Every other update of opera breaks Gifv and video functionality for various sites, this has been going on for a long time.

A Former User

Every other opera update breaks video and "gifv" functionality and then another update seems to come along and fixes it until the next update that breaks it again, am I the only one who is aware of this?

I find it very annoying and it has been going on for months and months, when will you wake up to this problem? Why is it so hard to find a solution to this?

leocg

leocg Moderator Volunteer @Guest

@odarcan See https://forums.opera.com/topic/25129/post/3

A Former User @leocg

@leocg so since feb 15 2018, you have had this problem and it is still not fixed that is like almost 2 years, any explanation other than "read that post"?

Is there a plan to fix this?

I am pretty much only using opera for the vpn by now.

A Former User

First, please read post this as well (2 posts lower than the one leocg mentioned). It is the why it breaks
https://forums.opera.com/topic/25129/post/5

Second, the problem does not exist since February 15th, 2018. That is the date I made that q+a post in order to give a proper explanation on what really happens, because I was tired of writing the same stuff over and over on every new thread.
I have been using the chromium based opera since v44 was in beta, and that was on early 2017. The problem existed there too, so I assume it must have existed since the birth of the chromium based opera.

Third, the reason the problem exists is because opera is built to use its own libffmpeg library. If you search my older posts, you will find the exact parameter in chromium's code that does that. Should opera be built differently and solve this issue? I say yes. Will it be built differently? For the near future, definitely no.

Finally, as I have said in my "things that bug me in linux opera" thread, there should be a big, fat, disclaimer message on opera's first run that warns the user about the lack of support of non-free codecs like h264.

Feel free to ask me anything.

A Former User

Thanks, I dont really see much benefit from most opera updates, I just mistakenly and optimistically update opera on mint because I think it could be needed for some obscure reason then I realize I made the same mistake for the nth time.

I installed chromium today because I had the impression it could fix the problem it didnt.

You wrote chromium is updated before opera and that breaks the ffmpeg things but if I didnt have chromium installed how can chromium updates break opera?

anyway do you have a short and updated version of what needs to be done to make all videos work? I'll be glad to go back a few versions.

I used to like opera for the mouse gestures but they have even decided to remove many of them so now I pretty much only use it for vpn, maybe if a free vpn is implemented in another browser I can move there.

A Former User @Guest

@odarcan said in Every other update of opera breaks Gifv and video functionality for various sites, this has been going on for a long time.:

You wrote chromium is updated before opera and that breaks the ffmpeg things but if I didnt have chromium installed how can chromium updates break opera?

It is the chromium ffmpeg codecs, not just the browser itself, that gets updated. They are built from the same source that chromium is.

What version of mint are you on and how did you install chromium (and opera) there?

A Former User @Guest

@jimunderscorep I use mint 19.1, I update with the regular update manager.

Perhaps opera should separate ffmpeg from their standard package and somehow provide it when it is compatible.

I suspect the chromium or chrome people may know that some updates break other browsers and do it deliberately.

A Former User

I don't know what I did but it works for now, I updated to mint 19.3.

A Former User

There is not such thing as "compatible" for the libffmpeg, unless you mean when it will be able to play h264, in which case it will be available when the pantents for h264 end, e.g. in like 20 years or so..
If you want to get an idea, google when the patents for mp3 expired. It was on 2018 and they were established in the mid 90s. Opera started supporting mp3 playback on v50 or 51.

Also, i did not get that part

I suspect the chromium or chrome people may know that some > updates break other browsers and do it deliberately.

Chromium on my distro, has been working flawlessly on the h264 part since ever, because its h264 support is provided by some other ffmpeg libraries, the libav* ones, which must NOT be confused with chromium's libffmpeg one. The first are ffmpeg's libraries and can be used by any app, e.g. vlc, mpv etc, the second is a by-product of chromium's code compilation..

A Former User

Just speculating I'm not an expert on the topic. I'm in disbelief that linux people and opera people can't find a proper solution.

A Former User

Ok so after update to 19.3 videos work. And lo and behold mint says it has detected startup problems and recommends that I install multimedia codecs so that websites can properly render. I suspect this is not what I should do.

A Former User @Guest

@odarcan said in Every other update of opera breaks Gifv and video functionality for various sites, this has been going on for a long time.:

Just speculating I'm not an expert on the topic. I'm in disbelief that linux people and opera people can't find a proper solution.

It is not a problem between opera and linux. It is a licencing/patent issue. H264 has a licence that has to be payed in order for your app or hardware to be able to legally playback h264 content and opera does not have a licence. Ms does have one for windows, google has one for chrome and android and so on. Firefox on the other hand, which does not have a licence, uses cisco's libopenh264 for h264 playback. Would you pay for a h264 licence for opera? I guess not.

@odarcan said in Every other update of opera breaks Gifv and video functionality for various sites, this has been going on for a long time.:

Ok so after update to 19.3 videos work. And lo and behold mint says it has detected startup problems and recommends that I install multimedia codecs so that websites can properly render. I suspect this is not what I should do.

Can you please post a screenshot of that warning that mint gives you?

A Former User @Guest

@jimunderscorep

https://imgur.com/a/zwEehK9

Note that after upgrading to mint 19.3, reddit works and shows gifv and other formats I had problems with, but now mint says I should update codecs which I really dont feel like at the moment.

How much is a license that opera does not buy I would like to know.

A Former User

For the h264 licencing cost, read this ~10 year old article and you will understand
https://www.zdnet.com/article/h-264-patents-how-much-do-they-really-cost/

No idea about the warning on mint though. It may mean the playback on mint's default media player, which is probably some gstreamer based app, so it may just install gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad and gstreamer1.0-plugins-ugly. I do not use the gstreamer backend on any app, so I have no idea what each package contains and why they are called like that.
Anyhow, if it is gstreamer related, it won't affect opera and chromium.