Netflix isn't working even with Widevine correctly loaded.

[yoannmoinet]

Hi there, I have an issue when opening Netflix with Electron.
I had a Widevine plugin working for some time, and it started to fail unexpectedly.

Could you help troubleshoot this please?

• Electron version: 1.8.4

• Operating system: macOS High Sierra 10.13.3

• My environment

env	version
ares	"1.10.1-DEV"
atom-shell	"1.8.4"
chrome	"59.0.3071.115"
electron	"1.8.4"
http_parser	"2.7.0"
modules	"57"
node	"8.2.1"
openssl	"1.0.2l"
uv	"1.13.1"
v8	"5.9.211.38"
zlib	"1.2.11"

• Plugins

Expected behavior

When widevine plugin is correctly loaded, it should play Netflix.

Actual behavior

Getting an error in Netflix, eventhough shaka and bitmovin show a correctly loaded and activated widevine plugin.

How to reproduce

I've created a very simple repo which will help reproduce the issue easily.
You'll be able to also load Bitmovin and Shaka to ensure Widevine is indeed correctly enabled.

git clone git@github.com:yoannmoinet/netflix-and-electron.git
cd netflix-and-electron
npm install
npm start

Thank you so much for your help.

[welcome]

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[sofianguy]

Thanks for reaching out!

Because we treat our issues list as the team's backlog, we close issues that are questions since they don't represent a task needing to be completed. For most questions about Electron there are a lot of options.
Check out the Electron community. There are also a bunch of helpful people in this community forum that should be willing to point you in the right direction.

[yoannmoinet]

@sofianguy It might have been formuled as a question, but I do think it's a bug on Electron's part, or a bad documentation.

And I did everything needed to describe it as well as I could, with repro steps and all.

[yoannmoinet]

Even though this issue has been closed, I've new informations for any new person that will come here for answers, because this is an Electron issue nonetheless.

It appears that Netflix implemented a new VMP (verified media path) support to the Widevine browser CDM lately. So the little players/browsers won't be able to play DRM content without a proper, whitelisted, Widevine CDM installation coming from Google.

Brave got the same issue, Vivaldi as well.

I've contacted them to see what are the steps to get a legit widevine plugin.
Also, I've created a bountied question on StackOverflow.

Basically, it means that Electron based apps won't be able to play Netflix anymore.

All Hail DRM.

[levrik]

@yoannmoinet Really? I just started building an Netflix Desktop app based on Electron...

[yoannmoinet]

@levrik I confirm, there is no solution as of now. I'm still waiting after Google to get a widevine legit plugin. But I'm not really confident.

In the mean time, I'm working on a shady solution. We'll see where that takes me.

If you get it to work, I'm really interested, because I have a desktop app, published on the AppStore that isn't working with Netflix anymore.

[levrik]

@yoannmoinet What is the app you have published?

[yoannmoinet]

https://fenêt.re

[levrik]

@yoannmoinet uh.. an paid app. That's bad that it isn't working anymore. In the meanwhile I found this: https://github.com/castlabs/electron-releases
It gets it's Widevine binaries from this URL https://redirector.gvt1.com/edgedl/widevine-cdm/1010-win-x64.zip which seems to be Google owned according to whois entry.

EDIT: Seems to be an version with an evaluation license only. From LICENSE.txt inside the zip file:

If you are interested in licensing the Software, please contact
widevine@google.com.

[yoannmoinet]

Thank you @levrik, I've tried your link.
Unfortunately it's missing the adapter needed by Electron.

I might try using the Brave's engine Muon that is a fork of Electron, they have a different way to register the widevine plugins.

[levrik]

@yoannmoinet The adapter is inside the GitHub releases of the linked repo. Also wanted to try out Muon. Will do so tomorrow after work.

[yoannmoinet]

oh man... it's working when using the electron-releases package.
Thank you so much @levrik.

Unfortunately it won't build with it.

At least, I'm able to make Netflix work in development. It lets me have a new way to investigate the issue.

[levrik]

@yoannmoinet Do you plan to write an message to that mail address from the LICENSE.txt? If yes, would be interested in the outcome.