Ferdi: Hangouts unable to text after receiving video

[stacksjb]

Describe the bug
Hangouts quits working after I receive a video message

My wife sent me a video, and Franz failed to load or render it, nor does it load any further messages. Furthermore, any attempts to reply simply return "Message not delivered". Logging into Hangouts via web browser shows several messages sent after the video (as well as the video), and none of the attempted messages to send.

Reloading hangouts or Franz does not fix it - the only way to resolve it is to log back out and back in.
To Reproduce
Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. Go to Hangouts
2. While chatting with someone, have them send you a video message (a picture goes through fine)
3. It will fail to render, and you will be unable to reply and get the error "message not delivered"
   
   However, if you send messages from another computer or web browser, they may show up.

Expected behavior
You should be able to receive videos and reply successfully

Screenshots
If applicable, add screenshots to help explain your problem.

Desktop (please complete the following information):

• OS: [e.g. macOS, Windows 10 etc.] Mac OS X 10.15.2
• Ferdi Version [e.g. 5.4.3] 5.4.3 (5.4.3.994)
  
• Server Used: [e.g. https://api.getferdi.com] https://api.getferdi.com
  

Additional context
I notice multiple 401 error codes in the console for https://hangoutsusermedia-pa.clients6.google.com which likely may be related.

[pshlos46]

same issue here

OS: Windows 10 Enterprise 1909 - 18363.752 build
Ferdi Version [e.g. 5.4.3] 5.4.4-beta.3

no server used.

It fixed itself after a couple of days, and removing and re-adding the hangouts service, but for some reason a couple of days had to pass

Probably for the conversations to pass? And now the video is old in history and I it does not try to load it? If i scroll back up to the point of the conversation the video was sent, issue re-appears.

[BinaryShrub]

This is still happening for me as well (Mac), it comes and it goes, not sure what is going on here. I have done cmd + shift + R to clear things up and that sometimes (but usually doesnt) help. Note that I havent seen failures on hangouts.google.com which leads me to think it might be something ferdi related?

[jcolesio]

any update on this?

[bpwned]

I don't know how to debug this but I would bet it has something to do with security settings blocking some connections causing a corrupted state. Unfortunately I wasn't able to find out how these could be configured.

[fwenzel]

I just checked the console when this error happens and it tries to make this request:

https://hangoutsusermedia-pa.clients6.google.com/v1/usermediaservice/videoinformation?key=...&mediaItemId.legacyPhotoId.obfuscatedUserId=...&mediaItemId.legacyPhotoId.photoId=...&alt=json

Response is a 401:

code: 401
message: "Request had invalid authentication credentials. Expected OAuth 2 access token, login cookie or other valid authentication credential. See https://developers.google.com/identity/sign-in/web/devconsole-project."
status: "UNAUTHENTICATED"

Cross-origin security settings sound like a possible culprit indeed.

[bpwned]

What can be done about this? Unfortunately I'm not familiar with Electron at all, otherwise I'd start digging a little myself.

[fwenzel]

Interestingly the videoinformation URL is not requested in the Firefox version of Hangouts, but only on Chrome. In Chrome proper, it returns with a 200. Comparing request headers, they appear to be largely identical, but Ferdi is missing the origin header:

origin: https://hangouts.google.com

[bpwned]

Perhaps it would suffice to change Ferdi's user agent to Firefox?

[fwenzel]

I believe it pretends to be Firefox already but that's not sufficient. I suspect that instead of User Agent Sniffing, the app uses feature detection to do whatever it is doing there. Which is the preferred way to make such decisions but also means we cannot navigate our way around it with just user agent spoofing.

[stale[bot]]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had recent activity. Please check if this issue is still relevant and please close it if it's not. This will make sure that our open issues are actually of use and reduce the list of obsolete issues. Thank you for your contributions.

[conlon]

saw this issue yesterday on Ferdi 5.5.0.2116

[bpwned]

Is there maybe a way to disable link previews of all sorts?

[ferbar]

I just tried the development version of Ferdi with the updated electron. Hangouts is working again, however there are new bugs like links don't open.

[jcolesio]

any progress on this issue?