Youtube videos black screen

[WeeeBen]

Hi, on my vb5 forum, embedded youtube video's used to show a picture of the video, now they just show a black square with grey arrow in the middle.

The videos still work ok when i press play, when i pause the picture still shows, but normally when i open a thread with an embedded video it will just be a black screen.

I had a youtube video on my forums front page, i took it off because it's just a black box unless i click play.

The problem just appeared out of thin air, has anyone had this issue?

[HM666]

Did you recently install anything like a hack or a new skin on your forum? If you did try disabling it and see if it fixes it.

[WeeeBen]

Hi, no I have a vanilla installation if that's the terminology, standard vb5.1.4 with nothing added. i'm on my second hosting plan, first was a local host and now i use urljet, still the same issue.

The only thing that I have added is that banner after the first post, could that be it?
although I get the black screen even if I put the youtube module on my front page.

see how it's a black screen? that page has 5 video's all black screen, it used to be just the top one, then they all went black.
http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f13/civon68/black_zpsc084b918.png

[HM666]

Hmm so it was working before? or it never worked?

It may be a server issue. It may have something to do with the image settings on our server, but I'm not entirely sure. Maybe they upgraded GD or something on your server and it has caused some problem.

[bridge2heyday]

Can you show us a thread with broken video ?

[WeeeBen]

Worked fine before, think it was around vb5.1.1 that it messed up, during which the video's would not expand like they do when you press play, then along came vb5.1.4 which fixed that issue of expanding on play but still the black screens.

I just put up two video modules back on the front page, a small one and a big one, still the same.

The thread with video's..

http://scrapforum.com.au/forum/scrapping-electronics/computers/3229-scrapping-a-few-rack-mount-servers-quick-look-inside

and forum home you can see the front page modules.

[Lynne]

It your PHP configured with cURL - what version of cURL and what version of PHP?

[WeeeBen]

Hi, PHP Version is 5.4.36, cURL Version is 7.36.0

[Zachery]

Clear the system cache.

[WeeeBen]

And then what? stand on my head? :)

I clear the system cache all the time, this issue has been going for months.
I wish it was as simple as that.

[ozzy47]

And then what? stand on my head? :)

I am going to go a bit off topic, and say that statement actually made me laugh. :)
Thanks for that, and sorry to hear you are having such trouble. If I had any idea I would share, but alas I don't. :(

[HM666]

And then what? stand on my head? :)



That made me chuckle too.

It may have something to do with when you upgraded to vB 5.11. Possibly something was broken that was not broken before. Its not unusual for that to happen on some sites from a new upgrade. Have you asked on vbulletin.com about this or searched there to see if its an issue with this upgrade?

[WeeeBen]

Yeah they were looking at it but couldn't find the issue initially so i'm apparently waiting until after the holidays for vb staff to look at it when they start working again.

Here's my theory, at one stage the video button in the advanced tab wouldn't work.
So instead of putting up a video via the video button, you can add a video using the "Post Link" paperclip.

So members alternated between using the video button and the post link button.

Now if I go to edit one of the posts with video and try and delete the video it doesn't allow that, I need to insert a valid url for it to work.
So I can't delete a url unless I add another url. it says, "error please enter a valid url".

Now when I click edit to edit a post with video it looks like this..

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f13/civon68/test1_zps347ab3a6.png

Can you see the blue box top left corner? hovering over it says "Post a Video"
but it doesn't work, it's just a picture, not a button.

The post below, I added the video using the video button in advanced editor.
click edit post and it looks like this..

http://i44.photobucket.com/albums/f13/civon68/test2_zps7c4d00f5.png

as you can see it does not have the blue box on the top left, and I can delete the video and replace with text no problem.

So I think there was a conflict between the two possibilities of adding a video, one via video button, the other via url button.
so now no matter which version I upgrade to the error is like built in.

I'm thinking maybe the only way to fix it is to delete all posts with video's completely.
from that point it might fix itself?

[HM666]

I don't know it might but if there is an error built into the software its also likely that deleting those posts will not help you either and it will continue to do the same thing even with new posts. Is there a way that you can limit how members post videos? Like only allow it via the link or the button? I do not run vB5 so I have not looked at it to see.

[WeeeBen]

Not sure if I could get everyone to go one way or the other, it doesn't seem to be any different now as they both show a black screen.

