Video autoplay in Chrome

[Anonymous]

I built an app that we use for some digital signage at my company, and I've run into a problem with Chrome - it doesn't want to autoplay the video when a new screen is launched. This feature works fine in IE, Edge, and Firefox, but I have to actually click the video to get it to start playing when in Chrome. I've made sure that autoplay is enabled on the video itself inside the PowerApp. 

Has anyone else seen this? Any suggestions for a fix? I prefer to use Chrome and its auto-refresh extensions for this application, so I'd love to figure out how to get autoplay to work properly. 

[v-monli-msft]

Hi @Anonymous,

I just tested and it seems that I can reproduce your issue. I found that autostart works for sample video in Chrome, but not videos from youtube. I will discuss this issue with my collegue and see if there is any suggestions.

Regards,

Mona

[Anonymous]

Thank you!

If it helps, my videos are being stored in Sharepoint currently. I have a Sharepoint document library as a data source that I'm pulling from using the PowerApps video player.

[FilipK · Accepted solution]

This is not a control issue but is related to how new versions of Chrome restrict video auto-play in web apps, which is essentially what the PowerApps player is: https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2017/09/autoplay-policy-changes In a nutshell, if a video has no sound it will always play automatically. If it has sound it has to come from a domain that you more often than not choose to play videos when they come up. So perhaps after some “training” Chrome to play videos from SharePoint, the auto-play may work.

[Anonymous · Accepted solution]

Thank you for the response! I was able to solve the issue by disabling the autoplay policy within Chrome using the following, if anyone is interested: You can decide to disable entirely the autoplay policy by setting the Chrome flag "Autoplay Policy" to "No user gesture is required" at chrome://flags/#autoplay-policy.

[Anonymous]

@FilipK  @v-monli-msft  Are you aware that Google has removed Autoplay Policy in Chrome browser now? How can we handle autoplayback to start of videos now ?

Best regards, Jan

[HEATFreight]

Trying to autoplay YouTube video in Power App using both Chrome and Edge, but getting this error:

An error occurred. Please try again later.

In Edge I have enabled the autoplay setting both globally and for powerapps.com. Could not find the Chrome autoplay flag.

Is this a YouTube problem or a browser problem or a Power Apps problem?

[iso]

@HEATFreight @FilipK @v-monli-msft  

Ran into a similar problem as I use a mp4 file for my app splash screen.  Google moved, rather removed the autoplay option.  But it's still there and here is how you change the setting so that your vid file plays.  This is for the latest version of Chrome at the time of writing , ie Version 112.0.5615.138 (Official Build) (64-bit).

STEPS

1-Privacy and security --> 
2-Site settings --> 
3-View permissions and data stored across sites --> 
4-in the search box top right, enter apps.powerapps.com --> 
5-the only item that appears should be powerapps.com --> 
6-expand the options for apps.powerapps.com --> 
7-find Sound and select 'Allow'

This worked for me and got the app to play properly in Chrome. Works in Edge and Firefox as well although the settings path is different.  For Edge, do this:

Too tired to go back to the Firefox settings and screenshot it.  But it's easy to find so I won't describe it here.

Hope this helps.

[Willson]

Thank you so much!

Your method helped me solve the problem!

[iso]

You're very welcome @Willson .  Alternatively, I ended up making a few seconds clip from the original mp4 and turning that into an animated GIF. That way it would look like a vid playing, but without the hassle of instructing each and every non-tech savvy user (I have a large user base) on how to find the Settings option for whatever browser they might be using.