After Microsoft's Phil Spencer made declarations regarding Xbox hardware can be upgraded versus spending billions that most likely he can't secure for a new console I have questions. I mean the same questions as before the launches or 360 and Xbox One.. but they are relevant all over again.
Like as much as they keep saying Windows as a Universal software platform why doesn't it work the same? Why aren't games treated the same on Xbox and Windows. Why aren't Windows apps treated the same as Xbox Games? When it is Microsoft's only job, relevant to the end users, to make Windows work perfectly on PC for Games, Office and Internet Explore.... I mean Edge.. and it still doesn't. At least Xbox has rules in place that require apps and games to run almost perfectly. Thanks to the hardware being locked down.
Trying to change that now is madness. And redundant.. and probably will end up fracturing the community because as it is there are games that are far inferior on Xbox compared to PC we want better hardware to run them. There's no bridging that gap without leaving people who can't afford hardware upgrades behind. If they could afford hardware upgrades they would be on PC.
So...
I'm too fucking tired to even play a game right now.. but I had a huge cup of coffee so I can't sleep. Lemme test something.
Noticed because I bothered to finally look that Microsoft's Edge browser doesn't play nice with Baidu (noticed a week or so ago) and Google Drive.
Both cloud services have a web player that allows users to view content stored in the cloud. As mentioned before, this allows users of both services to effectively upload wtv they want automagically and play stuff back through a web browser. Or mobile app, wtv you like.
With Baidu you can skip the upload part and just stream anything that's already on Baidu's service. That's been harder lately than it was a year ago but I'm not fretting given other options.
I'd given up on testing cloud services on Xbox because the browser on Xbox was shit at the time and didn't play nice with either service. I doesn't load the Baidu login page and unless I just gave up before testing completely that fullscreen didn't work for videos.
Recently though Hola also stopped working so I'm starting to believe that MS is intentionally screwing around with competing services.. or my PC is just too old to deal with this stuff. OneDrive doesn't offer as much storage as other services and and Edge on Xbox doesn't run plugins at all so it was out.
At least it worked in Windows...
Until I realized that it might just Microsoft's Edge browser that's uniquely failing to co-operate. IE works fine. Baidu's streaming video webpage puts up an error that Microsoft Edge doesn't like its 64-bit code.. that or the page doesn't run well in a 64-bit browser. Yet Google Chrome's 64 bit browser runs Baidu's web player just fine.
I'm like OK.. Microsoft's Edge browser might just not like the video player code... I'll grit my teeth and try something else.
Something else is Google's Drive video player. I figured I'd finally have a look and see when Google Photos stopped backing up files over 2GB.. last summer. And found that before the end of the summer it was uploading the largest files I recall having downloaded at something like 6 gigs. Since the limit seems to be 2GB and not 3GB it isn't a 32bit issue.. and since the upload time as measured between files it is uploading is easily over an hour I'm guessing that if it isn't a hard coded limit.. then it might just be timing out on larger files.
Since Google CL died, which I was using to upload files manually.. or rather with batch files to add meta information.. Google decided that was tedious because they can have an AI figure out the meta information and handle searches.. wtv, I've just let autobackup do whatever and given up caring that there's actually a limit on the size of videos it chose to upload. Because I'd already filled a few hard drives with files that now wouldn't be uploaded. Keeping those huge files also doesn't even matter because since I downloaded them I haven't bothered with them.
Until today just for kicks I mean. There's several more of them that got uploaded last summer.. and I can't view them because Edge for whatever reason won't play them. Checked to make sure that they run on other browsers.. and they do. So large files isn't the issue.
Here I stop and like really have to stop myself from getting pissed because the player on almost all Google's sites are based on YouTube's video player or a basic HTML 5.0 based video player which should run on any modern browser and does.
If Edge can support YouTube and it supports Google Photos.. then there's no reason for Drive's webplayer to not work.
So I'm like FINE
Lemme just try something... Xbox snap Internet Explorer
Nothing.
Apparently I should be trying to envoke Microsoft Edge
Aiight.. open smartglass to type in the drive url.
I'm I wrong to have expected SmartGlass to work as a giant track pad for Edge on Xbox One? Ok fine maybe.. I'm not testing that either and frankly don't care.
Anyway.. does it play nice with Google Drive for streaming video?
Sure it does
So wtf.
Hmm..
While trying to find a large file to test my theories I found an episode of Mr Robot.. 5.1 audio and mkv container and it plays fine.
wtf.
And oops I didn't even watch that episode. Fudge. Why didn't I finish that season? I mean besides the show being cancelled it was really good.
And then it stopped working.
So I'm like HEY! all these huge files are wmv. Windows Media Video format. 2GB+ and even though they are huge.. maybe I just stopped downloading wmv files and its only the more recent mp4 files that won't upload higher than 2GB. Almost everything on the internet is mp4 these days... so it was cool to see that Photos backed up an MKV file and it played fine.. even though it only played the audio in stereo.. that was expected.
Something to test though! (wmv files that are 2GB+ might still auto upload)
And then they stopped working too..
wtf
Same error message as Windows 10 Edge. "Whoops! There was a problem playing this video."
So I force the window to fullscreen and it tries to play.. then Microsoft Edge app on Xbox crashed.
Opened it again and suddenly the videos are playing again. Had it stopped working and not worked again I would have believed it was a fault with the page. But it stopped working then started working again and didn't fail again like Windows.
Tried Edge browser on Windows 10 again. Same error.
Suddenly the video tries to load and then gives the error instead of instantly.. so Something is up.
hmmmm
Why does it work on Xbox now when it wasn't working on Xbox... and NOT working on Windows when it had always worked fine on Windows 10's Microsoft Edge web browser?
Once the error appears there's a left and right button.. when I say left or right the next video appears without an error. Only when it tries to play does the error that the video can't be played appear.
Just nonsense. There's no reason why it was working for several videos then just stops.
If Edge doesn't work the same on Windows and Xbox.. what chance is there for games to work as well on Windows as they do on Xbox. I mean if the above is an example.. Microsoft should give up Windows on everything but their own hardware. For Windows apps at least. I don't want them on my PC and would be very happy to only have 3rd party software because everything MS has done lately on Windows is pure shit. At the very least apps work as well as games do on Xbox.
So many years and nothing changes.. Microsoft's software has inexplicable issues.. I just don't care.. Like I just expect everything with a Microsoft logo to be complete shit. More surprised when it does somehow work.
So I turn to Google and their help forums.. because honestly it can't just be a weird error that somehow just pops up and persists like that only for Edge browser.
A smoking gun perhaps.. but maybe it isn't Microsoft's fault.
Apparently it IS a known issue.. so why doesn't it happen on Xbox? or in Chrome or any other browser? why just Edge?
The fix is as simple as log out and log back into Google Drive.
So the error is with Google Drive? BUT only expresses on Edge?
wtf?!
wtv
At least it is good to know that autobackups to Google Photos works even better on Mobile through the Drive app than the Photos app AND Xbox One's Edge browser supports playback of auto backed up videos when it wants to.. even if the error appears it isn't persistent. Just avoid Edge on Windows 10. K wtv