[Resolved] Video background not showing on iOS

[Brian]

On my client’s site: mikava.coffee, my client can’t see the video background playing on his phone or tablet (both iOS), but it looks great on my devices. This worked for all devices with the previous theme, so I’m wondering if there is anything that could be going on between GP and the video background plugin I’m using?

Thanks so much!

[Leo]

Hi there,

I don’t believe this is a theme related issue.

Can you try activating a Twenty series WP theme and see if it works there?

Let me know 🙂

[Brian]

So, some more details here.
1. It is an issue only in Safari. All other browsers work fine, mobile and desktop.
2. It works with other themes.

I don’t see how GP could have affected this, but in fact, the moment I switched themes from our previous, the video stopped on Safari (it was working with the previous theme as well). So perhaps there’s something going on here?
Any ideas are appreciated! I’m also speaking with the plugin developers in case they’ve experienced this before, but their support is nothing compared to you all ;). So, no idea if they’ll give me anything.
Thanks!

[Brian]

Update. It’s actually not only Safari. The video no longer plays on:
1. iPhones at all (all browsers)
2. Safari on iPhone, iPad, and desktop (probably Windows Safari too, but I don’t know how to install Safari on my PC).

It worked on all of the above on the other theme. Any thoughts what could have changed when I switched to GP (previous theme was Porto).

Thank you!

[Leo]

The theme itself really is not capable of stopping the video from playing.

Here are a couple of debugging tests:

– Disable all plugins except the video background plugin. Does the issue occur?

– If the issue still occurs above, activate a Twenty series WP theme (not the Porto theme), does the issue occur?

[Brian]

I will try these steps soon (I need my own iOS system to test on which I’ll have access to soon, as I don’t want to affect the live site and then wait for my clients), but in the meantime, I had a thought. Since it happened on switching themes, I was wondering if the Safari webkit was perhaps reading something from GP that put a black background over the video (as opposed to the video not playing, I’m wondering if it’s being covered). Does that sound possible?
The previous theme was nothing but trouble, and GP is nothing but amazing, so I can’t even fathom how a simple switch from bad to great theme would cause this to happen, which is the main reason I’m asking you all while I wait for the plugin devs to get back 😉

[Leo]

I was wondering if the Safari webkit was perhaps reading something from GP that put a black background over the video (as opposed to the video not playing, I’m wondering if it’s being covered). Does that sound possible?

I don’t think so – but the tests I recommended above should tell us 🙂

[Brian]

Just for the follow-up here. This turned out to be an insane problem. The video actually doesn’t play at all on Safari (or any browser on iPhone, as they all run Safari’s webkit), even from the direct link. The resource just fails to load. So, I uploaded to my own server (same host, also WordPress, GP, Elementor) and it plays fine. So I just linked the background video to that one and it plays. Host can’t figure it out, I can’t figure it out, just a weird mystery at this point.
Thanks for looking it over, and do please, anyone, if you have any experience with this, please help decode the mystery!
Thanks all 🙂

EDIT:
In case you want to see how weird this is, here are the two video links. If you have Safari or an iPhone, the first one fails, the second one works. Exact same file. They’re both hosted with the same company. There’s no reason I can fathom, not to mention the fact that the first link worked up until a day or two ago 😉
1 – https://mikava.coffee/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Broll-Draft-5-new.mp4
2 – https://rgystudio.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/Broll-Draft-5-new.mp4

[Leo]

I have no idea unfortunately.

Hopefully the plugin’s support team has a fix for it 🙂

[Author]

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