Why Can\'t My Go Webserver Play MP4 Videos?

Issue Serving MP4 Videos from Go Webserver

In a custom-made Go webserver, an attempt to display an MP4 video resulted in a blank video screen on the website, despite playing correctly when the HTML file was opened directly.

Solution

The problem was related to the video file size. Chrome uses a buffer to play videos, and if the video exceeds the buffer size, it expects the server to support partial content serving (Range requests). However, the original Go code lacked this support.

Implementation

To resolve the issue, the author implemented two methods:

• A custom method for partial content serving (commented out)
• Using the 'http.ServeFile()' method, which supports Range requests

Custom Method

The custom method added the following headers to the response:

<code class="go">w.Header().Add("Accept-Ranges", "bytes")
w.Header().Add("Content-Length", strconv.Itoa(size))
w.Header().Add("Content-Range", "bytes " + requestedBytes[6:len(requestedBytes)] + strconv.Itoa(size - 1) + "/" + strconv.Itoa(size))
w.WriteHeader(206)</code>

This indicated to Chrome that the server supports partial content serving.

http.ServeFile() Method

The 'http.ServeFile()' method simplifies the process by providing built-in support for Range requests. It handles setting the appropriate response headers and takes care of partial content serving.

Conclusion

Both methods worked in playing the video, but 'http.ServeFile()' is more practical as it handles various aspects of content serving, including Range requests and MIME type. In the end, the issue was resolved by ensuring that the server supports partial content serving, allowing Chrome to buffer and play larger videos efficiently.

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