Media playback broken on certain non-youtube websites

[abogatskiy]

Please answer the following questions for yourself before submitting an issue

• Filters were updated before reproducing an issue
• I checked the knowledge base and found no answer
• I checked to make sure that this issue has not already been filed

AdGuard version

2.16.0.1857

Browser version

Safari 18.2

OS version

Sequoia 15.2

Ad Blocking

No response

Privacy

No response

Social

No response

Annoyances

No response

Security

No response

Other

No response

Language-specific

No response

Which DNS server do you use?

DNS protection disabled

DNS protocol

None

Custom DNS

No response

What Stealth Mode options do you have enabled?

No response

Support ticket ID

No response

Issue Details

Steps to reproduce:

1. Enable AdGuard for Mac
2. Disable all filters, DNS protection, stealth mode, all extensions. The only enabled feature in the settings is "Automatically filter applications" (specifically Safari)
3. Disable the AdGuard Assistant extension in Safari.
4. Go to certain pages containing media, for example https://archive.org/details/the-spanish-civil-war-BBC/THE+SPANISH+CIVIL+WAR+-+Episode+1_+Prelude+To+Tragedy+(HISTORY+DOCUMENTARY)+(360p_25fps_H264-128kbit_AAC).mp4
5. Another example is the audio preview here https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781526621757-the-international-brigades?srsltid=AfmBOoqPrUlbS3y3M4rS8DuOKX7iNxFHU0CgiiOEAzMdh5BFNQMqVPeV
6. Click the play button.

Expected Behavior

Video/audio starts playing

Actual Behavior

The video never starts playing, eventually spits out an error.

Screenshots

Playback error

The only checkmarked settings items

Additional Information

This is a weird issue that seems to occur even when all actual protection in AdGuard is turned off. I've tested it on two different Macs and it's the same on both. I tested an independent network connection as well.

The libfro.fm audio can be played, but only after reloading the page once. On archive.org reloading isn't sufficient. It's not completely clear which pages/websites cause the issue. Other videos on archive.org or previews on libro.fm appear to play fine. However, overall it seems like this is affecting a huge portion of non-youtube media.

The only way to circumvent the issue that I've found is to use AdGuard's menu bar toggle to turn it off completely, or to uncheck "Automatically filter applications". I've also tried disabling all other Safari extensions, to no avail. The issue seems to have started relatively recently, perhaps with Sequoia 15.1 or so.

The issue persists with filters turned on. Meanwhile using another browser (Firefox) fixes the issue — even with filtering turned on. With AdGuard for iOS there is also no issue (including with filtering turned on).

[AlexandrPkhm]

@abogatskiy Hello!

We are investigating this issue. For now, as a workaround, we recommend that you open AdGuard → Gear icon → Advanced → Advanced settings... then find network.extension.http.downgrade.bundleids and add com.apple.Safari to this field.

[abogatskiy]

That worked, thanks a lot for the quick workaround!

[sfionov]

Adguard for Mac 2.16.2 is released with the proper fix, the workaround is not needed anymore.

[cassperine]

here the 2.16.2 doesn't stop crashing on macOS 15.2 😭 The previous version was fine

[sfionov]

@cassperine Can you please provide steps to reproduce?

[sfionov]

@cassperine Or can you describe circumstances under which this is happened?

It would be also useful if you collect debug logs to understand better what went wrong.
Here's what is needed to collect them:

1. Click AdGuard icon in the menu bar → Gear → Advanced → Logging → Logging level → Debug.
2. Reproduce the problem, then remember the exact time it happened.
3. Menu → Advanced → Logging → Export Logs and System Info.….
4. Send this file to [email protected]:
   — include [mac] keyword and ISSUE_NUMBER in the subject of your email
   — specify the exact time when the issue occurred

[cassperine]

@sfionov I sent the email with log! When I'm browsing in Safari the application crashes, especially on YouTube and Reddit. In Chrome there is no problem.

[sfionov]

@cassperine Thanks a lot, created the separate issue #1945. The workaround is to temporarily turn off HTTP/3 filtering in the Advanced settings.