Widevine broken on current release

[parkerlreed]

YouTube TV cannot play any videos and Sintel demo is "Unavailable"

Version 115.0.5762.4 (Official Build) unknown (64-bit)

https://shaka-player-demo.appspot.com/demo/

Components says it's up to date

Widevine Content Decryption Module - Version: 4.10.2652.1
Status - Component already up to date

[rhee876527]

Had same problem with spotify. Solved it with

chown -R root:root /home/user/.var/app/com.google.ChromeDev/config/google-chrome/WidevineCdm/4.10.2652.1/

[parkerlreed]

That.... Worked O.o

Thank you!

[refi64]

Oh god this is so cursed, @tankaras where did you get that fix from? It sounds like there's some other wtfs going on here...

[rhee876527]

Oh god this is so cursed, @tankaras where did you get that fix from? It sounds like there's some other wtfs going on here...

You wouldn't believe it but discovered it accidentally. Realized I could get Spotify (Widevine DRM) to work if I deleted the widevine folder before launching. But the DRM would fail next time on launch unless chrome re-creates the widevine files afresh. (That's what it does when it finds no files present in the expected path).

Since I wasn't able to create a script to delete the directory everytime before launching Chrome (couldn't find a way to do so using .Desktop files). I thought of using chown to deny chrome permission to make whatever destructive changes it was making to the Widevine directory (or whatever files needed to make the DRM work).

A dirty fix. Doesn't address the root cause. But it worked.

[parkerlreed]

Ran across on Reddit as well this is also affecting the regular non-beta Chrome Flatpak

[catuhana]

Widevine CDM bundled with Chrome (including Developer edition) seems to have no problem, it only occurs after it automatically updates Widevine CDM component. Hopefully it will be fixed soon.

[gcapris90]

Had same problem with spotify. Solved it with

chown -R root:root /home/user/.var/app/com.google.ChromeDev/config/google-chrome/WidevineCdm/4.10.2652.1/

Thanks a lot, @tankaras! This fixed the issue for me - and such a curious temporary solution! Nice job!

I've already updated my posts with your fix both in Spotify Community and Google Support. Might help more people.

[refi64]

Hmm I think you could also chattr +i it, but that's not really any cleaner. Does anyone have browser logs that might indicate what the problem might be?

[refi64]

Potential fix: flathub/com.google.Chrome#214

[agent4nderson]

Had same problem with spotify. Solved it with

chown -R root:root /home/user/.var/app/com.google.ChromeDev/config/google-chrome/WidevineCdm/4.10.2652.1/

Unfortunately this no longer seems to be working

[catuhana]

Issue should be gone, last time I checked it they updated the component and it works fine now. If you still have the issue please either upgrade Chrome or go to chrome://components, find WidevineCDM and upgrade it.

[agent4nderson]

I've had the issue for a few weeks with Spotify, but only today with Netflix. Researching led me here, tried the fix, but no luck.

I should note, I'm specifically using a Steam Deck in Desktop Mode, so it's Linux of some flavour. Chrome doesn't show an update pending, and I've searched for updates for WidevineCDM but it reports that it is up to date.

Not sure what else to try, other than another browser, which I'd prefer to avoid.

[catuhana]

Hmm.. thats weird. There's a PR for stable Chrome and it seems to fix the problem, but Chrome version is outdated. If you still want to try it though, the issue I linked has a command to install the fixed specific build for Chrome.

Other than that, we probably need to wait for Widevine devs to fix the issue and publish an update again, since the same thing happened on Firefox too, issue might be browser agnostic.

[catuhana]

Also, I used to workaround the problem by deleting Chrome's Widevine folder (~/.var/com.google.ChromeDev/config/google-chrome/WidevineCdm) before starting Chrome. This might solve the problem but be aware that this has to be done on every Chrome launch.

[gcapris90]

Had same problem with spotify. Solved it with
chown -R root:root /home/user/.var/app/com.google.ChromeDev/config/google-chrome/WidevineCdm/4.10.2652.1/

Unfortunately this no longer seems to be working

The chown command is still working. At least for me using the flatpak version of Chrome.

Just remember to update the last part of the command with the current version and reboot. It was updated from the version 4.10.2652.1 to 4.10.2652.2.

[mattcarrere]

I have had this issue for a few months (presumably same update that broke DRM content playback on flatpak chrome as everyone else).
Before applying the fix above, I renamed the WidevineCdm folder to WidevineCdm.bk
After closing/relaunching chrome, three things happened:

• A WidevineCdm file was created in the ~/.var/com.google.ChromeDev/config/google-chrome/ folder (empty file with no content)
• chrome://components shows Widevine version has gone down from 4.10.2652.2 to 4.10.2557.0 and the Check for Update button yields "Status - Update error"
• Playing DRM-protected content... works!

