Just about all videos won't play!

A Former User

Just a thought... I can not verify its validity because debian (= my distro) does not have chromium ffmpeg codecs available in its repos.

Opera 49 (in stable channel today) is based on chromium 62, opera 50 (in beta channel today) is based on chromium 63 and opera 51 (in developer channel today) is based on chromium 64. What if each version of opera requires chromium ffmpeg codecs of the chromium version it is built on? That means opera stable needs chromium codecs of chromium 62, opera beta the ones of chromium 63 and opera developer the ones of chromium 64 to work.
Sadly, the repos can only provide one version of chromium ffmpeg codecs and that is 63, because today's stable version of chromium is 63.

Can someone verify that by installing the relevant packages in their distro?

cybrsaylr

cybrsaylr

@jimunderscorep

Synaptic Package Manager shows that, chromium ffmpeg codecs extra 63.0.3239.84, are installed.

A Former User

Synaptic, and anything using apt, would obviously show version 63.x for chromium ffmpeg codecs because chromium 63.x is also in the repo and whatever is build from chromium's source will be on the same version.
The odd thing would be to have chromium 62.x and chromium ffmpeg codecs 63.x.

If I was on a distro that packages chromium ffmpeg codecs I would either try opera 50 from beta channel today) or wait until 50 reaches stable channel and check again.

cybrsaylr

cybrsaylr

Opera has been my fav browser going way back to the Opera 3.5 versions. However lately these video issues have been a chronic problem with Opera. Don't know why they haven't been addressed and resolved by now.

I also have Firefox 57.0.1 Chrome 62.0.3202.94 and even TOR 7.0.11 browsers.
Just opened, used and tested all 3 of them and all 3 browsers play video with no problems!

A Former User

Discovered same problem last night... Disabled Add-ons, no difference. My solution is to open Chrome to watch videos (cut and paste addy from Opera), and just wait for "them" to "fix it"...

Version: 49.0.2725.56 - Opera is up to date
System: Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS (x86_64; XFCE)

A Former User

As it was said some time ago, opera's built in libffmpeg.so has poor html5 support out of the box due to licencing issues, e.g. it does not support mp3 playback because they do not have the licence to make it do so. Which ones do not work? The ones marked with a red X on html5test.com.

The official, and probably unique, solution is to install chromium ffmpeg codecs, if the distro has a package for it (e.g. ubuntu), and opera will use the libffmpeg.so provided in that package which has better html5 support.
If the distro does not package chromium ffmpeg codecs (e.g. debian), there is no solution, you are stuck and you'd better use another browser for pages that use "problematic" html5 content. That's what I do at least.

Finally, on that subject, firefox (and tor as a derivative of it), chrome and chromium (of a distro that packages chromium ffmpeg codecs) have a licence for all those non-free codeds that html5 can use, so they work out of the box. If you want to make a fair comparison, compare opera to vivaldi, which has the same licencing issue.

A Former User

I got the same problem on KDE neon which is based on Ubuntu. This fixes it for me:

Download https://repo.herecura.eu/herecura/x86_64/opera-ffmpeg-codecs-62.0.3202.94-1-x86_64.pkg.tar.xz and replace the libffmpeg.so in the opera directory (which is /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera in my case).

Hoping that Opera will work on this. There is no problem with Vivaldi by the way.

okluge

okluge

Videos work for me.

49.0.2725.5 on Linux Mint 17.2, which is an LTS with Ubuntu Trusty 64 Bit (Ubuntu 14.04.5 LTS (x86_64; X-Cinnamon), but only after I installed chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra 63.0.3239.84-0ubuntu0.14.04.1 via Synaptic.

A Former User @mistapajonk

@thomas-rager said in I don't see videos on Twitter:

H.264/MP4 problem in Opera 49.0.2725.5
Ok, I had some time to play around. On Debian (amd64) based systems (Debian, Ubuntu, Mint, ect) you need to uninstall
chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra with the command:
sudo apt-get remove chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra
You can uses this older version as replacement:
https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/xenial/amd64/chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra/61.0.3163.100-0ubuntu0.16.04.1306
or as direct download:
http://launchpadlibrarian.net/338867652/chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra_61.0.3163.100-0ubuntu0.16.04.1306_amd64.deb
download the file and use:
sudo dpkg --install chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra_61.0.3163.100-0ubuntu0.16.04.1306_amd64.deb
to install it, or double click on the file. Afterwards completely restart Opera.
If you want to prevent further updates of this package use this command (not recommended):
sudo apt-mark hold chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra

A Former User @Guest

@xezolitharon said in Just about all videos won't play!:

<snipped>
ubuntu0.16.04.1306_amd64.deb
download the file and use:
sudo dpkg --install chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra_61.0.3163.100-0ubuntu0.16.04.1306_amd64.deb
to install it, or double click on the file. Afterwards completely restart Opera.
<snipped>

This worked without fail. Phew. Perfect stop-gap measure for now. Thanks @xezolitharon !

But this remains to be an issue. I understand and appreciate the troubles with licensing, I really do.
But back to reality: Video's don't work with up to date software, codecs and drivers. No matter the reason, however valid; this is a big problem for Opera. This will drive people to other browsers. Not many people will go to a different browser just for media consumption.

What can we, as a community, do to help move to an actual solution?

A Former User @Guest

@xezolitharon

Unfortunately replacing the whole package breaks an existing chromium installation, but it's possible to extract the libffmpeg.so from the deb file and moving it into the opera directory.

