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  • Odd Video Problem

    Not sure this is worth mentioning, since it may just be me. In the thread entitled "The Mammoth Pirates", I posted a short National Geo video. That video is not visible when I am logged in, but it is visible when I am logged out. I did notice that videos I posted recently in the "My favorite music" topic are visible whether I am logged in, or logged out. The missing mammoth video is not visible in chrome or safari, if I am logged in, but logged out of either browser, the video is visible. Just started yesterday.

    Might as well mention an unrelated glitch while I am at it. In Chrome, if I post a comment, it never stops loading. It remains saying "working" at the top of the page without ever posting. But if I exit the page, and check the forum on Safari, I see that the comment has in fact already posted. If I then return to the Chrome page I left, it is usually still loading, still has not posted, even though it actually has.
    Rhode Island

  • #2
    Not sure Charlie, I think you said you use iPad ? I clear my cache every day...Safari - Clear history and website data. Maybe that will fix it...I know there are clowns looking in my pad all the time, just nothing of value for them to take....
    Lubbock County Tx

    Comment


    • CMD
      CMD commented
      Editing a comment
      Yes, I use an older iPad. At first I thought my video had simply up and vanished. Knowing it's there is more important then actually solving the problem. I thought I had lost the ability to post them at all. By accident, I discovered the video was visible when not logged in...

    • Lindenmeier-Man
      Lindenmeier-Man commented
      Editing a comment
      The pads are durable but they are not as easy on copy and paste for me. My fingers do not have much dexterity . Anyway if you go for a new one , my wife and I go to apple stores and ask for refurbished ones. They are actually new and have been brought back. From there they go have all the memory erased and sent back as refurbished. One third the cost...The personnel hide them in back, out of sight...

  • #3
    Hi Charlie

    I don’t have a specific solution to your problem but this may help a bit.

    There are two main stages to what happens when you upload to a website. Firstly the information needs to be presented in a way that the website can accept and then it needs to be fed back to you such that your screen can display it, including any customisations that suit the device you are using and the software it has installed. Website software does it’s best to determine what your device needs and feeds back what it thinks is appropriate, but doesn’t always get it right. There are so many possible combinations of device, operating system, web browser, plug-ins and personal customisations that can lead to failure, compounded by the fact that very old and very new versions of device software may not be recognised properly.

    In the case of your attempt to upload a video, our website is accepting the information but is not able to send it back to you in a form that your device and its software are able to interpret for display. I see what you see too. What you uploaded is visible when I am logged out but not visible when I am logged in (and I’m using Microsoft Edge as a browser on a Windows 10 device). My guess is that the difference between being logged in and logged out relates whether you are being recognised as a registered user or a returning visitor from cookies on your system. Clearing your cache may help.

    Problems with videos are almost always associated with the Adobe Flash plug-in, how up to date it is and the degree of support offered by your browser. Up until a few years ago, Flash was the default plug-in for YouTube videos but it was then dumped in favour of HTML5 as the default player. Most other video hosting websites went the same route. That change facilitated the playing of videos on devices that didn’t support Flash at all (the iPhone for example) and the YouTube site plus others then began using HTML5 video as standard when they detected visitors to the site were using Chrome, Internet Explorer 11, Safari 8 and beta versions of Firefox. There were additional compatibility benefits for smart TVs and other streaming devices. But it didn’t then, and still doesn’t now, work well for all device/browser combinations.

    However, when an HTML5 video from a site such as YouTube is embedded into a second website such as ours, it won’t necessarily be regurgitated as HTML5 unless that second website recognises that it would be appropriate for the device/software accessing it and can determine which software versions you are running. In general, the more up to date you are the less problems you may have, but a very newly released software version can upset that… at least for a while until the website software is next updated for compatibility. If your software is up to date your problem may simply go away in the not too distant future.

    Google’s Chrome browser began converting most Flash content to ‘click to play’ links, then blocked small non-displayed Flash elements, then blocked displayable Flash content above a certain size and then began blocking all Flash content. Google made a temporary exception for connection to sites heavily reliant on Flash such as Facebook, but Flash is nevertheless on its way out. Several browsers will no longer run ‘out of date’ versions of Flash and Firefox moved from ‘click to play’ to blocking all Flash content by default in 2017. Microsoft switched to ‘click to play’ for non-critical Flash content in the recent Windows 10 Anniversary update and is unlikely to support it for much longer. In the meantime, the ‘in limbo’ situation is that if a website cannot correctly interpret what you are running, it may feed you a ‘best guess’ that can’t be displayed. Often the ‘best guess’ will be an assumption that you must be running something ancient and result in you being fed something your system doesn’t support.

    WORKAROUND

    In the absence of a full solution, this should work. Rather than embedding the video into your post, you can simply insert a hotlink. For the video you wanted to show, you can use either the page address copied from your browser bar:
    Siberian hunters once relied on mammoths for their meat. Now, their tusks are the prize. These relics—exposed by climate change, and hunters' increasing effo...


    … or you can copy the video URL after right clicking on the video itself (it has to be playing at the time) and selecting the “Copy Video URL” option:


    Neither of those will put a thumbnail picture of the video in your post, but they should give you a link which is viewable and usable whether you are logged in or not.



    The yellow ‘working’ icon remaining for ages, without refreshing your page to show the post, is a known issue that seems to relate to certain browser/software versions. I experience it too from time to time, but intermittently. More so if my post is large and/or contains multiple pictures. What I find is that the post has actually registered but the site just doesn’t show me a refreshed screen to confirm it. If I navigate away from that page and then return to it, I see my post.
    I keep six honest serving-men (they taught me all I knew); Their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.

    Comment


    • CMD
      CMD commented
      Editing a comment
      Thanks, Roger. Most of what you say is beyond me, I'm afraid. I do have an older iPad, iOS 10.3.3, and cannot be updated further. For many reasons, and due to many issues with it, I need to upgrade to a newer device, looking forward to it, just haven't got around to it. I didn't have the ability to insert videos as thumbnails at first, and have preferred it once I actually could insert them that way. I just wondered if it was just me, as it was visible when I uploaded it originally, I wasn't thinking of just posting the hyperlink, but of course I can, and many do post videos that way. Thank you for taking the time to go into the problem in such depth.

    • CMD
      CMD commented
      Editing a comment
      I tried just posting a hyperlink, but it came out blank, while logged in. It may be there when logged out, haven't checked yet, but before I deleted the thumbnail, when I was logged out the clip that Hoss posted later in the thread was visible!

  • #4
    I’ve been having exact same problem, with pics and video. I attributed it to my own passing bad mojo since sometimes I can break key in doorknob! Thanks for straightening me out!
    Digging in GA, ‘bout a mile from the Savannah River

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