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VTT Captions not working in Flash player

Simply put, when using HTML5 for my primary player, captions work fine in all browsers. When using Flash for my primary player, the captions do not. I set up a completely neutral test with nothing but the player loading on an HTML page, to rule out interference from the environment.

It seems like that narrows it down to either something to do with the flash player itself, or my .vtt file. Switching to HTML5 primary may be an option, but the Flash player was specifically requested for this project so I'd like to exhaust all options before bringing that up. A point in the right direction would be very helpful, thanks.

7 Community Answers

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jherrieven

User  
0 rated :

@daniel

Are you self-hosting or cloud-hosting?

James Herrieven

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Todd

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Does your captions file live on the same server as your video? If not, your captions might be blocked because of a cross-domain issue and you will need a cross domain.xml file. Read more about this at http://support.jwplayer.com/customer/portal/articles/1403679-crossdomain-file-loading

If possible, please send us a link to your video so we can investigate further.

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jherrieven

User  
0 rated :

"Does your captions file live on the same server as your video? If not, your captions might be blocked because of a cross-domain issue..." - this is incorrect and misleading.

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Todd

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Not sure what you mean. Which part is incorrect and misleading?

We have seen similar errors in the past when a user is pointing to a video that is streaming from a third-party web site (or the captions are loading from a third-party web site.) If you captions are working in HTML5 mode but not in Flash, this leads me to believe that your CORS might be configured properly. Flash ignores CORS and looks for crossdomain.xml, so you should make sure you have configured it correctly.

You can also check your browser’s console and see what errors show up when you try to view the captions. If you post the link here or e-mail it to us at support@jwplayer.com, I will research this on our test server as well.

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jherrieven

User  
1 rated :

The part that implies that you only need a cross domain file if the video file and the caption files DO NOT reside on the same server.

You could have all assets on the same server and still be facing a crossdomain issue if you cloud host.

This issue comes up regularly within the forums and the advice given is often misleading / confusing - not helped by the inadequate documentation. Why not provide specific examples?

Quite simply:

If you CLOUD HOST and render in FLASH mode, you need to have CROSSDOMAIN provisions set up ON THE SERVER HOSTING THE ADDITIONAL ASSETS (RSS feeds, XML skins, VTT, SRT & DFXP files, M3U8 manifests & TS fragments, SMIL manifests), allowing access FROM THE JW DOMAINS.

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daniel

User  
0 rated :

Thanks for your help - yes, both my video and caption assets are on the same server, and yes I was able to fix the issue by setting up a crossdomain.xml

My specific situation is that JWPlayer was provided to me by a client on their CDN, so it's neither on my development server or the JW domains. The documentation definitely does make it sound like so long as the video and caption assets are on the same server there should be no issue, but thinking about where the *player* assets are coming from it makes more sense.

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Todd

JW Player Support Agent  
0 rated :

Now I understand.

Yes, if you are cloud-hosting, you will need a crossdomain.xml because technically the Flash SWF is playing from our site but we need to load your captions content from your site. The crossdomain.xml is needed to give jwpsrv.com permission to load content from your page.

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