Vimeo Problem

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Author Post
Member
Registered: Apr 2009
Posts: 47
I'm having a problem getting some videos hosted at Vimeo to show or play. It might be a Vimeo problem and I'm getting my client to ask their tech support as well (the videos are all hosted on his account).

I've got 7 of his videos that should be showing a thumbnail but it's not appearing and if you look at the page with Firebug there are a series of these code blocks in the <head>.

<script src="http://vimeo.com/api/v2/video/97835837.json?callback=fb.data.jsonc7">
97835837 not found.
</script>

I've also put the Vimeo test from your demo section on the page and that's showing and playing correctly so I'm sure my code is OK.

You can see the test here:

http://www.ecg.co.uk/thomas-and-friends-test.html

If you click on the next/prev buttons on the video that shows (they're set as a group) you can see the other videos playing so it only seems to be a problem with the thumbnails.

I've also used Vimeos <iframe> embed code to put one of the videos on another test page and that's working:

http://www.ecg.co.uk/thomas-test.html

This is the video that should be in the first frame of the multi video test page.

All of the videos have the privacy set at:

Hide this video from Vimeo.com
Only on sites I choose - ecg.co.uk

But I temporarily changed those to: Anyone, Anywhere and they still didn't work.

I've double checked that all of the Vimeo links are correct (http://vimeo.com/97835837 for the first one).

Can you see what the problem is?

Roy
« Last edit by RoyReed on Thu Jun 12, 2014 4:55 pm. »
Member
Registered: Apr 2009
Posts: 47
PS - I tried uploading a JPG to use as the thumbnail in case that was the problem, but no luck.
Administrator
Registered: Aug 2008
Posts: 3382
It looks like some progress has been made since you posted. If I use Firebug to insert something clickable into the first video link on the test page, and then run fb.activate() from the console (not sure why I have to do that), and then click the modified link, the cheerful video plays just fine, just as it does on the standalone iframe test page.

I'm pretty sure all the problems lie with configuration and/or permissions for the video on the Vimeo site. The json fetch is made to gather metadata about the video such as dimensions and thumbnail path. Perhaps the permissions are not allowing metadata fetches through the API. An API query failure would not prevent the video from subsequently playing.

If the public Vimeo videos are playing fine, then any problems you are having with restricted ones will need to be resolved at Vimeo config end. I don't know if there's separate permissions to set for the API metadata or not. If you can get the video working, but not the metadata, consider sticking your own jpg thumb in the anchor, setting width and height values in the data-fb-options, and turning off the API attempt with fetchVideoInfo:false
Member
Registered: Apr 2009
Posts: 47
I have to get this working today, so I'll do your suggestion of using my own thumbnails and setting fetchVideoInfo:false. Should the width and height values in the data-fb-options be for the thumbnail or the video? And will the PlayButton still work, or should I embed that into the thumbnail?

I'm sure you're right that it's a setting at Vimeo that's causing the problem, but I'm not sure what, as I tried with all of the privacy settings at their lowest level.
Administrator
Registered: Aug 2008
Posts: 3382
The width and height options set the floatbox content size, or in this case, the desired video dimensions. addPlayButton will work against your own thumbnails. Other than addPlayButton, Floatbox doesn't get involved with sizing or styling your link thumbs.
Member
Registered: Apr 2009
Posts: 47
Well that's working:

http://www.ecg.co.uk/thomas-test.html

If I have time next week I'll play with the settings in Vimeo and see if I can get the original test working:

http://www.ecg.co.uk/thomas-and-friends-test.html

I'll let you know if I find the answer.
Administrator
Registered: Aug 2008
Posts: 3382
Probably a waste of time to chase it. The Vimeo developer pages say "the Simple API is a really easy way to get information about public videos". It is this API that Floatbox uses to get thumbnail, size and title info. Note that it talks about "information from public videos". Yours isn't public. I think the only problem you had was an absence of thumbnail to click on to initiate the video, but the video was just fine if it could be launched.
Member
Registered: Apr 2009
Posts: 47
OK - in that case I'll forget it.

These videos have to stay private for copyright reasons. The website is for the music composer and he's be given restricted rights to use clips from some of the shows he's done the music for.
Member
Registered: Apr 2009
Posts: 47
Actually I did do one final test and changed the privacy settings on one of the videos to 'Anyone, Anywhere' and it did work and I could see the thumbnail image, but when changed the settings back to private I could still see the thumbnail, even after doing a forced refresh, so I think there must be caching issues somewhere - at Vimeo I'm guessing and obviously nothing to do with FB. So this is probably why it hadn't worked previously when I changed the privacy settings.

Just thought I'd add this in case anyone comes up against the same problem.
Administrator
Registered: Aug 2008
Posts: 3382
We should expect that the changes and updates to the Vimeo API data are not instantaneous, and that immediate behaviour changes don't occur when flipping a video's public status. No doubt the API data is stored in a database and database updates are probably done by a scheduled batch process. There is likely a delay in capturing the API data when a public video is added and in removing the data when a public video goes away.
Member
Registered: Apr 2009
Posts: 47
Possibly, but other changes that you make via the control panel seem instantaneous.

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