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-   -   After "mobile friendly" update, MP4 videos do not play on iPhones (http://forum.bytesforall.com/showthread.php?t=23202)

SD_MI May 27, 2015 01:03 PM

After "mobile friendly" update, MP4 videos do not play on iPhones
 
Apparently my login timed out while I was composing this post, so I apologize if this is the second time it's appearing. I also tried doing a search for other reports of this problem and I did not come up with any results that were pertinent upon reading the first few posts, so I apologize if I didn't look hard enough and am reposting about a known issue.

I have two different web sites using the Atahualpa theme. Both are using the most current version and have the recommended patches applied. After following Juggledad's directions for making Atahualpa WP sites pass Google's "mobile friendly" test people have been pointing out to me that MP4 videos do not play on iPhones. Because I don't own any Apple devices I asked some friends to test the video and you can read the results below. The problem seems to occur regardless of which version of the iPhone was being used, and also regardless of which version of iOS.

Site A: This site has had the "mobile friendly" changes applied. If you have an iPhone and try to view any of the videos on the page below, they will not work. (Take the first one, "What If..." as an example.)
http://scs-matters.com/video/

Site B: I have not yet applied the "mobile friendly" changes to this site. I've put the exact same "What If..." video on the page below, and it plays just fine on iPhones.
http://operapaintings.com/video-test-page/

Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this, and more importantly how I could fix it?

juggledad May 27, 2015 06:07 PM

might be because the videos are specified at a fixed width and height - try setting the width and height using percentages.

SD_MI May 29, 2015 09:03 AM

Wow, who would have thought that would cause a video not to play?? Changing to a percentage rather than a fixed width solved the problem! Thank you!!

Also, FWIW, applying one of the recommended patches caused something strange to happen with the sidebars. Widgets that were supposed to display did not, and other widgets that were not supposed to display showed up. What was worse was that when I went to Appearance >> Widgets in the Dashboard it looked like I had no widgets at all in any of the sidebars. I reverted to old versions of functions.php and header.php within the Atahualpa theme directory and that solved the problem.

juggledad May 29, 2015 11:19 AM

what patch are you talking about?
did you try it with plugins disabled?

SD_MI May 29, 2015 03:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by juggledad (Post 112345)
what patch are you talking about?
did you try it with plugins disabled?

It was either Patch 3723-02 or Patch 3723-03. One replaced header.php in the Atahualpa theme directory, and the other replaced functions.php.

Also, I seem to have spoken too soon about the videos playing on iPhones. As you can see by looking at the source for the page we've switched the videos to displaying as a percentage of the width of the center/body part of the page, and I was just informed that the videos are not playing on someone's iPhone. #facepalm Any other ideas?

SD_MI May 29, 2015 03:49 PM

Here's what the site looks like with the strange sidebars showing widgets that aren't supposed to be there:

http://scs-matters.com/images/troubl...gesidebars.jpg

And here's what it looks like in the Dashboard when I view Appearance >> Widgets:

http://scs-matters.com/images/troubl...sidebars02.jpg

For now I have un-applied patches 2 and 3 so that at least the sidebars will display correctly. On Monday I will try applying the patches and disabling all the plugins to see if that solves the issue with the sidebars.

juggledad May 29, 2015 06:54 PM

yeah, that is because of a new 'requirement from wordpress. I would suggest
1) taking all the widgets out of your sidebars,
2) applying the patch
3) add the widgets back in
and you should be good to go.

as for the video issue, I haven't a clue.

SD_MI Jun 1, 2015 10:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by juggledad (Post 112348)
As for the video issue, I haven't a clue.

Quote:

Originally Posted by juggledad (Post 112348)
As for the video issue, I haven't a clue.

As far as Apple devices go, this whole issue is getting added to my list of "Reasons Why I Love My Android." LOL

But in all seriousness...

I am functionally illiterate when it comes to Apple devices because I don't own any so I can't do much to troubleshoot this. I guess the Safari browser on an iPhone has something called Reader Mode or Reader View? It's a little icon that appears to the left of the address bar and it looks like the button to left-align text in a word processor program. The videos play if someone taps that icon to turn on Reader Mode.

The videos also play if a person using an iPhone taps a direct link (as opposed to having the self-hosted video embedded on the page), as on this test page:
http://scs-matters.com/new-test-page/

These are self-hosted videos. The owners of the site didn't want to use YouTube because of things like the ads and the fact that they have no control over which videos auto-play after their videos are finished playing. Maybe it would be best if they tried to find a way to make YouTube work, however.

paradime Jun 1, 2015 07:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by SD_MI (Post 112363)
Maybe it would be best if they tried to find a way to make YouTube work, however.

There definitely is a way and it's quite easy:

https://developers.google.com/youtube/player_parameters

SD_MI Jun 2, 2015 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by paradime (Post 112365)
There definitely is a way and it's quite easy:

https://developers.google.com/youtube/player_parameters

Ooh, that looks quite helpful! Thank you paradime!


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