It seems we have two issues here, we'll investigate the playback interruption.

C7353 seems a different issue. Could you post the full error code and/or description?

After the playback stops, if I refresh the page, it reloads with that error code. There's no error if I refresh while a video is successfully playing, which led me to believe it was related. C7353 is Chromebook-specific, which also made me think it's related: https://help.netflix.com/en/node/14271


[Reloading is actually working for me today so I can't post more info.]

Thanks for the update. The helper page is about C7053-1803, while the error you saw was C7353. So I feel they are unrelated.

Can you still repro the issue today? I am trying to repro right now.

Just in case, do you have external monitor connected? Can you repro this on earlier versions of Chrome, e.g. M50 or M51?

I was unable to repro on my Pixel2 using 52.0.2749.13, CDM 893. I played NFLX original content "The Do-Over" to completion, no errors. will try another piece of content.

There have been a couple of reports of Netflix Error C7353 in CBC, said to occur after updating to Version 50:
https://productforums.google.com/d/msg/chromebook-central/9pwoIF1oKZc/vNxHDHuSAQAJ

#CBC-RS/TC-watchlist

I chat with michaelpg@ offline, here's more info:

The error happens with and without external display.

Device: SAMUS E25-H7R-W5L / Google_Samus.6300.174.0

Chrome Version: 52.0.2743.32

Link to repro the issue:
https://www.netflix.com/watch/70153382?trackId=14170287&tctx=0%2C0%2C95ae1e05-2335-4088-ab2a-685cd793a82e-162950773

According to media-internals, we are using GpuVideoDecoder. After error/freeze happens, we are seeing "DecryptingDemuxerStream: no key". This explains why we are not seeing errors but the playback just stalls.

We'll try to repro locally and investigate more.

With the help of michaelpg@ (thanks!) and more experiments. We found that the issue does NOT repro after the device is rebooted and without external display. We can play Netflix fine without external display connected.

So last time (as in #8) we hit the error first with external display connected, then disconnected it, tried again, and hit the error again. I guess maybe there's some delay on when the HDCP status is updated, either in chrome, or in the CDM (depend on how frequently the CDM queries the status). +kcwu and +tdrews for insights.

There has been past issues with HDCP state not getting reset:
see 554210 and 542436.

I chat with kcwu offline. HDCP protocol does allow some delay due to negotiation between devices. But in this specific case, we don't know for sure what's happening. But this would be the only reasonable explanation.

Regardless of the delay, which should be transparent to the CDM, the JS player should handle "output-restricted" gracefully so that the playback doesn't stall.

Re #11: Thanks for the links (issue 554210 and issue 542436), that makes more sense now.

Here's the help page from Netflix on C7353:

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/47920

At this point there's nothing we can do from Chrome side. Mark as WontFix for now. Feel free to reopen if anyone has more information.