Trailers - FILE NOT FOUND

[Pauven]

I just tried to download it, and I get the same warning.

What's really sad is that I submitted the files to VirusTotal first, as I always do before hosting files online, and they were scanned through over 70 AV engines and came back clean. Not sure why Microsoft Defender is freaking out, but it's a false detection.

It is concerning though - I'm not sure why Defender is mis-identifying this as a threat, it's such a simple little program - but that might mean that adding the web browser media player to CMC could cause similar download issues.

You can open up Virus and Threat Protection, go to Protection History, expand one of the download attempts that were blocked, click the Action drop down box, and select Allow. You can then download it again, and it should be successful.

image.png (309.92 KiB) Viewed 133 times

[Pauven]

I just tested it on my HTPC, and after jumping through the hoops to "Run Anyway", it got an error 153 video player configuration error message and it didn't work.

[Pauven]

I've gotten further in my testing, but don't have a solution just yet.

If I use the regular Youtube URL, I can open the full video trailer page (which has all the other sections like comments and other videos surrounding it), but I cannot get it to go into fullscreen mode automatically. So this ruins the experience.

If I use the embed Youtube URL, it opens in fullscreen and playback is awesome, but this ONLY works in my original development folder. As soon as I copy the test program into a new folder, it breaks playback altogether, even on the same PC.

My best guess is that during my development process, I somehow cached a Youtube parameter that is allowing the embed URL to work, and whatever was cached is only inside my development folder. I've tried to retrace my steps, hoping to find a magic combo that grants this amazing ability to play embedded videos, but so far no luck.

If only Google wasn't fighting me every step of the way...

[michae1a1ee]

I have full faith in your programming competence to figure this out. After all, CMC is awesome product, as is CCC.

[Pauven]

Thanks, I appreciate your faith!

And I guess it was well placed, I seem to have figured it out.

I traced the issue down to the cached cookies. If I copied the cookie file over from the working directory to the non-working directory, magically it began working.

I also happen to have Youtube Premium (worth it to avoid the non-stop ads!!!), I got it bundled in my Pixel phone deal. So for me to enjoy that experience, I need to be logged into Youtube. So my solution addresses both items at once.

I now have 2 test files, one opens the TDK trailer in fullscreen, plays it and closes. This fails if the proper Youtube Consent/Accept cookies aren't cached.

The other one opens the main YouTube page, which you can interact with. From there, you can log into Youtube. The process of doing this creates the cookies needed for playback, and if you have Youtube Premium, grants you that ad-free watching experience.

After completing the login, I closed that and re-opened the TDK trailer player, and it played perfectly!

I'll see about putting together another zip for testing.

[Pauven]

Youtube_Trailer_Test.zip

As before, you may have to open your AV software and permit this download. I did add my developer info to the files hoping that would prevent any false flagging.

You also need to place this in a directory where you have write permissions.

To conduct the test, first run The_Dark_Knight_Trailer.exe, it will most likely fail with error 153. Close it with Alt+F4 or Task Manager.

Then run Youtube_Init.exe, which will open the Youtube homepage. From here, log into Youtube. If you watch a video, it should auto-close as soon as the video ends.

Finally, run The_Dark_Knight_Trailer again. It should work this time.

Here are the VirusTotal results for the 3 files in this zip:

• Youtube_init.exe
• The_Dark_Knight_Trailer.exe
• WebView2Loader.dll

[EDIT] I just tested this on my HTPC. The download worked this time, Microsoft Defender didn't complain. But the big red Unknown Publisher warning box appeared and I had to click More Info and Run Anyway for both files.

[michae1a1ee]

First of all, I did have to go through the MS Defender Virus Allow process to download the zip file.
I managed to download it on a second attempt after clicking "Allow" it in the Protection History list.
So for me, with NO YouTube Premium subscription, The_Dark_Knight_Trailer.exe ran perfectly the first time. (Great movie choice btw)

I didn't run the other file given that the intial test already worked, but if you want me to try anything else while you work on integrating this in CMC please let me know. I will note that on my test PC I'm already logged into YouTube with my Google Account in Chrome. I don't know if that peice of information is important for your testing, or if it effects the full-screen Window that YouTube launched in to play The Dark Knight trailer.

[Pauven]

Excellent, thanks for you feedback.

I'm surprised that the trailer played the first time. That does align with my own experience, where it played on my development PC, at least in the original folder. Perhaps there's something to the "first time" success.

I'm logged into Youtube on multiple browsers, but that does not carry over to this browser. That's essentially what this little program is, a super cut-down browser. It uses the Microsoft Edge browser already on your PC, but doesn't access of your data, instead it has its own local data cache. That means that your login info on other browsers does not transfer to this one. If you run the Init one (possible a bad name choice), it will open up the Youtube home page, where you can navigate around, and verify that you are indeed not logged in.

[michae1a1ee]

Second thought, for testing I thought it would make sense to try the Youtube_Init.exe file.
I ran it and as you said it opened a full-screen YouTube session. It was NOT logged in. I did not log in with my Google Account as it's not a paid YouTube Premium account. I Alt-F4'ed to get out of the full-screen session.
Re-ran the The_Dark_Knight_Trailer.exe and it still played properly.
Perhaps a logged in YouTube session is not needed at all?

[Pauven]

What I noticed in my testing is that different videos had different success rates. The Dark Knight trailer definitely had the issue for me, though, so I used it for the public test.

My expectation is that if I fold this into CMC, it will work for some trailers, and fail randomly for others. But logging in seems to satisfy whatever requirement Youtube has, and fixes the failures. So even without YT Premium, logging in is a fix for random playback issues.

So I would put something in the settings that would allow you to bring up the home Youtube page and log in. That gets saved in the cookie cache, and should work for future trailer playback.

And now that I'm thinking about it, there's already the Quick Links feature in CMC to open external browsers, I can simply add an option to use the internal browser, from which you can open YT and log in.