Brave not rendering some pages, not displaying some videos

Description of the issue:
2 problems, not sure if related:

  1. Some pages just do not render. Blank page. Replot doesn’t help. Occasionally if I back out and click the link again, that might work. I do not know what triggers it. Might be happening less in the last week or two? If I copy the URL to Edge it renders without trouble.
  2. Many videos do not play properly, e.g. tiktok. Again, works fine in Edge. No problem with e.g. Youtube, but more with smaller / nonstandard video players.

Steps to Reproduce (add as many as necessary): 1. 2. 3.

  1. Don’t know. I haven’t seen any repeatable cases.
  2. Seems to be happening on most tiktok videos, among others. Try https://www.tiktok.com/@amy__jo/video/7109213097298283822?_t=8TFZmH2T9cx&_r=1
    On my system, the preview image displays, but then the player window goes all-green. If play button is visible, it doesn’t work.

Actual Result (gifs and screenshots are welcome!):

Expected result:
Should work!

Reproduces how often:
Video players: for some players e.g. Tiktok, happens EVERY time.
For the “page doesn’t render,” it’s sporadic. May be happening less in the last week or two?

Operating System and Brave Version(See the About Brave page in the main menu):
Windows 10 Pro version 21H1, build 19043.1766
Brave Version 1.39.122 Chromium: 102.0.5005.115 (Official Build) (64-bit)

Additional Information:
This happens enough that I’ve seriously considered moving to Edge. Brave performance seems iffy too. Probably doesn’t help that I typically have 80-100 tabs open …

Sorry, I can’t seem to edit my post…

I forgot that it does occasionally have trouble with Youtube too. Sometimes videos will display a blank error page:

No – I tried Shields DOWN on Tiktok and no change. Same with the Youtube video that produced the error above (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmZYnW_mppU).

Re-loading blank pages didn’t help, though I’m not certain I tried ctrl+F5.

I just stumbled onto another example of video failure. The instructional videos embedded in https://realpython.com/python-subprocess/ have the same “green window w/error” behavior. The image below appears right after the line “It’ll play a small animation representing each passing second until it exits:”

Can you try disabling, and re-enabling widevine? @garyfritz

Yes!! That fixed it! I went to brave://settings/extensions, turned it off, restarted, turned it on, restarted, and now all those examples work. Thank you sir!

Now having learned about it, I really wonder if I want it enabled …

@garyfritz

I have never enabled WideVine. No problems with Brave Browser (New Private Window):

  • rendering the TikTok link you provided
  • rendering YouTube videos

I did have to Allow several scripts via the site-specific Shields (Lion) icon - for the TikTok connection.

My Brave Browser for Mac settings are both lean (meaning, many are DISABLED), and Shields are Aggressive / Strict. No extensions other than what Brave has built-in.

I do not use Brave Sync, nor Brave Rewards.

I regularly clear the cache, etc. via brave://settings/clearBrowserData Advanced tab, ENABLING all the switches (including All time), except ‘Site and Shields settings’ (those in particular, I want to preserve). And, I have the same settings for the On exit tab.

Yeah I need to slim down my install. Brave is consuming about 4GB of RAM right now – mostly my fault because I’m running nearly 100 tabs, but I’d like to get rid of a lot of unwanted cruft. I don’t use Rewards, or Sync, or crypto stuff, any of that. Is there a guide somewhere that tells how to get rid of the stuff you don’t want?

Today Facebook wouldn’t render. Blank page. Edge opened it fine. I disabled Widevine and restarted, and then FB worked. (It paused with a blank page for maybe 10-15 secs but it did finally render.) Gonna leave Widevine off.

I have also gotten many cases recently when FB (specifically Messenger) says there is “no internet connection” even though everything else works fine. No idea what’s causing that, but Widevine is still off.

@garyfritz

Sort of a side-note . . .

A WhatsApp connection using Brave Browser for desktop and laptop machines, to:

  • https://web.whatsapp.com/

means that you are also, somehow connecting to FaceBook.

And there have been many issues with WhatsApp connection failures.

1 Like

I don’t even know what WhatsApp is/does, so I don’t think I’m using it … :grinning:

FWIW I just tried Facebook in a Private window, and it didn’t show any of the problems.

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