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Su Strawderman
I can stream Netflix just fine when I play it using my Chrome browser. But, when I try to play Netflix using Safari (version 10.0), I get one or two frames of video, and then a black screen. I still have all of the controls and slider and I still get sound, but the video is just a black screen.
I just now tried it again using Safari, and got code S7363-1260-48444350 when trying to play a video. The code referred to an incompatible monitor. I tried again, and got the same issue as before, where I get a few frames of the video, and then the video goes black, but I can hear the audio and I still have control of the playback (e.g., play/pause, volume, etc.).
When I unplugged my external monitors and used only the laptop screen, the video played. So, I now know that the problem has something to do with my external monitors being connected to my laptop, even if I'm trying to play the video on my laptop screen.
Simple solution (os High Sierra) but Netflix have so far ignored my message! Forget all their solutions particularly concerning Silver Light, as that is no longer needed. This only began for me with Safari 11.0.1. I was able to connect using FireFox without issue so it had to be Safari settings.
Thanks, but I've already done an Internet search to find a solution to my problem. I've re-installed the latest version of Silverlight, and that hasn't helped. Also, Chrome works just fine with Netflix, which I think also uses Silverlight. I've also tried restarting the computer and the other typical non-specific solutions.
- I do get the display error thing (thunderbolt > VGA displays attached). Checked with develop tab if netflix works in safari 10 (don't see another version of safari in the list). However, if I select 'firefox: mac' and allow the silverlight plugin (that I just installed) then it works.
If the issue is the HTML5 player (since in older safari versions with silverlight, it does work), how do I force Netflix to use silverlight? It seems it always reverts back to HTML5, even if silverlight's installed.
I have a Netflix account and I have peeked under the hood at its video player running inside Google Chrome. Netflix calls its video player "Cadmium" and the javascript exposes all the functions and event handlers you might expect, such as play, stop, pause, mute, etc. I'm building a little Chrome extension that would enable me to call these Cadmium player function, but the hard part for me is figuring out how to create an instance of the player so I can start calling. The javascript is large, complex, and somewhat obscure. Once I can create an instance of that player, I'm thinking that making calls into the functions will be easy.
In Chrome dev tools I can set a breakpoint inside that block, and execution hits the breakpoint when I click the Mute button on the netflix video player. The Netflix js is (unsurprisingly) heavily obfuscated via method renaming. I tried stepping through the code in the debugger and ended down a hundred rabbit holes, never able to find my way to the top of the stack, so that I could make that same call (at top of stack) to simulate the user clicking the mute button. I also tried the approach of programmatically clicking the mute button on the UI player, which would meet my needs equally well, but they have serious defensive mechanisms in there, spinning me like a top.
Since there are over 100K lines of javascript, and I'm uncertain which chunks exactly would be relevant for this post, I would like to suggest that you load Netflix in Chrome, open dev tools, play a movie, and inspect the pause or mute button. Interacting with those video player controls takes you into the maze of javascript which I'm trying to see how I can tap into to control aspects of the player programmatically (just from dev tools is fine for now). Another important thing I need to figure out is how to query the video player to determine the current elapsed time of the playing video.
In this exemple the player will play the video at 10000ms.But you will need to inject the script directly in the html page, if you are making an extension using this in the content-script injected by manifest v3 (for my case) will not work.
Disclaimer: I am running macOS 12.6.9 Monterey. Your mileage may vary.
Disclaimer #2: I do not claim this to be a permanent fix, but it is definitely a nice work-around to a long existing issue with Safari.
Disclaimer #3: This really has saved me from defenestrating my old MacBook Pro.
Today I was messing around with my VO utility settings because I feel there must be something that we end users can do to get away from the infamous "Safari Not Responding" bug of doom. I began by looking over each category and playing around with different ideas, while stress testing Safari by opening several tabs/windows (see: A metric s**t-ton) linking to various sites, including AppleVis, Netflix, YouTube, Blind Mice Mart, AudioVault, Amazon, Audible, Yahoo, and a few random bookmarks I have related to programming.
