FB App flaw on Android or is it something else?

[Android Central Question]

If I share a link to a fb page of a wordpress post that has embedded viewers, android users see a blank thumbnail and can not play the video. iOS users have no problem.

It is fixed by opening the link separately in a browser. It only only via the FB in-app browser that the videos do not work.

Unfortunately, this is very bad for our non profit media center and we need advice.

Thank you.

 

[B. Diddy]

Welcome to Android Central! Facebook's Android apps are notoriously buggy, so I'd send their developers some feedback. facebook.android@fb.com

Please register on this forum, which will allow you to engage in discussion more easily, as well as post images. https://forums.androidcentral.com/ask-question/409154-join-android-central-community.html

 

[smvim]

Facebook videos require a Facebook account to view them. Don't assume that everyone on the Internet has a Facebook account or is willing to leave theirs constantly logged in. It's not a like Youtube, Vimeo, or a lot of other streaming content services, where you can post a sharable link and people can view the content if they have an account with that service or not.
It's not 'an Android flaw', it's just something Facebook uses to in its vendor lock-in business model.

 

[salbaum]

smvim, thank you. all involved in figuring out this issue have fb accounts

 

[salbaum]

B. Diddy, I am already registered - or thought I was? Anyway, I will follow through with facebook as well. Thank you

 

[salbaum]

smvim, the videos are not ON facebook. The videos are hosted on a 3rd party server we pay for and embedded on our wordpress website. yet, when facebook users click on shared links to our website in the android fb app, they can not view the videos. But, iOS users can. This has nothing to do with accounts.

 

[B. Diddy]

I don't use the Facebook app, so I'm not sure about this -- but if there's an option in the Facebook app settings to "Open Links in App" (i.e., open links using the Facebook app's limited browser), maybe that causes a problem. If that setting is available, try turning it off -- this would make the links open in the phone's default browser (like Chrome or Samsung Internet).

See this: https://www.ricksdailytips.com/force-facebook-app-to-open-links-in-browser/

 

[salbaum]

B. diddy - thanks! That's something we can tell folks to do, but ours is an audience that varies widely in their ability to use technology. We will also still search for a fix on our end, somehow.. maybe in the embed code itself, to make it fb android app compatible

 

[smvim]

If I share a link to a fb page of a wordpress post that has embedded viewers, android users see a blank thumbnail and can not play the video. iOS users have no problem.

It is fixed by opening the link separately in a browser. It only only via the FB in-app browser that the videos do not work.

Unfortunately, this is very bad for our non profit media center and we need advice.

Thank you.

As posted, a '...to a fb page...' does imply the link is a Facebook-hosted video, but since you also included a contradictory and confusing reference to '...of a wordpress post that has embedded viewers' that also implies that the link pertains to a WordPress hosted site, and not a Facebook page. But you later posted that the link is from your own hosted server, so basically your initial query was a misdirection (the mysterious link to this video isn't tied to Facebook nor WordPress) and isn't actually relevant to whatever problem you are having.
If (and that's a notable 'if') it is just a matter where Android users have problems but some iOS users don't, this is a pretty indicator it's the video content that's the problem. A typical situation being either the video or audio codec, or both, used to make the video is using a more restricted, proprietary Apple-only standard and not the more commonly used standards (i.e. h.264 for video, aac for audio).