New Brightcove Player Error Codes

Version 5.22.0 of the Brightcove Player introduces additional error codes. In the context of our video player, errors are conditions where playback cannot proceed, and getting started again requires some action outside the player itself. The new error codes will allow you to more easily detect a number of common (and often intentional) situations where playback is blocked. Like all other Brightcove Player errors, you can react to the new error codes by setting up a listener on the player:

// Listen for error events on a player instance:
player.on('error', function() {

  // When your listener is invoked, check the error property on the player for details.
  var error = player.error();

  // Errors have a code and a message
  console.log('Uh-oh...', error.code, error.message);
});

The new error codes provide insight into playback failures due to media restrictions and make some common integration problems a bit easier to debug. Here's the full list:

Code Description
PLAYER_ERR_DOMAIN_RESTRICTED The player or default video cannot be run on the current page because of domain restriction.
PLAYER_ERR_IP_RESTRICTED The default video is disallowed from this user's IP address.
PLAYER_ERR_GEO_RESTRICTED The default video is not available in this user's geography.
VIDEO_CLOUD_ERR_ACCOUNT_NOT_FOUND The player has been configured with an invalid account ID.
VIDEO_CLOUD_ERR_RESOURCE_NOT_FOUND The default playlist ID is invalid.
VIDEO_CLOUD_ERR_VIDEO_NOT_FOUND The default video is invalid.

Note that many of the new error codes only appear for the default video or playlist configured with a player. That is, the video or playlist configured using the videoId query parameter or data-playlist-id attribute, for example. If you programmatically fetch videos using the catalog, you will still need to check in the response callback for errors and handle them there.

5.22.0 is available for everyone today and is being rolled out for players that receive automatic updates. If you're collecting and analyzing player errors today, we hope the new error codes help you understand your audience's experience better (and decrease confusion from your end-users if they encounter an issue). Know of an error condition we missed? Drop us a line on our developer mailing list!