[Bug]: `Audio formats are not available for this video` / 360p only streams - SABR

[CoffeeMate2]

SCROLL DOWN TO THE MOST RECENT MESSAGE FOR THE LATEST UPDATES ON THE ISSUE

Guidelines

• I have encountered this bug in the latest release of FreeTube.
• I have encountered this bug in the official downloads of FreeTube.
• I have searched the issue tracker for open and closed issues that are similar to the bug report I want to file, without success.
• I have searched the documentation for information that matches the description of the bug I want to file, without success.
• This issue contains only one bug.

Describe the bug

When opening a video from search results, or subscription page, rarely (perhaps 1/30 times) a message "Audio formats are not available for this video" is briefly displayed at the bottom of the program and the video will not play.
Going back and then re-opening the video seems to always resolve the issue, and the video then plays with no problem.

Expected Behavior

The video should play first time, as audio formats are available, as is evident of retrying the same video a second time and it working.

Issue Labels

inconsistent behavior

FreeTube Version

v0.23.3 Beta

Operating System Version

Microsoft Windows Version 10 22H2 (OS Build 19045:5608)

Installation Method

.exe

Primary API used

Local API

Last Known Working FreeTube Version (If Any)

No response

Additional Information

No response

Nightly Build

• I have encountered this bug in the latest nightly build.

[absidue]

Quoting the changelog, it literally says don't open bug reports for this:

IMPORTANT
Please note that you may occasionally encounter Legacy Formats (available video quality, 360p) while playing a video. This is expected behavior, SO DO NOT SUBMIT BUG REPORTS FOR THIS. In these cases, FreeTube's video playback wouldn't work at all, and an error message (No valid URLs to decipher error) would be shown. This workaround allows users to still watch videos in those cases.

[Infinality]

In my experience with this bug, the error will be displayed, and the video won't play at all. If I leave the video page and come back into it a few times, it will eventually work. So, something isn't working properly, and in my opinion it's a legitimate bug, if only because there is inconsistent behavior when viewing the video page multiple times.

[CoffeeMate2]

In this instance, the error message "No valid URLs to decipher error" is not displayed.
Instead the error message "Audio formats are not available for this video" is instead displayed.

I am sorry if this is the same error, however it has an entirely different error dialog.

[absidue]

The whole point of the legacy 360p fallback is that you won't see the "No valid URLs to decipher error" error anymore instead it will show 360p stream. In your case it sounds like it got a SABR only response (no DASH and audio only formats), went into that fallback and is then failing to play the 360p stream for some reason (you will need to provide screenshots of the devtools (CTRL+SHIFT+I) console if you want us to have any idea why) and is then going into the normal error handling in FreeTube which changes between legacy, audio and DASH formats, which of course doesn't work in this case as only the legacy formats are available.

[IronEleven]

Been having the same issue on and off myself, here's a screenshot of the console. The player behaved as expected after reloading the page.

[CaptainMorgan12]

Experienced the same issue and it resolved itself after reloading video in x64 .deb newest version of Freetube 0.23.4 . When the error "Audio formats are not available for this video" shows the video is not playable.

The console errors that maybe related but its hard to tell:

renderer.js:2 Player Error (category and code explainations here: https://shaka-player-demo.appspot.com/docs/api/shaka.util.Error.html)
Video ID: "EtYeJqRxYjM"
FreeTube player context: "setLegacyFormat"

Severity: CRITICAL (2)
Category: MEDIA (3)
Code: VIDEO_ERROR (3016)
Stack trace:
Error: Shaka Error 3016
at new Ee (app://bundle/renderer.js:2:24640)
at kd (app://bundle/renderer.js:2:278026)
at app://bundle/renderer.js:2:296865
at HTMLVideoElement.n (app://bundle/renderer.js:2:51425)

shaka-player Data:
Array(3)
0
:
4
1
:
undefined
2
:
"MEDIA_ELEMENT_ERROR: Format error"
length
:
3
[[Prototype]]
:
Array(0)

FreeTube data:
Object
rQ @ renderer.js:2

---

Unable to play legacy formats. Reverting to audio formats...
handlePlayerError @ renderer.js:2

[Tetriser]

Have this issue myself even on the latest version
I have a guess that it got stuck in a failstate while loading the video in legacy formats

DASH failed to load > legacy failed to load > audio failed to load > unplayable

[transorbital-decay]

I was having this issue intermittently yesterday, although now it is pretty much every video. I also have this on the latest version. If I close and reopen the video a few times, it will eventually allow me to play it, but the bug is definitely getting worse.