VideoPlayer.url issue with vp8/webm on Android: AndroidVideoMedia: Error opening extractor: -10002

Unity Engine
,
1

I try to play a vp8 video on an Android device (Galaxy S10e, Android 12) using VideoPlayer.url with a file URI.
For example:

videoPlayer.url = "file:///storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.my.app/files/videos/test.webm"

Note that

  • the video is not present at compile time. The user selects the path at runtime.
  • this works perfectly fine with a .mp4 file on Android.
  • this works perfectly fine with a .vp8 (also with a .webm file) on Windows.

However, it does not work with a vp8 file on Android (neither with .vp8 nor with .webm file extension).

But, according to Android docs, vp8 should be supported by Android: Supported media formats  |  Android media  |  Android Developers

Further, Unity docs suggests to use vp8 for best cross-platform compatibility: Unity - Manual: Video file compatibility

Still, I see the following errors in Logcat when trying to use a .vp8 video on Android:

2022.03.20 08:59:43.439 1389 1487 Verbose NuMediaExtractor NuMediaExtractor constructor
2022.03.20 08:59:43.440 1389 1487 Error NdkMediaExtractor can't create http service
2022.03.20 08:59:43.441 1389 1487 Warn Unity AndroidVideoMedia: Error opening extractor: -10002
2022.03.20 08:59:43.441 1389 1487 Verbose NuMediaExtractor NuMediaExtractor destructor
2022.03.20 08:59:43.447 1389 1429 Error Unity VideoPlayer cannot play url : file:///storage/emulated/0/Android/data/com.Karaoke.UltraStarPlay/files/Songs/d - d/d - d.webm
2022.03.20 08:59:43.447 1389 1429 Error Unity Cannot read file.

I assume that the log messages for NuMediaExtractor are part of the issue, but I am not sure.

Questions:

  • is .vp8 on Android supported by Unity?
  • if yes, what is wrong here? How to play .vp8 file on Android via VideoPlayer.url?
  • can others confirm this issue?

Unity version: 2021.2.0f1

2

Is there a single video file format that works out of the box at runtime with Unity’s VideoPlayer.url on Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android and iOS?

3

We support webm across all platforms, but I am unsure about vp8 files. Something you should try is removing the files:// from the path and making sure the file is where you think it is. I saw someone else having the same issue https://stackoverflow.com/questions/62878148/picking-video-file-on-android-10-error-ndkmediaextractor-cant-create-http-serv

4

Something you should try is removing the files:// from the path

This works.

Still I consider this a bug, because

  • using file:// scheme prefix makes the URI complete
  • the file:// scheme prefix works with other file formats on Android and on other platforms (I think it may even be required sometimes)
  • the number of error log messages seems fishy to me. Unity could handle this better.

I created a sample project to test and reproduce the issue: GitHub - achimmihca/unity-vp8-video-test: Playing VP8 encoded video file on Android using Unity
I also created a Unity bug report (CASE IN-10816).

1 Like
5

I am building in Unity 2021.3.17f1 and I have to exclude the prefix file:// for mp4 files to be loaded into video player.
Otherwise I get the same error
Unity AndroidVideoMedia: Error opening extractor: -10002

Note that I change the VideoPlayer’s source to url at runtime when the files are downlaoded from our server.

6

The issue seems to be fixed in 2023.1.0b1

7

Yeah, I fixed it, and it should be backported at one point. The issue was that on Android Application.persistentDataPath start with jar:file://. So when you add file:// in front of Application.persistentDataPath, you get file://jar:file:// which the virtual file storage doesn’t know how to handle it