Now and again I am getting this error message on Safari: THE VIDEO IS BAD OR IN A FORMAT THAT CANNOT BE PLAYED ON YOUR BROWSER Error Code: MEDIA_ERR_DECODE Technical details : The media playback was aborted due to a corruption problem or because the media used features your browser did not support. Session ID: 2018-06-05:3efcdde5e37be80151f2d390 Player ID: dc-video-5793443132001 I am running Safari 11.1 which has never given me any problems in the past. I then revert to Tor or Firefox (same thing I guess sort of) and it plays fine. Any ideas? I shouldn't have to upgrade since I had no problems before unless this is Apple's way of making me do it.

Thanks. Rita

I haven't had that specific message, but when I can't play a video in Safari, I disable extensions (easily done via the Develop menu, but you'll have to reload the page afterwards) and that works. You can play with disabling individual extensions but, if you're like me, there are so many that it's easier to use the nuclear option.

Given you are using Safari 11.1, which is the latest release in any version of MacOS, upgrading the OS would be highly unlikely to effect this. I have encountered it recently in Safari Technology Preview Release 57 (Safari 11.2, WebKit 13606.1.18) which is later than Safari 11.1 but only on YouTube. It appears that a content blocker (ad blocker) is interfering with the comercial video that precedes so many YouTube videos which results in the message we are receiving.
In Safari 11.1 that is unnecessary.

1. On the Safari menu bar go to View > Customize Toolbar
2. Drag the Website Preferences icon and drop it on the Safari toolbar
3. Click on Done

After that any time you get the "THE VIDEO IS BAD…" message, click on Website preferences then uncheck "Enable Content Blockers". That disables any content blockers (which are the most likely reason for the error message) and automatically reload the page. You only have to do that once because Safari will remember the action and disable content blockers every time you visit that page. Disabling blocking is site specific and does not effect any other web site.

Safari > Preferences > Websites will show you site-by-site what you special conditions you have set including:

• Using Reader mode when available
• disabling content blockers
• disabling auto-play of audo and video media
• setting a site specific page zoom
• disabling the camera (major security and privacy issue)
• disabling the microphone
• disabling location reporting
• disabling notifications

Thanks. I do use the develop menu to open a different browser to play mentioned video which also works. I did what you said and it worked also. Thanks for that. I never thought of it being an ad blocker issue.

Thanks. I will do that. So helpful.

Oh wait. What is the website preferences icon? Huh?

When you follow Joe's procedure and go to View > Customize Toolbar, the website preferences icon will be labeled.

Many thanks, Joe. I do have that icon enabled in my toolbar but have never used it. Your suggestion seems to be much easier than disabling all extensions.

Thanks. I didn't see it the first time around!

…and the fact it is site specific and persistent is the icing on the cake. My only Safari complaint now is they have moved the extensions to the App Store and several of my favorites such as 1Password no longer work.

You can access 1Password at https://1password.com I hope that this helps.

Thanks Jon. I have downloaded the 1Password Safari extension from their website, but the installation fails with an error. 1Password is apparently going to have to make changes on their end and perhaps release it through the App Store? If you attempt to install any extensions in Safari 11 and the only source is the MacOS App Store. It appears Apple is vetting Safari extensions for Mac the same way they do on the iOS App Store so they can enforce their security and reliability rules.

I had that problem with my SessionRestore extension d/l, and in the end I learned that it had moved from the dev's website to the Safari Extensions Gallery (and changed its name...and left it to users to figure it all out).

1Password may already be in the Gallery. Have you checked?

More: iPassword - Safari Extension Gallery

I don't understand why rather than clarifying this on their websites the devs allow d/l's (theoretically) knowing that they're going to fail.

I've been wondering about that for a while... iOS was a newly created platform, and I suppose Apple had the right to impose any restrictions on it that they wanted, but "freestanding" extensions have been permissible for years, and any attempt by Apple to totally restrict them for any reason could be considered censorship, perhaps even monopolistic. I certainly hope they'll continue to allow user discretion as they have in the past.

A major rationale for App Store exclusivity on iOS has been to help ensure stability, reliability, and security of iOS devices particularly in light of the fact iOS has less protection from ill behaving third party software. As far as I know there has been no indication of Apple's adopting that model for MacOS. Instead Apple relies on ease of use and automatic updates to encourage users to go first to the App Store for their needs and billions of dollars in sales to attract third party developers. That strategy has certainly worked on me. .

If you think about it, Safari extensions are more akin to iOS apps than MacOS apps. Apple has a vested interest in assuring the stability, reliability, and security of their flagship browser and that is a lot easier to do when they can control new extensions through the App Store mechanism. It hasn’t been that long ago when you and others were questioning the functionality of allowing or disallowing content blockers on a site-by-site basis in Safari. It turns put the feature works well IF the content blocker developers used a new API to connect to Safari, but many developers continued to use the older deprecated API. Of course the blame fell on Apple not on the third party developers when the feature did not work. The App Store model allows Apple to control this sort of thing as well as watching out for unintended (or intended) vulnerabilities to mallicious operators.