I think a video button would be easier if it was visible like the other tabs when creating a new post.
already there is: share photo's - Post Link - Insert Poll, so it's common sense to put "Insert Video" that's why they go looking in the advanced tab for it.

it's just too difficult for me, what eats me is most vb5 sites work ok with video's and I just have a basic forum. oh well, might just go and stand on my head afterall.

[HM666]

Well what I was thinking was if you could limit the users to only use one or the other the perhaps you can delete the posts/threads and make sure that you have it in place to have them only allowed to use a certain way to put the videos into a post. That "might" work but IDK. It might not too and you would have deleted the post for nothing.

[Lynne]

Is your server set up to block any sites? The youtube video thumbnail is created by google - it's from ytimg.com (or one of it's other servers). If you are blocking google, then perhaps the thumbnail creation is being blocked.

[Zachery]

<a href="http://tracker.vbulletin.com/browse/VBV-13599" target="_blank">http://tracker.vbulletin.com/browse/VBV-13599</a> should be fixed in 5.1.5

Though, it seems the specific customer was missing cURL in their PHP (not the server).

[WeeeBen]

No I don't believe i'm blocking google.
I have google adsense on my site and google seems to send lots of bots to my site so i'd say it's not blocked.

But you say on the server? should I be asking my host? urljet?
what do I ask them?

I tried using bbcode, Example - xxxxxxxxxx
It doesn't work.

Would I need to do the following? does that work in vb5?

Admin CP -> Custom BB Codes -> Add New BB Code

Title - YouTube
Tag - youtube
Replacement:

Code:
<object width="425" height="350"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/{param}"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/{param}" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="425" height="350"></embed></object>

[ozzy47]

Well hopefully 5.1.5 solves it for you as Zachary suggests.

[WeeeBen]

yeah I guess we'll have to wait and see

[ozzy47]

I have not seen a projected date for it yet though.

[WeeeBen]

yeah i'm used to that now, that's why I didn't sound very excited about it being fixed in 5.1.5
i'm guessing 3-4 months and I bet you it still won't work, you watch.

just like the basic issue of when you log into vb5 control panel to do something, the "most ever users online" re-sets to zero, that was meant to fixed in 5.1.1 maybe .2 but it's still the same.

Thanks to everyone who helped anyway, I appreciate your time.

[ozzy47]

Well we can only hope for the best, and plan for the worst. )

[Zachery]

yeah i'm used to that now, that's why I didn't sound very excited about it being fixed in 5.1.5
i'm guessing 3-4 months and I bet you it still won't work, you watch.

just like the basic issue of when you log into vb5 control panel to do something, the "most ever users online" re-sets to zero, that was meant to fixed in 5.1.1 maybe .2 but it's still the same.

Thanks to everyone who helped anyway, I appreciate your time.

If you are on 5.1.4 and getting the black screen issue, can you open a support ticket? We'd love to make sure we know why it is occurring and try to sort it out for you if we can. Put it my attention with the bugid I linked.

Thanks.

[WeeeBen]

I already have, same as you requested but in the attention of Joe D.
As I mentioned, it's apparently going to be looked at "after the holidays until the developers get a chance to look at this"

So either the're still on holidays or they can't work it out, not sure.
It's (Ticketid: 1321623)

Should I start a new ticket like you said?

[WeeeBen]

Well hopefully 5.1.5 solves it for you as Zachary suggests.

Banana's.

That's what vB 5.1.5 did to fix my black screen issue.
Why are all other sites working but mine has black screens?
I've just got a standard forum, no fancy mod's.

[Zachery]

We received reports that it wasn't actually address in 5.1.5, did you open a support ticket?

[WeeeBen]

My support ticket was linked with this one.. http://tracker.vbulletin.com/browse/VBV-13599
the last comment says.. Approved on 5.1.5 a5w2.
whatever that means.

Should I start a new ticket?

[Zachery]

No, I've got the link. I'll follow up with people today.

[WeeeBen]

Well this is strange, the fix is meant to be coming up in the next version but somehow my problem has fixed itself.

Had a few new video's posted on the forum yesterday and like magic it's fixed.

[Zachery]

Well this is strange, the fix is meant to be coming up in the next version but somehow my problem has fixed itself.

Had a few new video's posted on the forum yesterday and like magic it's fixed.

Generally the issue has boiled down to some odd safemode / open_basedir settings in curl not following redirects.

If your webhost removed these restrictions, you'd be fine.