OS Sierra / 64 bit plugin streaming trouble

[Hfcomms]

Hi all;

First of all let me say a big thank you to the VLC folks. I've used this media player exclusively almost since the beginning and have never found a format it wouldn't play. I have a unique problem now. I have a set top free to air satellite box which will stream video over my internal network. [There is a format of video that the set top box won't play but VLC will] You pull up the IP of the satellite receiver through the browser and you can enable the webserver and watch the video on your computer.

Simple enough. However I am having a lot of trouble getting the video/audio to stream. The browser is communicating with the box and I'm able to change satellites and channels through the browser but no video/audio. By luck I got it to work once or twice but that is about it. The plugin will attempt to play the stream and then it just sits there with the orange and white cone. It's the latest plugin of 2.2.4 I believe and it's 64 bit.

From investigating I 'think' I need to force the plugin to 32 bit but apparently with this version of the operating system there is no way to do it as it appears to be 64 bit only. I've tried it with the Apple Safari browser and for grins tried it with Firefox but I get the same thing. It tries to play the video and then just sits there. Again, I do have continuity with the external satellite box through the browser as I'm able to change channels, ect.

For grins I did try to access it through the VLC program itself instead of just the installed plugin but didn't have any luck either. It's not just the I.P. of the box you have to open but the webserver itself. FWIW the box is running an internal linux operating system. I did access the plugin itself through the HTTP 80 in the browser but don't see any setting there that I think would help me. Any ideas?

When in doubt ask the experts!!

[yetisyny]

Most web browsers are deprecating plugins right now. Google Chrome removed NPAPI plugin support completely in Chrome 45. Mozilla Firefox removed NPAPI plugin support with the exception of Flash in Firefox 52, although the Firefox 52 ESR release still supports plugins, so if you REALLY want to use a plugin in Firefox, you need to use Firefox 52 ESR (Extended Support Release).

The current Apple Safari 11 still does support plugins but they are click-to-activate and many of them are disabled by default and sometimes Safari does not even give the option to enable plugins, it is a little buggy in Safari right now. To fix it in Safari you need to go to the Preferences page, the Websites tab, and scroll down to Plug-ins and find the VLC Web Plugin on the left side of the preferences window and enable it on the current site on the right side of the window, then close the preferences window and reload the website.

But given how hard browsers are making it to use plugins now, I would suggest just opening the video in VLC Media Player since plugins are being disabled in all major web browsers now. You did say that you tried that. Perhaps you have the Firewall turned on in macOS, it could cause problems. To make sure it is off, go to System Preferences, then Security & Privacy near the top, then the Firewall tab, and make sure the Firewall is disabled. The browser probably connects on port 80 for normal HTTP traffic, which the Firewall would not block, but the Firewall may very well be blocking other ports such as the ports that transfer video information.

As far as 32-bit vs. 64-bit, macOS is gradually deprecating 32-bit software and the next major version after macOS 10.13 High Sierra will be entirely 64-bit, and plugins for the last versions of browsers that supported plugins needed to be 64-bit, and 32-bit did not work. New 32-bit apps will not be allowed in the Mac App Store starting in January 2018, and in June 2018 all existing 32-bit apps will be removed. So definitely, things on Macs nowadays need to be 64-bit, don’t even bother with 32-bit software.

Have you considered the possibility that the external satellite box might not be working or have connectivity issues? Does it work with any other computers? The problem might not necessarily be on the end of your macOS client computer, and could be on the server end. Both your computer and the server are connected to the same LAN over the same router, right? Since you are able to open the webpage of your server it sounds like you have the network working and both of them connected to the same network. It is possible your router might have a firewall enabled on it, but most routers do not have this enabled by default and if it were enabled it would only be because you deliberately did it.

Based on the symptoms it sounds like the most likely scenario is your macOS Firewall is enabled in System Preferences and blocking network traffic. If that is the case, turn it off and it should fix things.