Video problems (including Roku/Chromecast/etc)? Get in here!

Yes, we are looking into the Roku issues but unfortunately Roku themselves seem to have pushed some new changes that might require us to rebuild the app from a more ground-floor level if we want it to keep working. We'll need to talk over what kind of effort that'll take internally but hopefully I'll have some more info soon.

Adding in another request for the return of the Chromecast button. It made enjoying the long-firm videos this site does way easier when I could just plop on to the couch and use my TV via my phone.

Its existence also lead to one of the all-time great Twitter burns with the phrase "at least Giant Bomb works on my Chromecast [unlike Stadia]".

Just driving by to throw a brick through the window, per our usual arrangement when the roku app breaks for extended periods and the only way I consume GB is rendered completely unusable. Cheers. (I'd type up exactly what's happening, but... better users than me have already done so, with 100% accuracy and 1000% more patience and optimism.)

Just chiming in to say I would also love the return of the chromecast button! It's how I'd watch most of the content from the site. Thanks!

I notice audio issues when streaming giant bomb to my Chromecast with Google TV where it sounds like the first second of speech is cut off. I can see the person's mouth move but the beginning of the sentence is silent.

I notice this a lot on Bak 2 School videos, but UPF is fine. Is there a difference in the audio encoding / audio bit rate that might explain why UPF works and other shows don't?

For anyone that was missing the chromecast button, I found a work around (at least for premium users on Android phones). Under the video title and description, click the download button. It will open a new tab with a different player (maybe a local android player? Not sure). Click the three vertical dots on the bottom right of the video and there should be a cast button. Click that and then just click play and you should be good to go.

The Roku issue is still there 2 months later

@ryudo: I think one of the issues that we're having is that we not only have technical issues with updating the app but that Roku themselves have been making more contractual demands lately, to the point where they're fighting with Google and Amazon about hosting their channels. One of the asks they've had for us was to build a way for Premium people to sign up for Premium through Roku with Roku taking a cut of those transactions, which is difficult to justify from an engineering standpoint. But I'll keep seeing what our options are for a rework of the app.

In the meantime, have you tried this fan-developed option for Roku? It might be a decent option until the official app is worked on.

stumbled onto an issue,

Persona 4 Endurance Run, Episode 11, Youtube Version is no longer available:

https://www.giantbomb.com/shows/endurance-run-persona-4-part-11/2970-15754/free-video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKuCGFYv3QA

"This video is private."

@rorie: Thanks for the link to the fan developed app. That brings the content back to my Roku while things get figured out on the business side. I like to watch the hour and a half videos, so was worried that would not have a way to watch on my TV with the shorter You Tube videos being posted now.

Hey! I'm not sure if this is related to any Chromecast issues previously reported, but for at least the past few weeks there's been an issue casting livestreams using both the site player and third-party apps. Archived video appears to be unaffected.

I did a little digging and my best guess is that it's being caused by a misconfigured CORS header; specifically, the `access-control-allow-origin` header is set to only allow requests from https://www.giantbomb.com, which may be preventing cast receivers from accessing the HLS manifest:

< access-control-allow-origin: https://www.giantbomb.com

In contrast, an archived video URL includes a wildcard CORS header:

< access-control-allow-origin: *

Hope this is helpful!

My Bombermin app is gone from my Roku TV?

@hiimmikecruz: I think Roku removed support for unofficial apps. An absolute bummer, especially because the official app doesn't work at all.

Roku is completely busted again. Everything posted since the Elden Ring video shows as unwatchable until Premium is linked, despite account being linked.

Removed the channel and reinstalled as a last resort, now it just flashes the logo and goes back to the home screen on app start.

My Premium Account is linked but it tells me to link my premium account.

Yeah, it seems to be totally random whether or not you can watch any given video, whether or not you're premium. I can watch the Arcade Pit and Voice Mail videos just fine, but both the Elden Ring discussion and Steam Deck videos ask for a premium login, despite both appearing to be non-premium on the site and being posted to YouTube.

