Fixes

Ads

• Resolved a bug in the VAST ad plugin that arose in 8.4.3 where calling playAd() in on(‘beforePlay’) would cause the ad and content to play simultaneously.

Updates

Ads

• Updated ad preloading functionality in the VAST ad plugin to include preloading the preroll of subsequent playlist items.
• Added the configuration property ‘bidOnBreaks’ for Video Player Bidding to the VAST ad plugin.

Fixes

Core Player

• Fixed an issue where incorrectly registering a plugin results in a setup error.
• Fixed an issue in iOS Safari where the captions would not be scaled correctly when in fullscreen.
• Fixed an issue In HLS streams where AAC segments with a timestamp of zero were considered to have no timestamp at all.

Ads

• Fixed an issue with custom ad countdown macros where xx would be incorrectly replaced with the countdown in cases where the macro is part of a word like ‘Hexx’.
• Fixed an issue with Video Player Bidding with DFP mediation where multiple key-value pairs could get added erroneously.
• Fixed an issue where the VAST ad plugin was not using the element of the VAST XML when provided to determine the skipoffset.
• Fixed an issue with the VAST ad plugin on iOS Safari where toggling the mute state when using vpaidcontrols:true sometimes had no effect.

Updates

Ads

• For FreeWheel ad plugin, added ‘PVRN’, ‘VPRN’ values to the ad request for forecasting purposes.
• For FreeWheel ad plugin, started passing ‘afid’, and ‘sfid’ values to the ad request for fallback purposes if the primary Asset ID and Site Section ID fail.

Fixes

Core Player

• Fixed an issue with players embedded through an iframe where the controls did not fade out when the user moused away from the video via the bottom of the player.
• Fixed an issue that would cause the playlist overlay to sometimes not resize correctly when the player size changes.
• Fixed an issue where custom playback rates were being rounded to the nearest .25 increment, rather than to the nearest hundredth digit.
• Fixed an issue where if the player was set up multiple times, it would reload javascript for a plugin that was already registered. We now ensure that individual plugins are only loaded and registered once. We now remove registered plugins that fail to load or instantiate (allowing new player setups to retry).

Ads

• Fixed an issue with the IMA ad plugin where the pause and fullscreen buttons may be inactive for prerolls following the first playlist item.
• Fixed an issue with the VAST ad plugin where certain VPAID ads might result in two new tabs being opened instead of a single tab when the user clicks the ad.

Fixes

• Fixed an issue with IMA and poor connections where ‘play’ might be called before the playlistItem event fires, which resulted in an error.
• Fixed a bug where sharing a video through the player caused the shared links to 404 if the url did not already contain a parameter.

Updates

Core Player

• New player error coding and classification system documented in new Error Reference doc.
• Error codes now appear in the developer console with deep links to the Error Reference page.
• Error code assignments map to new non-technical, viewer-friendly error messages displayed in the player.
• Improved player error display to be responsive to screen width and message length.
• Changed structure of error events. Refer to Error Reference.
• Added support for entering or exiting full screen on Android devices when a user rotates their device.
• Added JW Player custom parameters to links that are shared via the sharing menu, which makes it possible to track plays that result from sharing a video.

Accessibility

• Documented our screen reader support in our Accessibility Reference.
• Improved menu navigation to conform with accessibility standards; up and down arrows navigate items in a submenu, while tabbing selects different menus.
• Added the ability to focus on the time slider (progress bar).
• Added screen reader support to read out the current position when focused on the time slider or when seeking.
• Added screen reader support to read out the volume when changed.

Ads

• Created a new configuration property for VAST and IMA, preloadAds, which enables ad preloading for prerolls, midrolls, postrolls in the first playlist item.
• Added a viewableImpression event to VAST and IMA based on the IAB definition of viewability, which states that a video must be 50% viewable for at least 2 seconds.
• Re-added the fullscreen icon during ad playback at all breakpoints. This was previously removed to conserve controlbar space.
• Now passing autoplay/mute status to DFP with VAST.
• Improved behavior of the FreeWheel ad plugin with ad blockers by proceeding directly to content rather than waiting for a timeout.
• Re-added the fullscreen icon to the ads controlbar for all breakpoints.
• Added a new configuration property for IMA bidOnBreaks for Video Player Bidding which allows for bidding on only the first X of the scheduled breaks to reduce latency.
• Released full support for Google DAI.

Fixes

Core Player

• Fixed an issue where the cursor would disappear if you set controls to false via setControls().

Accessibility

• Fixed a bug causing the space and enter keys to not work with JAWS in IE 11.
• Fixed an issue that allowed JAWS to focus on hidden elements in IE 11.
• Fixed an issue preventing menus from closing by hitting the ESC key.

Ads

• Fixed an issue with IMA where a blank ad schedule would erroneously throw a 21009 error.
• Fixed an issue with certain VPAID creatives where the mute state of the creative (muted) didn’t match the mute state of the player controls (not muted), and required multiple taps of the mute button to get the mute state in sync.
• Fixed an issue with VAST and the vpaidcontrols configuration property where the mute button had no effect for certain VPAIDs.
• Fixed an issue where the skip button would be visible even though the ad was too short to ever be able to use the skip button.

