It seems to be all or most of them. I checked 5 recently uploaded webm's, and none of them work. They load for a second, and then don’t play once I hit the play button. I tried older videos, and they work with no issues. I think it may have to do with the AV1 coded videos, but I didn’t have problems until three days ago. I don’t understand what the problem is, I've never had any problems with playing videos before the AV1 update.

It is a known issue, but not on the site's fault.

Apple devices on iOS or iPadOS are notoriously bad at viewing WEBM videos.
Some of the latest devices and OS have added support for viewing WEBM videos, but not all of them (particularly older devices) get the same treatment.

What e621 does to overcome this is by generating MP4 samples for iOS compatibility.
Even then, other people have also reported not being able to view certain videos, but it can be attributed to the site simply not having generated the MP4 sample for the post yet.
You'd just have to wait until it gets generated or move to a new device.

For some reason the WEBMs that I have been unable to play on ipad can be played if downloaded and played on a seperate player like the Documents app. Probably unrelated to your problem since I can view recent uploads without troble.

thegreatwolfgang said:
Even then, other people have also reported not being able to view certain videos, but it can be attributed to the site simply not having generated the MP4 sample for the post yet.
You'd just have to wait until it gets generated or move to a new device.

All video samples are being regenerated according to an updated script. Should improve compatibility and, in some cases, quality. New videos are, I imagine, at the end of the regeneration queue, although I was told that the queue isn't necessarily processed in order. I'm currently seeing samples at type:webm id:>2410000 order:id. Still a lot to reprocess. This means that users who were relying on the samples, probably without knowing that in most cases, cannot view those videos in their browser or at all until new samples are generated.

So what can we do?
I never had the problem since the update, will there be a work around?

raveraptor said:
So what can we do?
I never had the problem since the update, will there be a work around?

I literally said in my last comment:
"You'd just have to wait until it gets generated or move to a new device."

abadbird said:
I was told that the queue isn't necessarily processed in order.

Would it not have been better to have the system update whatever the newest unprocessed file is, rather than choose one at random?

thegreatwolfgang said:
I literally said in my last comment:
"You'd just have to wait until it gets generated or move to a new device."

Calm down

foozle said:
Would it not have been better to have the system update whatever the newest unprocessed file is, rather than choose one at random?

Job queues (where these are happening) don't work strictly sequentially, that would be extremely inefficient
jobs are loaded in and executed concurrently, which results in some being left behind as others finish and new jobs are started
They however are not random, there is an order being followed, and new samples are at the end of the same queue which is why they're delayed
Samples can take hours to generate, it takes a ton of time to regenerate all samples

raveraptor said:
Calm down

Nothing he said is particularly hostile or aggressive, that is literally just the only options you have

donovan_dmc said:
Job queues (where these are happening) don't work strictly sequentially, that would be extremely inefficient
jobs are loaded in and executed concurrently, which results in some being left behind as others finish and new jobs are started
They however are not random, there is an order being followed, and new samples are at the end of the same queue which is why they're delayed
Samples can take hours to generate, it takes a ton of time to regenerate all samples

Pretty much, yes. Although we dropped webm samples, and mp4/h264 ones seem to be quicker to generate.
I think the worst case scenario I've seen is about 30 minutes.

As of right now, we are about about 63% through the process.
it should finish up some time next week.

What I should have done was make a separate queue for regenerating old samples, separate (and lower priority) than the main video queue.
That way, it wouldn't interfere with the newly created posts as much. But I didn't think of it at the time, and at this point it's easier to just wait it out than try to fix it.
But it's still a good lesson to learn for when the time comes to regenerate post thumbnails.

donovan_dmc said:
Nothing he said is particularly hostile or aggressive, that is literally just the only options you have

Simmer down

cinder said:
As of right now, we are about about 63% through the process.
it should finish up some time next week.

Is there a way to view the output of the most recently updated webm files? Just to watch and see what’s coming out and how fast?

It might help if we could see what’s actually being completed, as it’s completed.

foozle said:
Is there a way to view the output of the most recently updated webm files? Just to watch and see what’s coming out and how fast?

It might help if we could see what’s actually being completed, as it’s completed.

Pretty much all of the files prior to November 2023 have been processed, although there are some exceptions.
Here's a video that's hot off the presses: https://e621.net/posts/4348700

Original file: https://static1.e621.net/data/ae/7e/ae7e17c17c0c7babb26a766de99625a1.webm
Compatibility version: https://static1.e621.net/data/sample/ae/7e/ae7e17c17c0c7babb26a766de99625a1_alt.mp4
720p sample: https://static1.e621.net/data/sample/ae/7e/ae7e17c17c0c7babb26a766de99625a1_720p.mp4
480p sample: https://static1.e621.net/data/sample/ae/7e/ae7e17c17c0c7babb26a766de99625a1_480p.mp4

There isn't much of a visual differences. The changes are either internal, or are fixing compatibility issues.

