00]

Thanks guys for your reply, the only possible work around from Schwarzer is not possible for me as I never get the PiP icon and I don't have a Mac. It appears none of you ran into an overlay add that appears on top of the video stream itself (covers 100% of the stream), renders claydoh's suggestion mute. On one hand it is reassuring that you all had similar problems.

The remaining issue though is how to identify why one of my PC's always works as expected. It is the reason I posted on this site as there must be something in Ubuntu which causes the problem. The always working PC is the newest and most powerful of my PC's and is loaded with way more programs as I use it for my work. That said, the other PC's are still running Ryzon 5 or 7 CPUs and all have 16GB of RAM. The only notable difference being the working PC supports dual monitors.

I have not explored the Grease Monkey/Tamper Monkey option yet but it seems the best next course of action.

[Schwarzer Kater]

If an overlay advertisement is the problem - did you try to use the uBlock Origin add-on in Firefox?
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/fir...ublock-origin/

[Goeroeboeroe]

The most likely explanation for the difference between your computers is (I guess) a difference in one or more of the settings in the browser and/or the os.
Some of the css is browser-specific (as far as that still works today).
There are an unbelievable lot of scripts on that site. They also make some tests on os/browser/... So the slightest differences can cause a change. Apart from that there have to be something like counters on that site. Otherwise the code I see couldn't change. They may also check for your ip to see how often you visited the page.

Today I tried your link again (out of curiosity). Surprise: after three ads Chrome worked, with buttons. That's to say: hovering over the bottom of the stream made the controls appear, and they didn't disappear and even worked. Five times, after that controls were forever gone. That's a completely different result from what I got yesterday in the exact same configured browser on the exact same system.
The stream in Vivaldi started now right away, without ads. But without controls. Also different from yesterday.
In Firefox yesterday I got that picture-in-picture icon and it was working. Today that icon was gone. Same browser, same os, same settings.
Since this is a computer, there has to be an iron logic in what happens (apart from hardware problems that may happen sometimes, like a loose contact). But this code is so messy it takes weeks to find that logic. And when you find it, it's very well possible you can't do anything about it.

So I'm afraid the reason why one of your computers is working belongs to the Great Unsolvable Mysteries of the Cosmos.

[claydoh]

I don't have a mac, I just used firefox.
Since it is working on one machine, I suspect a combo of browser addons between the systemsmay be at play, at least as the first thing to look at, as well as any differences in security/privacy settings.

then again, I can't couldn't even get this crap site to load today last night, on any browser or computer, even in a clean profile or incognito.
I can get the ad pages, but no the actual video.

This morning, it is working, I assume because there is actual content being broadcast live at thew moment.
But, like I noticed previously, I do not get the FF popout button until I first click the video once, to get an ad. THEN I can see the controls and the popout button for a number of seconds. I do not run an adblock in the browser, but I do use Pi-hole on my NAS which blocks ad content, not actions.

Adding Ublock Origin to FF, I can now see the video controls and the popout button 100% of the time, so I can confirm Schwarzer Kater's suggestion is worth looking at.
Else find a different source for...ahem...free... cricket content

[shag00]

I may have found a solution based on your replies, for reasons that far exceed my ability to comprehend it appears that adding the extension Adlock (not Adblock) restores complete functionality, at least for Vivaldi which is my preferred browser. Early days but worked on multiple trys.

Thanks for your help.