Then I applied the fix above (restored the WidevineCdm folder, deleted the WidevineCdm file, deleted the 4.10.2652.2 folder, closed and relaunched chrome, checked the 4.10.2652.2 had been successfully recreated, checked that playing DRM content still worked, checked the chrome://components Widevine version was back to 4.10.2652.2, checked that Check for Updates worked again; and finally chown the 4.10.2652.2 folder to root, closed and relaunched chrome, and tested DRM content again).

And that was successful. But then after relaunching chrome, I checked chrome://components again and noticed that:

• chrome://components shows Widevine version has gone down again from 4.10.2652.2 to 4.10.2557.0
• the Check for Update button yields "Status - Update error"

So it seems that changing the ownership of the 4.10.2652.2 folder to root effectively makes it inaccessible to chrome, which then defaults back to the 4.10.2557.0 version?

When playing DRM video (SkyGo) I can also tell the difference between the versions: 4.10.2557.0 loads the video faster, whereas a fresh download of 4.10.2652.2 works but takes a few seconds to load the video. After changing the folder ownership to root, that delay is gone, which seems to suggest that chrome is ignoring 4.10.2652.2 and defaulting back to 4.10.2557.0 (as shown in chrome://components).

So is the problem effectively that new versions of Widevine don't work with flatpak chrome on linux, but older ones still do?

[catuhana]

I have had this issue for a few months (presumably same update that broke DRM content playback on flatpak chrome as everyone else). Before applying the fix above, I renamed the WidevineCdm folder to WidevineCdm.bk After closing/relaunching chrome, three things happened:

• A WidevineCdm file was created in the ~/.var/com.google.ChromeDev/config/google-chrome/ folder (empty file with no content)
• chrome://components shows Widevine version has gone down from 4.10.2652.2 to 4.10.2557.0 and the Check for Update button yields "Status - Update error"
• Playing DRM-protected content... works!

Then I applied the fix above (restored the WidevineCdm folder, deleted the WidevineCdm file, deleted the 4.10.2652.2 folder, closed and relaunched chrome, checked the 4.10.2652.2 had been successfully recreated, checked that playing DRM content still worked, checked the chrome://components Widevine version was back to 4.10.2652.2, checked that Check for Updates worked again; and finally chown the 4.10.2652.2 folder to root, closed and relaunched chrome, and tested DRM content again).

And that was successful. But then after relaunching chrome, I checked chrome://components again and noticed that:

• chrome://components shows Widevine version has gone down again from 4.10.2652.2 to 4.10.2557.0
• the Check for Update button yields "Status - Update error"

So it seems that changing the ownership of the 4.10.2652.2 folder to root effectively makes it inaccessible to chrome, which then defaults back to the 4.10.2557.0 version?

When playing DRM video (SkyGo) I can also tell the difference between the versions: 4.10.2557.0 loads the video faster, whereas a fresh download of 4.10.2652.2 works but takes a few seconds to load the video. After changing the folder ownership to root, that delay is gone, which seems to suggest that chrome is ignoring 4.10.2652.2 and defaulting back to 4.10.2557.0 (as shown in chrome://components).

AFAIK, even Chrome's official Debian builds don't work either.

The component update (WidevineCDM folder coming back) after restarting Chrome is normal. When you start Chrome, it checks for updates, including components that Chrome include. If Chrome finds a new version, downloads it and starts to use the new version rather than the one built into Chrome, after restarting it.

So is the problem effectively that new versions of Widevine don't work with flatpak chrome on linux, but older ones still do?

I think it's not the new versions of WidevineCDM, but a specific one (4.10.2557.0) had a regression that Chrome either couldn't find it, or fail to load it. It might be related to the flatpak package though, Chrome is not officially packaged by its developers for flatpak so there might be issues.

[sanbabyfrancis]

Had same problem with spotify. Solved it with
chown -R root:root /home/user/.var/app/com.google.ChromeDev/config/google-chrome/WidevineCdm/4.10.2652.1/

Unfortunately this no longer seems to be working

The chown command is still working. At least for me using the flatpak version of Chrome.

Just remember to update the last part of the command with the current version and reboot. It was updated from the version 4.10.2652.1 to 4.10.2652.2.

Thanks @tankaras @gcapris90! It worked perfectly 💯