Also, I mostly came by here to confirm that the unofficial app was gone for everyone, so pour one out for a semi-working search engine. You will be missed.

The Roku app doesn't even launch on my 4K stick. It just flashes the logo and crashes immediately.

The official app hasn't worked in months, if not years. At least for me. I have had a Roku tv for 2-3 years and the app has never worked.

The problem is still there

Apparently I can watch a more or less random assortment of premium videos through the roku app, despite not being a premium subscriber. So I guess that's finally a bug in the "good" category, at least from my point of view.

So I'm unable to download the bombermin app because of roku sunsetting 3rd party apps, and the official app doesn't work at all, does anyone have any other alternatives?

@thetafox: If you haven't tried the beta version try that. It works on some of my Roku devices, but not all, but its your only option as far as i know. https://www.giantbomb.com/forums/bug-reporting-33/roku-app-issues-5222020-1808125/

Just FYI to all, Roku came to us a while back with some odd business demands and I'm not sure where we wound up with those. IIRC they asked that if we served Premium content through Roku that we would need to add an ability to subscribe to Premium through Roku with Roku taking a cut of all subscriptions that were served through their app, which seemed kind of ridiculous since I doubt many people are discovering new websites through Roku rather than subscribing to a website and then seeing if it had a Roku app afterward. It was going to be a pretty serious engineering commitment to implement their request that we did not have the resources for at the time, and the beta app seemed to work for most people. I wasn't aware that they had also removed the ability for people to link to the Bombermin app, which is disappointing.

I don't have a Roku myself but if I get the time to test this out myself I will try to do so. I assume Roku has the ability to connect to YouTube so your best bet for now would probably be to go to the YT channel and the nuke dot com side channel for most of the GB stuff. I'll see what we can do to get Premium content back on that app but obviously I cannot offer a timeline for any progress there as there are only so many engineers we have and they're split between a number of websites with a variety of priorities.

So I don't know if this is intentional, but the latest 3 videos up on the site (starting with the Tunic quick look) don't play when I have ublock enabled. If intentional, while pretty annoying I can kind of understand doing that for 'free' users, but I have premium so it shouldn't matter, since 'no ads' is included in that anyway.

And this may or may not be related, but when those videos show up on /infinite they play a couple seconds at a time then pause, play a few more seconds, etc. Basically turn the stream unwatchable. Which is an issue since premieres show up in the poll and tend to get voted for.

I'm getting the above error on Albummer and Arcade Pit using Firefox. Ublock is the culprit here too.

Anyone else notice the highest resolution download file is now in 4K but still at the old 8000 bit rate? Is this because of the new video host/processor?

I know you don't record in 4K and already have issues with 1080p streams with some staff so this might be a glitch.

I'm all for 4K but it needs to be done right (100% 4K source, 15-20mbit minimum bitrate, etc.)

Thanks

If you are using Ublock Origin, to allow the videos to play since the change to the redventures video domain without whitelisting the entire site, you can allow it either by:

• Clicking on the Ublock Origin icon and clicking the cogs icon (Dashboard)
• Clicking on My Filters
• On a new line in the text editor, paste in:

! 2022-03-17 https://www.giantbomb.com
@@||giantbomb.redvideo.redventures.io^$xhr,domain=www.giantbomb.com

• Click Apply Changes
• Refresh the video page and it should now load

OR:

• Go to the video page
• Click on the Ublock Origin icon and choose the logger (button to the left of the cogs)
• Minimize the logger window and click to try and play the video
• Bring the logger window back up and click on one of the red "redventures.io" lines that will have come up, with xhr in a column to the right of it
• Click the Static Filter tab on the window that will come up
• Change Block to Allow in the first dropdown box, then change the "which URL address matches" dropdown to be the bottom option, "giantbomb.redvideo.redventures.io"
• Click Create and close the logger windows
• Reload the page and try and play the video, and it should now load

Hopefully that helps.

