Widevine and Opera

macfly1987

macfly1987

I have the same problem. Debian testing system.

Since Opera 66 and above, Widevine support does not work.

I reported the problem to them several times, but no response.

Can the creators of Opera explain why in their browser they can not add built-in libffmpeg and widevine in the browser? Somehow on Windows you do not need to install Google Chrome to have Widevine.

Now there is also a problem with the libffmpeg.so file, because before it was enough to install the appropriate package for Chromium. Now this file is stapled in the browser.

Using Opera on Linux has become very limited and problematic.

@maydin95 , where to upload this file?

maydin95

maydin95 @macfly1987

@macfly1987 I read it from a Vivaldi developer in Vivaldi forum, he said there needs to be a manifest file but I have no what to do.

zekemx

zekemx

@maydin95 Hello and sorry for the delay.. My hard drive broke and I did not had any linux installed to test.

It seems to me that the Opera Developers don't have the intention to support widevine in Opera linux for some reason.

I did many changes and tests.
modified the widevine.config.json from: /opt/google/chrome/libwidevinecdm.so to /opt/google/chrome/WidevineCdm/_platform_specific/linux_x64/libwidevinecdm.so (and subsecuent) since the latest chrome changed the libwidevinecdm.so location.

I downloaded the latest libffmpeg.so and made sure H.264 support was enabled (Test it on: https://html5test.com/).

I created a soft link using: ln -s /opt/google/chrome/WidevineCdm/_platform_specific/linux_x64/libwidevinecdm.so /opt/google/chrome/ to be able to keep the original widevine_config.json file from opera (This worked great before so I didn't have to modify it everytime opera got updated.

Nothing works...

In conclusion.. Opera doesn't work with widevine anymore (As of today), I hope the Opera Developers would explain why, but probably they don't care about linux users anymore.

I even installed Opera for Windows and noticed that there is a folder named WidevineCdm located at: C:\Users\userprofile\AppData\Roaming\Opera Software\Opera Stable\WidevineCdm\ that seems to be google Chrome's.. so did the same on the linux side and did many tests, I even changed the manifest.json with no success.

I noticed that in the manifest.json file the widevine library for linux is not defined so I did it myself.. Still it doesn't work.

I have to say that I love Opera but since it doesn't work with widevine anymore and unable to watch netflix and listen to spotify I will remove it from my system.

I'll keep you posted just in case it works for me.

Regards
Ezequiel Partida (ZekeMX)

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer @maydin95

@maydin95 said in Widevine and Opera:

@macfly1987 I read it from a Vivaldi developer in Vivaldi forum, he said there needs to be a manifest file but I have no what to do.

You can try asking Ruari. He deals with Linux for Vivaldi and has written all those libffmpeg and widewine scripts for Vivaldi. He used to work for Opera too. If it's something that can be fixed outside Opera with the manifest thing, he probably knows how to do it.

miqwalsh

miqwalsh

@zekemx said in Widevine and Opera:

In conclusion.. Opera doesn't work with widevine anymore (As of today), I hope the Opera Developers would explain why, but probably they don't care about linux users anymore.

@ zekemx:- That's it in a nutshell. I read somewhere, not many days ago, that Opera has been bought out by one of the 'big boys'. Expect many more annoying changes like this over the next few releases; these people have made it crystal-clear that they are only going to support Windows exclusively.....because that's where the money is.

Everybody else can go whistle. So; it looks like I, too, will be returning to Chrome again.

Bloody annoying.....but at least Big Brother doesn't give you quite this many hoops to jump through for an overall 'experience'. And everything does work, with relatively little 'pain'.

Mike.

l33t4opera

l33t4opera

Hi guys, I have some good news ;-)
I just checked it, and the problem looks to be solved in the latest developer version
(68.0.3602.0 - "DNA-84335 [Linux] Widevine is not working due to changed path of libwidevinecdm.so"),
when you provide proper path to Widevine's folder in the "widevine_config.json" file, for example "/usr/lib/chromium-browser/WidevineCdm".

A Former User

Widewine works again in developer version (Version:68.0.3602.0). It seems that they have changed the format of widevine_config.json and now instead of poinitng to the library file, the addresses point to the WidevineCdm directory containing manifest.json file and _platform_specific directory. This would be by default /opt/google/chrome/WidevineCdm

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer

The setup I did for Opera Stable (66) for libffmpeg and Widevine on Linux Mint 19.3 XFCE is this:

Install Google Chrome and Opera.
Create "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera/lib_extra"
Place libffmpeg.so for Chromium 79 in the "lib_extra" folder. Got it from https://github.com/iteufel/nwjs-ffmpeg-prebuilt/releases/tag/0.43.6.
Copy "opt/google/chrome/WidevineCdm" to the "lib_extra" folder.
Edit "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera/resources/ffmpeg_preload_config.json" to be:
```
[]
```

Edit "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera/resources/widevine_config.json" to be:

  [
      {
         "preload": "/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera/lib_extra/WidevineCdm"
      }

  ]

Uninstall Chrome and delete "/usr/lib/chromium-browser" for good measure.

In testing, unlike "lib_extra" for ffmpeg, Opera does not not search for the Widevine lib or the Widevine folder in any other place besides what's in widevine_config.json. It doesn't even search in "~/.config/opera/WidevineCdm".

(See https://forums.opera.com/post/199264 (my reply/question to @jimunderscorep) for why I edited the config files so Opera only searches for its own copies of libffmpeg and widevine.)

burnout426

burnout426 Volunteer

Here's how I'm getting Widevine for Opera Stable without installing Chrome. It's based on https://gist.github.com/ruario/3c873d43eb20553d5014bd4d29fe37f1.

wget https://dl.google.com/widevine-cdm/versions.txt

wdm=$( cat versions.txt | tail -n1 )

wget https://dl.google.com/widevine-cdm/$wdm-linux-x64.zip

unzip $wdm-linux-x64.zip

mkdir WidevineCdm

mv manifest.json WidevineCdm

mkdir "WidevineCdm/_platform_specific"

mkdir "WidevineCdm/_platform_specific/linux_x64"

mv libwidevinecdm.so "WidevineCdm/_platform_specific/linux_x64"

Then, put the WidevineCdm folder in a spot Opera is looking for like /opt/google/chrome:

sudo mkdir /opt

sudo mkdir /opt/google

sudo mkdir /opt/google/chrome

sudo mv WidevineCdm /opt/google/chrome

Then:

cat /usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/opera/resources/widevine_config.json

and make sure the first preload is exactly:

"preload" : "/opt/google/chrome/WidevineCdm"

If not, fix it.

l33t4opera

l33t4opera @l33t4opera

Hi guys, the Widevine is fixed now also in the latest Opera stable for Linux.

A Former User @l33t4opera

@l33t4opera still you need to add ffmpeg.so file under lib_extra directory.

l33t4opera

l33t4opera @Guest

Hi @igitqara, yes, because the Opera itself doesn't provide H.264 codec in its "libffmpeg.so" lib in the package.

Regarding the "lib_extra", the lib can be placed also in any custom folder. You can change the path to it in ffmpeg_preload_config.json file, which is located in the /path/to/opera's-install-root/resources folder.

A Former User

I can confirm that widevine is working again on stable 66

Have somebody figured out how to use widevine with snap version of Opera? It appears, that only reason it is not working, is that snaps don't have access to /opt/google/chrome. If devs provide alternative location for storing widevine, fe somewhere in /home folder snaps should also plays nicely with widevine.