There is is newer version of the package working just as well:
http://launchpadlibrarian.net/345863538/chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra_62.0.3202.94-0ubuntu0.16.04.1317_amd64.deb

A Former User

Just discovered that it even works when moving the current libffmpeg.so (63...) into the opera directory. It can be retrieved either from the installation directory /usr/lib/chromium-browser of chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra or from http://launchpadlibrarian.net/348605543/chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra_63.0.3239.84-0ubuntu0.16.04.1_amd64.deb

This is really weird since the ffmpeg_preload_config.json in the resources subdir of the opera installation contains the correct link to the extra codecs.

cybrsaylr

cybrsaylr @Guest

@cyberjag said in Just about all videos won't play!:

@xezolitharon

Unfortunately replacing the whole package breaks an existing chromium installation, but it's possible to extract the libffmpeg.so from the deb file and moving it into the opera directory.

There is is newer version of the package working just as well:
http://launchpadlibrarian.net/345863538/chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra_62.0.3202.94-0ubuntu0.16.04.1317_amd64.deb

@cyberjag,

Can you give the steps for doing this?
Moving things around like that is new to me and am not sure how it's done.

Today did some Ubuntu 16.04.3 LTS (x86_64; Unity) updating which included updates to Opera 49.0 version
49.0.2725.56 and Opera Dev 51.0 Version: 51.0.2802.0 but videos still don't play.

A Former User

@cybrsaylr

I'm only referring to Opera 49.0.2725.56.

First save the original libffmpeg.so:
cd /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera
sudo cp libffmpeg.so libffmpeg.so_original

If you got chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra installed you can do
sudo cp /usr/lib/chromium-browser/libffmpeg.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera/

Otherwise get http://launchpadlibrarian.net/348605543/chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra_63.0.3239.84-0ubuntu0.16.04.1_amd64.deb, unpack it (or open it with Ark), then unpack data.tar.xz, you will find libffmpeg.so. Then
sudo cp libffmpeg.so /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera/

If opera gets updated the file will be replaced by the official one but hopefully the bug will then be fixed or you have to do this procedure again...

A Former User @Guest

So it seems that what I said earlier does occur

@jimunderscorep said in Just about all videos won't play!:

What if each version of opera requires chromium ffmpeg codecs of the chromium version it is built on? That means opera stable needs chromium codecs of chromium 62, opera beta the ones of chromium 63 and opera developer the ones of chromium 64 to work.

The chromium-62-based opera 49 does need chromium ffmpeg codecs version 62 to work as it should.

cybrsaylr

cybrsaylr

Success......I hope!

Opened Synaptic Package Manager and removed chromium ffmpeg codecs extra 63.0.3239.84

Then downloaded and installed codecs-ffmpeg-extra_62.0.3202.94 as per http://launchpadlibrarian.net/345863538/chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra_62.0.3202.94-0ubuntu0.16.04.1317_amd64.deb

Restarted Opera 49.0 and videos are running again.

However Synaptic now shows this:
alt text

Oh and it seems the new Opera VPN that presently offers only 3 regions does slow videos down quite a bit when turned on. When VPN is turned off videos play very well.

Sigmalion

Sigmalion @Guest

@cyberjag said in Just about all videos won't play!:

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The cp worked for Linux Mint 18.2, Thanks a lot!

catmcfarlane

catmcfarlane @cybrsaylr

@cybrsaylr said in Just about all videos won't play!:

Success......I hope!

Opened Synaptic Package Manager and removed chromium ffmpeg codecs extra 63.0.3239.84

Then downloaded and installed codecs-ffmpeg-extra_62.0.3202.94 as per http://launchpadlibrarian.net/345863538/chromium-codecs-ffmpeg-extra_62.0.3202.94-0ubuntu0.16.04.1317_amd64.deb

Restarted Opera 49.0 and videos are running again.

However Synaptic now shows this:

Oh and it seems the new Opera VPN that presently offers only 3 regions does slow videos down quite a bit when turned on. When VPN is turned off videos play very well.

Thanks so much for this. Running latest Opera version, Mint Cinnamon 18.1, and Youtube flash-html5 add on; with this, videos would play, set to html5, but not live videos. Now they work!

A Former User

Why doesn't anyone try opera-BETA 50 with chromium 63 ffmpeg codecs installed, since they are both built from the same sources? Instead, you all try workarounds to extract, move to the right place etc chromium 62 ffmpeg codecs to make it work with chromium-62-based opera stable.

Plus, if this really is the issue (the compatibility between the versions opera and chromium ffmpeg codecs are build), opera devs should move opera beta to stable faster. Chromium 63 reached stable at December 8th, so chromium-63-based opera beta should move to stable sooner.

catmcfarlane

catmcfarlane @Guest

@jimunderscorep said in Just about all videos won't play!:

Why doesn't anyone try opera-BETA 50 with chromium 63 ffmpeg codecs installed, since they are both built from the same sources? Instead, you all try workarounds to extract, move to the right place etc chromium 62 ffmpeg codecs to make it work with chromium-62-based opera stable.

Plus, if this really is the issue (the compatibility between the versions opera and chromium ffmpeg codecs are build), opera devs should move opera beta to stable faster. Chromium 63 reached stable at December 8th, so chromium-63-based opera beta should move to stable sooner.

Because 50's a beta, which I worry might be a worse option that adapting 49, especially if not technically able to fix other things. I didn't know about the beta, either. Opera should be getting the criticism, as they must know these issues will happen due to not releasing the right codecs at the same time. Just glad to know the option of keeping previous codecs, so things work.