Cannot Play Videos on Prime and Crunchyroll

It’s possible that Chrome and Firefox work because they already ship Widevine, so the machine does not have to download it. (I must say that this hypothesis is unlikely for Firefox though, because Widevine’s licensing terms normally do not allow distribution.)

@mherrmann brave already comes with Widevine as well. I can’t remember if it is enabled by default. I think it is.

Chrome would also have the components updates like what Brave does. They just somehow have something weird going on.

@Saoiray

brave already comes with Widevine as well.

I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. (I’m the engineer who implemented much of the current Widevine functionality on Windows.) At least on Windows, Brave downloads and installs Widevine when it is first used and the user consents.

Does anyone know the URL from which Brave is attempting to download the Widevine component so I can test if its somehow being blocked by another program on the affected computer?

@mherrmann I’m kind of curious about the download/install as not sure best way to track that. But one thing I can say with 100% certainty is there’s no “user consent” part as you indicated in your last reply.

To show what I’m seeing and why I have said that Brave already comes with Widevine would be shown in the video below where I do a fresh install of Brave Beta. I do believe the component is already there but it’s not active until enabled. Perhaps this is just a different way of saying what you are getting at, as I’m sure enabling would fetch a components update at least.

Biggest thing though, what is the consent you’re speaking of? There’s no such thing.

Oh, and @mherrmann also would refer to https://support.brave.com/hc/en-us/articles/360035025231-What-extensions-are-built-into-Brave where we can see below which would lead me to believe it is already installed and part of Brave.

@steeven @Mattches just wanted to tag to bring back on this when y’all are able. I’m assuming Mattches has been looking into it since reply yesterday, but either way…

@Saoiray the consent comes after visiting a DRM protected site for the first time, not after the component is downloaded/installed. In your video if you were to go to netflix or some other DRM protected site, you would have seen a pop up asking for your consent to allow the installation of Google Widevine:

@illuser still looking into your issue — appreciate your patience.

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The first time you open a page with DRM-protected content, you get this popup:

If you approve, then Brave downloads WIdevine from Google’s servers.

Widevine already shows up in brave://components before that I think, but with version 0.0.0.0, which means it’s not installed.

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@Mattches that never appeared on me for the new install. I only got that prompt if I visit a website requiring DRM before I activate it in Brave’s settings. But if activated first, it doesn’t appear.

So like in my video where I jumped straight to settings and enabled, then that’s it. Never gives the consent notice or anything. I’ll play with it a bit later but at least is how it has played out for me.

The reasoning is when not enabled at brave://extensions it reads like we don’t have it and it tries to install it. But if enabled, never gives any consent or notice. When we visit those sites, it sees it working and shows nothing.

In fact, if you go to brave://extensions and turn off the toggle and visit a site, then it will show. So even after it’s been installed and all, disabling treats like it’s not in the browser. -

Yeah I guess activating Widevine in the browser settings has the same effect as consenting in the popup. The important point is that the user has to perform some explicit action to allow Widevine to be installed.

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Does anyone know the URL from which Brave is attempting to download the Widevine component so I can test if its somehow being blocked by another program on the affected computer?

I checked it now. On my Windows machine, it is https://dl.google.com/release2/chrome_component/acccxbt6wwsvpxzpob4hojndwkqq_4.10.2830.0/oimompecagnajdejgnnjijobebaeigek_4.10.2830.0_win64_dldxogwi36sxwpr57ta4lg57z4.crx3. Are you able to download this file in Brave @illuser ?

Yes, I’m able to download the crx3 extension from the Brave browser.

However, I’m unable to install it by drag-and-dropping in the Extensions tab. Drag-and-dropping it in the extensions tab causes a new download of the extension.

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