http-user-agent doesn't do anything

As noticed in: http://forum.videolan.org/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=98355&p=328819

It seems with VLC 2.0.0 http-user-agent option doesn't change anything.

So both

vlc http://whatsmyuseragent.com/ :demux=dump :demuxdump-file=raw.html

and

vlc --http-user-agent=uglyugly http://whatsmyuseragent.com/ :demux=dump :demuxdump-file=ugly.html

return same info in the HTML

Your User Agent: VLC/2.0.0 LibVLC/2.0.0

Tested under Win32 with VLC 2.0.0

Yes. Correct. --http-user-agent is a private option mainly for use by third party LibVLC frontends. VLC itself overrides it to "VLC/$VERSION".

added Status::will not fix label

closed

Documentation doesn't match that.

You can use a custom User agent or use a known one

Again, that option is marked private. It won't show in the prefs and, I think, also not in the CLI help.

I don't know what probably out-of-date documentation you refer to.

Replying to [comment:3 courmisch]:

Again, that option is marked private. It won't show in the prefs and, I think, also not in the CLI help.

I don't know what probably out-of-date documentation you refer to.

vlc -H

same in Win32 and Mac OS X.

Unfortunately, some streams need to be used as QuickTime or NSPlayer user agents, IIRC.

You can still specify http-user-agent as a per input option, e.g. this will work:

vlc http://whatsmyuseragent.com/ :http-user-agent=uglyugly :demux=dump :demuxdump-file=ugly.html

So it can't be set from the preferences, but you can manually set it like this from the command line, or in the open network stream dialog in the advanced boxes.

Do you think that this is a popular enough feature that it would be nice to add a custom field in the open dialog to specify this?

Replying to [comment:4 VLC_help]:

{{{ vlc -H }}} same in Win32 and Mac OS X.

Where else do you suggest that configuration item options be documented?

I mean, we could easily remove the bogus entry there, but then :http-user-agent will no longer be documented and in fact no longer work.

It's very popular in Italy, where the national TV broadcasting service won't serve the streams unless it recognizes a user agent which looks-like coming from a web browser (eh..)

Original author: strk

When trying to play a http-stream (e.g. http://apasfiisl.apa.at/ipad/orf3_q6a/orf.sdp/playlist.m3u8 ) that requires a change of the http User-Agent (anything but "VLC..."), the per input option :http-user-agent="whatever/0.1" is not applied to subsequently opened chunk-lists or segments.

So please, either fix the per-input option so it will be applied to all http requests that result from playing that stream, or just enable it working as a global option (why not?).

Original author: florian sedivy

removed Status::will not fix label

reopened

Please don't reopen bugs. That's a different problem: The adaptive code uses its own HTTP stack; it does not use "normal" VLC HTTP settings.

added Status::will not fix label

closed