HLS Streaming issue - Safari browser (14)

[manikandan]

Hi,

With HLS streaming using Edge servers, the HLS streaming is not playing continuously in Safari 14. It gets frozen after few minutes while the same stream plays in Chrome or other browsers normally.

I can see below error message in my server

My WCS version - 5.2.699

 

[Max]

Good day.
We cannot reproduce the issue in Safari 14.0.2 with WCS latest build 5.2.859. Please check if the following settings are applied on Edge

hls_preloader_enabled=true
hls_player_width=0
hls_player_height=0
hls_min_list_size=2

Please check if keyframes are sent regularly by original stream publisher, and FPS is smooth.
Also we recommend to update WCS at least to build 5.2.780 which fixes a serious security issue. We recommend both Origins and Edge to be updated, for CDN version to be equal.

 

[manikandan]

I see. Also I can see when a stream is published from safari 14 after sometime, the HLS stream is not getting played in lower versions also.

What is the purpose of hls_payer_width and height configuration?
And is it safe to update 5.2.699 to latest build or it has any drastic changes?

 

[Max]

I see. Also I can see when a stream is published from safari 14 after sometime, the HLS stream is not getting played in lower versions also.

The message Stream local failed means that stream with such name is not published in CDN. So seems like stream publishing fails.

What is the purpose of hls_payer_width and height configuration?

When width and heght are not 0, stream will be transcoded to the resolution set by these parameters. By default it is 480p

hls_player_width=640
hls_player_height=480

The stream transcoding on Edge server gives additional CPU load, so it should be escaped.

And is it safe to update 5.2.699 to latest build or it has any drastic changes?

It should be safe. The only major changes are:
- WCS launching: it is now launched as non-root user flashphoner for better security;
- SDP negotiation with browser: WCS is more strictly conforms to RFC 4566;
- OPENH264 encoder is multithreaded (for 720p and higher by default).
You can also update to 5.2.780 which is used in our AWS AMI now, it is still launching from root and supports newest CDN version.