The last few videos I've downloaded showed up as being blocked right away, though going to the downloads page and doing a new download from there works fine. It doesn't happen on older videos since they come from "https://static-mt-rv-v1.giantbomb.com" instead of "https://giantbomb.redvideo.redventures.io" like the newest videos. Whitelisting that new url seems to do the trick.

@morello: Thank you, was so confused what had happened, but this worked great!

Probably the same known issues, but on live shows when the folks use the premium player I still get lots of buffering and or complete playback stoppage on all Safari based browsers (happens on my MacBook M1, iPad Air, and iPhone 11). No issues at all when the folks use the Twitch player. I have to do a full page reload. Auto/Low/High quality, no difference.

I'm getting this same error on Chrome with the added wrench that I don't have ublock. I do have an ad-blocker but it's disabled (on this site). I can't watch anything posted since the Tunic Quicklook.

I also have been unable to play any video since the Tunic quicklook on Firefox. Adblock on or off. I am Premium so ads shouldnt be there for me anyway.

I also am getting logged out constantly and once back inthe video pages for some reason change my default choice to Youtube, which I do not want. I keep video games out of my youtube algorithm for various reasons.

Premium here also and I'm not able to watch any recent video via Firefox either. (And am constantly being logged out too)

Hey sorry for all the trouble here, I've been pinging the engineers but am waiting for a resolution. Using the Download button should hopefully let you download or watch these videos in the meantime.

@rorie I cant watch any of the videos on the redventures servers with Opera GX, I run an adblocker but I am also premium and adding the site to the exceptions list is NOT enough for it to work.

I have to completely disable the built in adblocker for any of the new videos to work. This is also when I am logged into the site as a premium member so I dont get ads anyway. But for some reason it stops the videos from playing if the adblocker is enabled. If I toggle it on during a video it will force stop the video after a minute and force me to the home page.

Disabling it isnt a big deal just a pain to have to do it to watch a video that doesnt have ads cause I get ads while I multitask.

Yep, I have confirmed that this is not intentional and the video team will be working to remove the limitation. I don't have an ETA on it unfortunately. You might be able to hit the Download button and watch in your browser's video player if it has one?

@rorie: ty! its just an offshoot of chrome, with a built in adblocker, and some other "features".

I am able to watch like normal otherwise, just wanted to let you guys know it was effecting chromium browsers as well.

Thank you again rorie!!

I have been unable to watch any livestream without it skipping or completely stop playing on any Apple device (TV 4K, iPhone 12, and iPad Pro 2nd Gen) every 10-20 seconds. The issue happens in the Safari browser and in any of the available Giant Bomb compatible apps (GB Fan, Bomb Cyclone, and Giant Bomb on Apple TV).

Will there be any more 1080p videos? The little kodi box I watch GB videos on can't decode 4k60 h264 (but can do 4k60 h265/hevc) so at the moment the only other option is a fairly low bitrate 720p file.

I have tried using

Bomb Cyclone app for IOS, for a while and it worked fine, but one day suddenly all videos (tested with UPF and Run for the hills) I try to stream to Chromcast with it the audio get's very choppy, it not a buffering thing, but because the video plays it just cuts the sound up, and play couple seconds, and then try to catch on, play on the App without sending to chromecast Ultra works no problem. but I can also see the quality is set to HD, so if HD means 4K that might explain something because my setup is not 4K capable performance wise

I have been having a lot of issues playing videos through my Amazon Fire TV as of around the 17th of March. I was getting a "null" error message on nearly all videos uploaded after that date, but oddly not all videos uploaded. I thought maybe it was only the Premium videos, but it's also videos that can be watched on YouTube. My Fire TV is a couple of years old, but the software is up to date. I haven't been able to watch any of the UPF's on it these last two weeks, which is a bit of a pain since I watch 90% of GB content through my Fire TV.