Known Ads Issue

• When enabling ad preloading with IMA for click to play or autostart:viewable players, some VPAIDs incorrectly autostart without a user gesture on Firefox, IE 11, and Edge.

Fixes

Ads

• Resolved an issue with Google IMA and Facebook Audience Network (FAN) VPAIDs on iOS where, in certain situations, the ad might incorrectly error out instead of generating an impression.
• Resolved an issue with Google IMA on iOS where certain ads might throw an ad error with click to play players depending on viewability.

Fixes

Core Player

• Fixed an issue on Android Chrome where after the pre-roll, a player configured with a Widevine protected playlist item errors, displaying a "File could not be played message"

Updates

Core Player

• Improved media notifications on Android by including poster images and publisher domain names.

Ads

• Added a new ad error code (900 / 60007) that gets raised when there’s an attempt to load ads on Android 2.3, which is not supported.
• Added creativeID from the VAST XML response to the VAST admanager’s adImpression/adError events.
• For Video Player Bidding, segmented bidresponsetime by now also reporting the script loading time and the time between adBidRequest and adBidResponse.
• Improved “Ad loading” messaging for the VAST admanager to only show when an actual ad is being loaded.
• Improved reporting of Video Player Bidding impression tracking when the DFP mediation layer is used.
• Added breakstart and breakend events to Google DAI.
• Removed ad countdown and pod count messaging in Google DAI “live” scenarios to prevent incorrect messaging.

Fixes

Core Player

• Fixed a bug preventing poster images from displaying during playback of audio-only streams with the audio/mp4 MIME type.
• Fixed an accessibility issue in Firefox that allowed the video tag itself to be focusable.
• Fixed an issue where setting up the player twice resulted in duplicate analytics pings being fired for certain events (eg. completes).

Ads

• For FreeWheel, modified the default admanager URL (which loads when a publisher hasn’t specified their own) to load successfully over both HTTP and HTTPS.
• Fixed an issue with the VAST admanager where certain preroll VPAID ads would incorrectly show the skip button when the vpaidcontrols config option was set.
• Fixed an issue with SpotX Video Player Bidding where the startdelay parameter was being passed incorrectly for midrolls.
• Fixed an issue where calling load() while the player is in the “Loading ad” state could cause infinite buffering in very low-bandwidth situations.
• Fixed an issue with the VAST admanager where setting the offset for two ads where one is set to be pre and the other 0 would prevent the second ad from playing.
• Fixed an issue with Google DAI on Safari where seeking past multiple unplayed midrolls could cause the player’s timeslider to stall or jump back and forth.

Updates

Core Player

• Improved the playback experience by maintaining quality between videos in a playlist. The player starts subsequent videos in an embed with the quality that most closely matches the previous item based on bandwidth comparisons.
• Improved the playback experience by preserving the viewer’s bandwidth estimation and using it to select an initial quality level when playback starts.
• Added a new configuration option, defaultBandwidthEstimate, which sets an initial bandwidth estimate in bits for all viewers. To set the highest quality as an initial estimate, reference the highest bitrate from your manifest.
• Improved the “Auto” quality label in the settings menu to also show the quality being played when “Auto” is selected.
• Improved the experience of watching live streams that do not have a DVR window. Instead of the pause icon, which used to pause the stream and resume behind the live edge, the player now features a new stop icon, which resumes from the live edge when playback resumes. The player appears paused on the last frame watched. Note that for visual clarity, small players will display a pause icon in the center of the screen while exhibiting the new “stop” behavior. Via API, the pause method will achieve the behavior described here, while the stop method will stop playback and put the player in the idle state.
• Live streams without a DVR window no longer get behind the live edge, and the live icon is no longer clickable to return to the live edge.
• Added a new localization option, localization.stop for the new stop icon in live mode.
• Added right click support via long press on iOS and Android devices. Long pressing displays the JW Player right click menu. The menu automatically fades out within three seconds if not interacted with.
• In accordance with GDPR data transparency compliance, added a video information overlay accessible via an option About this video in the right click menu. The viewer’s Client ID is displayed in the lower right corner, which can be used to request data from JW Player.
• Added a new localization, localization.videoInfo, which can be used to localize "About this video" text in the right click menu.

Ads

• For Video Player Bidding, expanded the number of possible bidResults to include expanded error tracking.
• For Video Player Bidding, added the priceInCents to the adImpression and adError events for all mediation layers.

Fixes

Core Player

• Fixed an issue where DASH streams with large gaps at the beginning of the manifest did not play on IE11 and Edge.
• Fixed an issue where HLS streams missing a frame in the first segment would not start playing with HLSjs.
• Fixed an issue with 608 captions in HLS streams where the captions would flicker in and out with HLSjs.

Ads

• Fixed an issue with the Google IMA plugin where second ad in a pod might not unpause after being paused.
• Fixed an issue with the VAST ad plugin where error tracking pixels weren’t firing for all wrapped tags if only included at the root of the XML response.
• Fixed an issue with the VAST plugin where content would display before a preroll ad if scheduling was done at the playlist item level.

Fixes

Ads

• For IMA, fixed an issue with a mute-state incompatibility between Browser Autoplay Policies and Video Player Bidding, where autostart-muted ads might incorrectly fail to play even though the browser would allow it.