• We are using less server space and bandwidth by not using webm samples. The compatibility version above is almost half the size of the original video, for example.
• The h264 codec has better browser and device support across the board. We are going to have less trouble with videos not working on certain devices in the future.
• The h264 samples also take less time than VP9 to process. I understand that the wait may seem long now... but we would be here for multiple months if we were creating webm samples too.
• We are now saving which video codec the original video uses – that allows us to do a better job showing a video format that is more likely to work on your device.
• Previous implementation of a same-resolution compatibility version caused issues when we added support for mp4 files with the av1 codec. This should be taken care of now.
• Fixed the issues with vertical videos getting downscaled incorrectly, which resulted in samples being smaller than they really should be.
• Capped the framerate in samples to avoid performance issues on mobile devices. If the original video is running at over 60 fps, the framerate would get cut in half.
• Fixed the bitrate cap to avoid having samples bloat in filesize unreasonably.

So we just need to wait it out if so is there a time frame for when you guys know it will be fixed?

superdupercoolsam said:
So we just need to wait it out if so is there a time frame for when you guys know it will be fixed?

Read Cinder's replies, they said it

nin10dope said:
Read Cinder's replies, they said it

I can barely read and it took me 30 minuets just to try and read what he said. And I still couldn’t understand. Please just answer with yes or a no. Sorry

superdupercoolsam said:
I can barely read and it took me 30 minuets just to try and read what he said. And I still couldn’t understand. Please just answer with yes or a no. Sorry

63% complete
Some time next week.

Making the text bold to hopefully make it easier to read

cinder said:
Pretty much all of the files prior to November 2023 have been processed, although there are some exceptions.
Here's a video that's hot off the presses: https://e621.net/posts/4348700

Original file: https://static1.e621.net/data/ae/7e/ae7e17c17c0c7babb26a766de99625a1.webm
Compatibility version: https://static1.e621.net/data/sample/ae/7e/ae7e17c17c0c7babb26a766de99625a1_alt.mp4
720p sample: https://static1.e621.net/data/sample/ae/7e/ae7e17c17c0c7babb26a766de99625a1_720p.mp4
480p sample: https://static1.e621.net/data/sample/ae/7e/ae7e17c17c0c7babb26a766de99625a1_480p.mp4

There isn't much of a visual differences. The changes are either internal, or are fixing compatibility issues.

• We are using less server space and bandwidth by not using webm samples. The compatibility version above is almost half the size of the original video, for example.
• The h264 codec has better browser and device support across the board. We are going to have less trouble with videos not working on certain devices in the future.
• The h264 samples also take less time than VP9 to process. I understand that the wait may seem long now... but we would be here for multiple months if we were creating webm samples too.
• We are now saving which video codec the original video uses – that allows us to do a better job showing a video format that is more likely to work on your device.
• Previous implementation of a same-resolution compatibility version caused issues when we added support for mp4 files with the av1 codec. This should be taken care of now.
• Fixed the issues with vertical videos getting downscaled incorrectly, which resulted in samples being smaller than they really should be.
• Capped the framerate in samples to avoid performance issues on mobile devices. If the original video is running at over 60 fps, the framerate would get cut in half.
• Fixed the bitrate cap to avoid having samples bloat in filesize unreasonably.

do you have a date on when we can view webms again?

superdupercoolsam said:
do you have a date on when we can view webms again?

You can view WebM videos now, if your device supports them.
MP4 samples are available for most posts uploaded prior to November 2024. The rest should get handled within the next few days.

cinder said:
You can view WebM videos now, if your device supports them.
MP4 samples are available for most posts uploaded prior to November 2024. The rest should get handled within the next few days.

I was going to say the same thing, but you beat me to it by less than a minute.

superdupercoolsam said:
do you have a date on when we can view webms again?

If you can't wait, there are many devices that can play WebM out of the box. You should not have any problems with WebM and MP4 playback on devices with Android 14 or newer. Devices with Ubuntu 22 or newer should work as well.

cinder said:
You can view WebM videos now, if your device supports them.
MP4 samples are available for most posts uploaded prior to November 2024. The rest should get handled within the next few days.

Oh so In just a few days the newer webms will slowly start loading? or can I only view webms from last year?

It is done.

cinder said:
It is done.

Poggers

cinder said:
It is done.

why y'gotta say it all ominous like that?

dba_afish said:
why y'gotta say it all ominous like that?

What is done cannot be undone.

cinder said:
It is done.

Are there still some gaps to be expected? The couple I have been checking never got samples.
post #5581872
post #5574752

list said:
Are there still some gaps to be expected? The couple I have been checking never got samples.
post #5581872
post #5574752

No, these files had issues with conversion for... complicated reasons.
Not related to the actual videos, funnily enough.

Either way, I am aware of these.
They will likely be fixed after a release this Wednesday.

cinder said:
No, these files had issues with conversion for... complicated reasons.
Not related to the actual videos, funnily enough.

Either way, I am aware of these.
They will likely be fixed after a release this Wednesday.

Thanks! Both now have samples and play.

What about this one? post #5616257
Edit:I see that's fixed now too. Excellent