As you can imagine, I had a "wonderful" time (see: God awful) dealing with Safari freezing up again, and again, and again, and., well you get the idea. ?
However, I kept at it, until I came up with the following changes to my VO settings. I would swear to you all I have a much, much better time navigating the inter webs with Safari since making these changes, though I will admit they will take a little "getting used to".
The following changes I have listed below. The category and sub category will proceed a bulleted list. I really hope these suggestions work out for you all, as they are for me. Again, I am on Monterey, so Ventura and Sonoma may be a completely different beast.
Once you are rebooted and back on your Desktop, open Safari and visit some web pages! If your machine works anything like mine, you will have shortened the "Not Responding" bug from whatever it was before (for you) to practically non-existent. ?
After further stress-testing my machine, I have come to the conclusion that you really only "need" steps 2 & 3. That makes this a much simpler process, and I swear this really works. Again I do not swear it completely removes the "Safari Not Responding" bug, but it makes it such an insignificant issue that you will likely not be bothered by it.
Admittedly, I felt rather skeptical at first when reading the post. I know, sorry @Brian, for the no doubt very gruesome while you must've felt with this incredibly meticulous experiment. I would not have had the patience and courage to have done something even close to this.
However, there are some settings I did not stick to as it would be a deal breaker for me. After experiencing the more or less magical transformation, I went to reverse these following settings. But most importantly, the incredible results remain even after these reversal.
Hey, I am happy someone was willing to give it a try. Personally I am tired of reading the plethora of posts complaining about Safari being broken. Also, I have personally reset my VO settings and now only follow steps 2 & 3 of my original list above. Basically muting sounds in VO and Safari.
Yes, please go work for them right from today @Brian. They'd be a fool if they wouldn't hire you, (if they weren't already haha).
I mean, seriously, despite without disabling sound effects, the difference is significant enough to be a game changer for my end here. I've now done with all my studies, otherwise I could've stress tested it far better with the very quirky and clunky academic webpages and databases.
I will definitely report this incredible finding to Apple Accessibility. Just to make them aware.
Again, thanks so so so much Brian for making my day today, and many days to follow ahead.
/ sent from a gloomy, overcast and rainy but cozy sofa in London ?.
I'm using a 2013 MacBook Air running Big Sur 11.7.10 and Safari 16.6. Following steps 2 and 3 does indeed seem to make the problem significantly less irritating, though it doesn't eliminate it altogether. I still notice VO being really sluggish on some webpages and the busy busy messages still persist, but they only seem to last for 2 or 3 seconds now instead of up to a minute. I'll report this to Apple, and maybe, just maybe this will help and finally allow them to fix the problem, though I'm not holding my breath.
Firstly, on my M2 Macbook I setup a Web Browsing Activity to try this on because I was too lazy to make a note o my settings before the changes. I set it up to be used on Safari. After a reboot, I was still getting Safari Not Responding over and over again trying to open the AWS Management Console. This is Sonoma. (I may have mentioned this elsewhere once or twice... cough..)
So I cracked open my iMac running Ventura and changed the Web and Sound options there, but this time not being silly enough to do it in Ventura. After a reboot, opened up AWS Management Console. Safari not responding, safari not responding.
I'm guessing that these changes mean that the Mac uses a tiny amount less processing power on each web page, which may be enough to drop it below the Not Responding threshold. Maybe the AWS Management Console isn't a good example because it's quite complicated. But it is the one showstopper instance of this bug for me.
The sad truth is that this fix of mine really only works on Monterey and earlier versions of macOS. You can get "some" better performance with Ventura, but only kind of sorta. Don't even think of doing this on Sonoma. Sonoma is so broken, that I'm surprised it even works at all, even without voiceover enabled.
Although on second thought, perhaps, without voiceover, Sonoma works just fine? I wouldn't know, I am avoiding the recent updates, like Ebola!
I have allergies. ?