Add me to the chorus of people saying that Firefox isn't showing me any videos hosted on the site.

I think this is related to the new encoder spitting out a too-high resolution on the highest setting. I'm looking to see if we can resolve that, hopefully soon.

I've been unable to watch any videos on the site, using Chrome. I'm logged in/premium, and have been having this issue with the previous few GrubbSnax and Bombcasts, where clicking play immediately goes to a black screen with the option to restart in the lower left. The 'Download' option worked for a few weeks, which was less than ideal but functional at least, but now that's stopped working as well, saying "Based on your subscription level, this content is unavailable". I've tried switching quality, and Progressive/HTML5, but it's the same result every time.

Same, can't get any videos to play in Chrome on PC with the same symptom.

Same issue here. Cleared cookies and site data and can't get any video to play that isn't a YT embed. Works in MS Edge, but not Chrome or Opera.

Is this happening in incognito as well? I believe the new video player isn't working well with adblock or ublock at the moment; they're blocking a specific tracking cookie that the new player is using. This isn't intended and we're working to solve it but in the meantime these should work if you disable adblock or watch Incognito.

The only recent video I know of that has the Content Unavailable error is Grubbsnax from last week; if you're seeing any other videos with that error please let me know. Not sure what precisely is wrong with that video but the engineers are looking into it. I'm not sure why that episode didn't make it to YouTube but I'll check!

Going to put this in here as well since it was in the Gen Discussion forum (should've put it in Bug reporting; my bad!)

Hey there’s been a bunch of weird stuff going on with the site video encoder lately that is having knock-on effects on the RSS feeds and the API, which in turn is causing issues with set-top boxes and apps. I wanted to outline some of the issues here just so everyone is on the same page and honestly some of you probably know more about this than I do, so feel free to let me know if any of this sounds super off.

When we upload a video the video encoder is supposed to take that video and spit out a variety of different sizes and bitrates based on the quality level that is selected. HD should be 1080p (although right now it seems to be spitting out 4k videos despite the fact that we don’t record in 4k), and so on and so forth down to Mobile quality. I don’t have all the bitrates and sizes that should match up to each quality setting, but the problem right now is that the encoder is somewhat randomly not putting up all the quality settings for each video. E.g. the Kirby video apparently has all of the appropriate video settings:

But UPF only has HD and Low for some reason:

And Patrick’s Parabox is only mobile quality:

Unfortunately when the encoder doesn’t spit out the appropriate size files, the RSS feeds won’t update appropriately, leading to odd situations where the All Videos RSS feed for HD will have some videos appearing in them that aren’t in the SD feed, and vice versa. In addition, the API apparently only serves Low, High, and HD feeds, so if some of those files aren’t generated those videos may not play in set-top boxes or apps that are trying to pull those files from the API.

So it’s all kind of a mess, but it’s good to know that most of our current issues with video are probably related to one root issue (the encoder being funky). (The adblock issue is apparently still in there as well making the whole situation even more complicated to track down; that is also being worked on.) The encoder seems to work fine for the videos that GameSpot is publishing, as they all seem to have the appropriate HD, High, and Low quality settings, so one of the first things we’ll probably be asking our engineers to do is to ensure that the GB encoder is putting out those qualities consistently for every video we drop into it. If we can solve that problem, then hopefully the other issues that people are seeing with apps and set-top boxes will in turn be fixed. I don’t have an ETA for fixing all this unfortunately but it is a known issue and is being looked into.

In the meantime, most of our content is being sent to our YouTube channel at this point, so most of these videos should play there without issue. Sorry for the trouble!

@rorie: Ah, disabling adblock on the site fixed it for me. I should have had it whitelisted anyway, being premium, but I appreciate the solution, and thorough explanation about how the encoder works. Thanks!

No worries! I know people like adblock and ublock and the videos are intended to work if those are installed on your system. (If you go past that and do weird noscript and ghostery stuff, I make no guarantees). Hopefully this will be resolved soon.