Force render issues (raw=1) and shared links won't work for hosting.

[aRealHumanBartender]

images were perfect on all browsers until yesterday afternoon - what is the fix or is this a dropbox issue?

[Rich]

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@Steve Raven wrote:

I'm running a couple of WordPress websites and using the FV Flowplayer plugin to show off my Dropbox videos. ... I get an error message: html5: Video not found ...

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Do the links work if you paste them into a browser window directly? If so, then it's likely an issue with how the player tries to access the file. Dropbox links have a redirect in them (the final URL of the file is different from the link you're give by Dropbox). If the player isn't able to follow that redirect, it won't be able to load the file.

If the links work in a browser on their own, I'd go back to the plug-in creator and ask them to look into it. With the change to how links are generated, they likely need to update their plugin.

[Steve Raven]

Thanks, Rich, I just tried a couple of different URLs in a browser window.

The link ending in raw=1 played immediately.

I also tried changing the link to the Dropbox original of dl=0, which just opened the file in the Dropbox web app, which is obviously why the raw=1 URL is preferred.

I'll get onto the plugin developer about this.

[Steve Raven]

What the plugin developer said (last week)

The reason why it does not play in FV Player is that it probably checks some of the HTTP request headers, such as the referrer header. When I insert it using bare HTML5 video tag it won’t play either.

And...

So it’s not a problem with FV Player, but a more general issue.

I found that it actually depends on the dropbox.com cookies which your browser has.

So the Dropbox link cannot play the video reliably, as they probably don’t want you to be using their services for video playback anyway.

So there you go, It's Dropboxes fault, and NOT the FV Player plugin 🙂

[Rich]

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@H96Max wrote:
Usually the shared link ends with dl=0 by changing it to dl=1 downloads the file directly, but from today its not downloading!!

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Are you accessing the link directly in a browser, or are you using it in a plugin or extension for some web page or other type of service (rather than directly clicking the link and downloading the file)?

Test the link in your browser. If the file downloads then the link is working as expected and you'll need to reach out to whatever plugin or service you're using the link with.

If the link doesn't work, provide the error message or take a screenshot of the page you get after clicking the link.

[Rich]

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@Steve Raven wrote:

I just tried a couple of different URLs in a browser window. The link ending in raw=1 played immediately.

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So there you go, It's Dropboxes fault, and NOT the FV Player plugin

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If the links work when you test them in a browser, then they're working as expected. With that being the case, I'd say the fault is with using them in a manner not intended, which isn't a fault of Dropbox.

[Mystro]

Yup adding the “dl” and removing the “www” worked.  Your a rock star👍

Wonder why this just started?? I will inform my staff of this change.

[dbwiddis]

I’m not sure Dropbox changed anything this time, but the previous www links always redirected to the dl links.

I suspect some browsers have started enforcing tighter security on https redirects.

[jchm]

Hello,

All my Dropbox direct download links ending in (dl=1) no longer automatically download and instead lead to a blank screen.

Previously, the download would start on the same screen.

Is anyone else experiencing the same issue? Please help!

[jchm]

Hi,

Here I leave you a video, before with =1 the download started on the same screen now it takes you to another empty screen.

youtu.be/eIuqISa8pIk 

[Здравко]

The issue is that Dropbox decided, for some reason, not to use HTTP redirection, the one used before, but HTML redirection. 🤷 Don't ask me why.

So this HTML should become loaded somewhere... one place is redirection of the current page another is new page. As seems they decided in favor of the second way. That's it.

You can try either different link reformatting (not just changing dl=0 to something else, but domain change instead - this as seems still works) or usage of temporary links (whenever possible).

Good luck.