Frequently Asked Questions

Q: My live stream is buffering forever or doesn't play.

A: Check your time-sync. In v1 we would adjust automatically to account for bad content. But now in v2, we don't.

This requires setting up clock sync for live streams. This can be done by adding a <UTCTiming> element to the manifest or by setting the .manifest.dash.clockSyncUri configuration. See #386(comment) for more info.

We also have issues with "drifting" DASH streams. If your encoder experiences drift, you may need to address that with the encoder. We have plans to be more tolerant of drift in future. See #999 for more info.

Q: I am getting decoder errors or VIDEO_ERROR or error code 3016.

A: This error is given to us when the browser can't play the content. This is out of our control and is usually caused by bad content. On Chrome you can check chrome://media-internals for more info (see #489(comment)).

Q: I am getting HTTP_ERROR or error code 1002.

A: The browser rejected the request. Look at the browser logs for more info. This is usually a CORS error, which means you need particular headers in the response. Additionally, with some manifests, we will send a Range header. This will require explicit approval through the CORS header Access-Control-Allow-Headers.

This can also happen with mixed-content restrictions. If the site is using https:, then your manifest and segments must also.

Q: I am getting REQUESTED_KEY_SYSTEM_CONFIG_UNAVAILABLE or error code 6001.

A: The most common cause is that you are not using a secure origin. The EME API in the browser requires a secure origin, which means https or localhost. Chrome enforces this requirement, but other browsers may not yet. See the announcement for more info.

You should also check that your platform/browser actually supports the key system. If your manifest contains only PlayReady, it will need to be played on IE/Edge, a Chromecast, or another device with PlayReady. See the DRM tutorial for more info.

This will also happen if you use Storage to store protected content (when usePersistentLicense is true). Currently, persistent licenses are supported on Chromebooks and Chrome 64+ on Mac/Windows. On other platforms, you can only store clear content or store only the content offline (i.e. set usePersistentLicense configuration to false).

Q: I am getting LICENSE_REQUEST_FAILED or error code 6007.

A: See HTTP_ERROR. If you are getting a bad HTTP status, the server rejected the request. Your proxy may require wrapping the request or it may require extra authentication.

Q: I am getting INVALID_SERVER_CERTIFICATE or error code 6004.

A: You need to get the license certificate from your DRM provider. This is not the HTTPS certificate of the proxy or any files on your proxy. This should be the certificate of the license server given by your provider.

The certificate can only be used for that license server, but can be used with different proxies so long as they use the same license server. For Widevine, the certificate should be binary, so avoid fetching the response as a string (e.g. with responseText).

Q: I am getting LICENSE_RESPONSE_REJECTED or error code 6008.

A: Check the DevTools network tab for the response. Verify that the response data looks correct. For Widevine, the response should be binary. If you see JSON, you will need to unwrap the response.

Q: Why doesn't getStats() work in Safari?

A: To play HLS content on Safari, we default to using Apple's native src= playback. Since the browser handles playback, we don't get much information.

If you want to disable native playback and use MediaSource playback instead, configure .streaming.useNativeHlsOnSafari to false.

Q: Why doesn't my HLS content work?

A: If your HLS content uses MPEG2-TS, you may need to enable transmuxing. The only browsers capable of playing TS natively are Edge and Chromecast. You will get a CONTENT_UNSUPPORTED_BY_BROWSER error on other browsers due to their lack of TS support.

You can enable transmuxing by including mux.js v5.6.3+ in your application. If Shaka Player detects that mux.js has been loaded, we will use it to transmux TS content into MP4 on-the-fly, so that the content can be played by the browser.

Q: Why does it take so long to switch to HD?

A: When Shaka Player's AbrManager makes a decision to adapt, we don't clear any of the content that has already been buffered. (We used to, but it does not work consistently across browsers and created a bad experience.)

This means that if you want to see the results of a new decision sooner, you should have a less aggressive buffering goal. See the tutorial on buffering configuration and the docs for the .streaming.bufferingGoal configuration.

Another factor is the segment size. It may take up to 2 segments before Shaka Player has enough information to form a bandwidth estimate and make a decision. If your content uses 10-second segments, this means we may buffer 20 seconds of low quality video before we make a decision. If it is too late to change the segment size in your content library, you may want to adjust the "default" bandwidth estimate used by Shaka Player to select the first segments. Use the .abr.defaultBandwidthEstimate configuration to control these initial decisions.

Q: I am getting UNSUPPORTED_SCHEME or error code 1000 when loading from file://.

A: In a browser environment, trying to load a file from file:// is inappropriate. Therefore, we do not provide a default network plugin for such requests.

In other environments, for example Electron, it is appropriate. In those cases, before Shaka Player loads a manifest, you can register the existing http plugin for file:// requests:

shaka.net.NetworkingEngine.registerScheme('file', shaka.net.HttpXHRPlugin);

Q: Why are my CEA-708 captions not showing on Edge or Chromecast?

A: Our support for CEA-708 captions requires transmuxing the TS files that contain said captions. Edge and Chromecast, however, have native TS support and thus are not required to transmux. In order to force those platforms to transmux, set the .streaming.forceTransmuxTS configuration to true.

Q: Why do I get 404 errors with very large timescales?

A: We can't handle content that creates timestamps too large to be represented as Numbers in JavaScript (2^53). Very large timescales require very large timestamps (in timescale units), which means we are unable to substitute the correct values for $Time$ in a <SegmentTemplate>. BigInteger.js is too large to become a required dependency for Shaka Player.

We recommend reducing your timescale or avoiding $Time in <SegmentTemplate>. See discussion in #1667 for details.

Q: I get logs like: It is recommended that a robustness level be specified....

A: This is a warning from Chrome about setting the robustness level for EME. For most content, this warning can be safely ignored (see https://crbug.com/720013). If your content requires a specific robustness level, it is suggested to set it in the player configuration to ensure playback works: .drm.advanced.<key_system>.audioRobustness and .drm.advanced.<key_system>.videoRobustness (see docs).

Q: Does Shaka Player support iOS?

A: Starting in v2.5, we support it through Apple's native HLS player. So you can use the same top-level APIs; but we are dependent on the browser handling the streaming. So we won't support DASH on iOS since the browser doesn't support it.

We have another project called Shaka Player Embedded that offers the same features and similar APIs for native apps on iOS. This project uses its own media stack, which allows it to play content that would otherwise not be supported. This supports both DASH and HLS manifests.

Q: Why does some DASH content take a long time to start playback?

A: Shaka Player honors the minBufferTime field in DASH. If this field is set to a large value, Shaka Player will buffer that much content before beginning playback. To override this behavior and ignore the minBufferTime field, we offer the following configuration:

player.configure('manifest.dash.ignoreMinBufferTime', true);

Q: My HLS stream is failing on Chrome, with a chunk demuxer append failed error.

A: For a stream to play properly on some browsers, we need to know ahead of time what the codecs of the stream are. If no codec information is provided in an HLS manifest, we do our best to guess what the codecs might be, but those guesses might not always be accurate. If an HLS manifest has no codec information provided, we default to guessing that the video codec is avc1.42E01E and the audio codec is mp4a.40.2, which can cause problems if the stream is actually video-only or audio-only. In this case, you can enable the .manifest.disableVideo or .manifest.disableAudio configurations to signal that your content does not have a video or audio stream.