Linked audio loads in one podcast feed, but not another from same platform
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I've added two podcast feeds from megaphone.fm to the Feed Reader: Shutdown Fullcast and The Vergecast. Both of these are feeds I access in Firefox via an add-on called Feedbro, which loads the entries, properly formatted, along with linked audio and images. In the Vivaldi Feed Reader, however, linked audio for the former podcast loads properly (i.e. listenable/downloadable within the browser), while linked audio for the latter does not, with the player grayed out and no "Save Audio As..." option when right clicking the player.
For reference, the URLs for the feeds are http://feeds.megaphone.fm/fullcast and https://feeds.megaphone.fm/vergecast. The second feed has an https instead of an http in the URL, but changing it to http resulted in the same issue: all of the entries load, but the audio does not. Notably, the images for the Vergecast feed (which are usually either the "album art" for the podcast or an image posted in the associated blog entry on theverge.com) occasionally load properly even though the audio doesn't.
I've included screenshots to illustrate the problem.
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@timerift I can confirm this. The feed link seems to be correct too. Please write a bugreport.
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@timerift I take that back, both podcasts work. It didn’t work for me in a standalone install, but on my regular one it played fine. The likely issue is you are missing some codec required by the verge podcast. Your Firefox installation might provide it, while your Vivaldi installation does not provide it currently. You didn’t state your operating system, therefore giving advice isn’t possible.
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@luetage I'm on Windows 10. Would codec support not be a system-wide thing rather than a browser-by-browser thing? Both podcasts are in MP3 format.
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@timerift No, codecs are browser dependent. I couldn’t imagine another reason, maybe someone else can. One thing is clear, the podcasts seem to have different requirements, but they apparently both work on an install with proper codecs.
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@luetage That doesn't make sense. On the rare occasions that I've had to install codecs, I've never had to configure browsers to work with them. They just end up in Windows' list of installed programs. Applications that examine the codecs that are installed on Windows also make no reference to browsers; I used a small standalone app called Sherlock, for instance. Perhaps the way a browser is installed might impact which codecs it can access, but given that one MP3 podcast can play and be downloaded in the Feed Reader and one can't, I doubt it's a codec issue.
Rather, I think it's more likely to involve how Feed Reader is parsing the URLs. In the Vergecast feed, though I don't get the "Save Audio As..." option when I right-click the player, I do get the "Copy Audio Address..." option. For the episode in the second screenshot above, this gives me the following URL:
However, after opening a new tab and pasting it into the address bar, the URL changes to the following:
https://dcs.megaphone.fm/VMP7469173203.mp3?key=caf8218e825f6801608e0570cc24cd96
This loads the player successfully, and I can then listen to the episode and download it (another clue that it probably isn't a codec issue). I'm guessing there's a redirect that Feed Reader doesn't handle well, though it's strange that your installation does so with no problem and mine doesn't.
I should add that copying the URL for an episode of the other podcast also involves a redirect, but again, I don't have any problems with that feed loading audio properly.
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@timerift As far as I know browser codecs are a separate thing. This ensures compatibility with different operating systems, versions and setups. Anyway, might be another issue, but I couldn’t tell what it is, since it works on my regular install. Therefore I doubt it’s a parsing problem, since both standalone and system install of the same version should handle the URL equally.
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Another oddity: If I right-click the audio player within the Vergecast feed and select Developer Tools > Inspect, the console shows an "ERR_BLOCKED_BY_CLIENT" error for the audio link. However, clicking the link within the console successfully loads the audio file in a new tab, at which point it can be played and downloaded.