[Unity WebGL] HLS video hangs on slow internet (Error: Shaka Error 1003).

[SwenRanj]

Describe the issue
HLS video hangs on Unity WebGL when users have a slow but steady internet connection. My HLS playlist consists of 1080p, 720p, 480p and 360p.
When I throttle my connection (e.g., in Chrome devtools) I see that:

1. The video starts buffering (to be expected).
2. In the 'Network tab' the rest of the .ts (HLS files) are loading. Weirdly enough it does download some of them double.
3. The .ts files are loaded successfully, but if this takes 'too long' the video hangs. It doesn't continue playing like it normally does when it buffers for a few seconds.
4. Console error log: {"severity":2,"category":1,"code":1003,"data":["{URL}", 1], "handled":false,"message":"Shaka Error 1003","stack":"Error: Shaka Error 1003\n at new _0x503e04 (https://url.com/hisplayer.js:2:69926)\n at _0x5c48d8.h (https://url.com/hisplayer.js:2:1190848)\n at _0x1b5f27 (https://url.com/hisplayer.js:2:28864)\n at _0x40006b.throw (https://url.com/hisplayer.js:2:29788)\n at _0x1e732e (https://url.com/hisplayer.js:2:30442)"}.

Your system and development environment:

• HISPlayer Unity Video Player SDK version: 4.11.0 (com.hisplayer.hisplayersdk from the package.json)
• Unity version: 6000.1.17f1
• Package URL (if purchased from the store): https://assetstore.unity.com/packages/tools/video/video-streaming-player-webgl-283452
• Operating system (OS): Windows/ ChromeOS (non-exhaustive)

To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the issue:

1. Play a HLS video with HISPlayer.
2. Throttle internet connection, in Chrome you can throttle this in the devtools (Network -> change 'No Throttling' to 3G).
3. If you throttle it down enough, so that it has to buffer for more than a few seconds you get an error and the video hangs.

Screenshots

[SwenRanj]

After looking into this more my hypothesis is that:

• HISPlayer uses 'Shaka player' under the hood.
• Shaka player has a default timeout of 5 seconds.
• If this timeout is hit then the video hangs.

A practical fix might be to increase the timeout, but does HISPlayer expose this setting?

[SwenRanj]

Ah, I sound timeout values in the 'StreamProperties' API. I'll attempt to set those to 0 (for infinite). Is this where I should be?

[ivder]

Hi @SwenRanj , those timeout values can be configured through the StreamProperties API.
However, changes to these values will only take effect if they are applied before the player is initialized. This means:
• If you are using HISPlayerController, you must modify the StreamProperties values before calling SetUpPlayer .
• If you are using the AddStream API with StreamProperties, the values must be set before calling AddStream.

We will add the support to change those properties at runtime in the future.

[SwenRanj]

Thanks @ivder , that helps 🙏 .

I was able to change the manifestTimeout and segmentsTimeout by creating new StreamProperties and adding them to the multiStreamProperties before setting up the player.

This partially solves the problem, but there still seems to be an arbitrary 15 second timeout for the first segment/ .ts file. Eventhough I've set both manifestTimeout and segmentsTimeout to 0. I can see the first .ts file always cutting off at 15 seconds in the network tab. Later segements such as 001.ts are allowed to take longer than 15 seconds and seem to respect the segmentsTimeout.

@ivder How can I change the timeout for the first segment?

[NurikHISPlayer]

Hi @SwenRanj,
It is not possible to change the timeout to the first segment in the asset store version.

[SwenRanj]

Thanks for your message @NurikHISPlayer .

Am I correct in understanding that if users cannot load the first segment within 15 seconds, the video player will hang? In that case, users would be forced to reload the page to recover. This is a common scenario as we've implemented HLS streaming precisely for users with low bandwidths.

Does HISPlayer handle this scenario in any way? Or how can I handle this situation programmatically?