StreamShark VoD player impact due to Chrome update 105.0.5195.52 [resolved]

StreamShark VoD player impact due to Chrome update 105.0.5195.52 [resolved]

Chrome version 105.0.5195.52 was released on the 30th of August 2022. One of the changes from this update introduced an incompatibility of MSE workers with some versions of the popular video player library, VideoJS. This caused video playback to fail on this specific version of Chrome. A significant number of online video service providers were impacted due to this change, and unfortunately, StreamShark’s Video on Demand (VoD) service, which leverages VideoJS libraries, was one of them. The StreamShark Event and Live Scheduler platforms were not impacted.

The Chrome team was made aware of the reported issue and a subsequent version 105.0.5195.102 was released with the incompatible feature rolled back to temporarily address the issue. An ongoing fix has been applied to future versions (m106+) by the Chrome browser team so this issue will not recur.

The related Chromium issue link has detailed tracking and chronology of the bug on Chrome’s side.

Chrome’s staged release rollout meant only viewers with the updated Chrome browser were impacted. New Chrome release rollouts are staged over time so that any early issues that arise can be addressed before they reach all users. Viewers using older versions of Chrome along with other browsers like Safari, Firefox, or IE Edge were not impacted.

After reports from our customers about the issue on the 1st of September, StreamShark Engineering team carried out an immediate investigation, and identified that a VideoJS 7 player library upgrade could mitigate the Chrome bug, and a patch was rolled out on the same day. With the player library upgrade in place, and the Chrome team rolling back the impacting change for the current version m105 and future versions m106+ we do not anticipate any further impact to our service from this issue.

If any StreamShark viewers are still encountering this issue from your end on Chrome, clearing the browser cache, and forcing a Chrome update (Help -> About Chrome), and hitting Relaunch once the update is complete, should be effective to get playback working as normal.