Playback of protected content is not enabled || DRM issue || Google Chrome

[gcapris]

Plan: Free

Country: Brazil

Device: Dell Laptop

Operating System: Pop_OS! 22.04 LTS

Browser: Chrome (Flatpak) (version 113.0.5672.126)

Widevine: version 4.10.2652.1

My Question or Issue:

I've been using Web Spotify in Chrome without any problems for quite a while now. But suddenly after a recent browser update, and only after logging in my Spotify account, I've been getting the message: "Playback of protected content is not enabled". I've also tried to open it in Firefox (113.0.1) and everything is running just fine.

Looked for some solutions online and of everything I've tried so far, nothing worked:

• Trying to update the Widevine component in Chrome;
• Deleting the Widevine folder in UserData directory to force a redownload;
• Opening in incognito mode;
• Clearing the browser data (cache/cookies);
• Flushing DNS cache;
• "Protected content IDs" option in Chrome is already set to "always" (DRM enabled);
• Reseting site settings and permissions;
• Rebooting the system;
• Changing the internet/WiFi connections

I'm clueless at this point. I was even looking for some solution regarding the usage of Chrome as Flatpak, but Web Spotify was working for the past 8 months in the same browser.

Any thoughts are appreciated!

[tuhana · Accepted solution]

https://github.com/flathub/com.google.ChromeDev/issues/78#issuecomment-1551686384

I'm guessing new Widevine CDM update seems to have a regression. GitHub comment mentioned above fixes the problem.

[gcapris]

Hey, tuhana! Thanks so much for sharing the post here! It solved the problem for me. 😁

[zeeps]

Getting this error all of a sudden - happened back in May and went away, just used Spotify in Microsoft Edge. Following Spotify help solution does nothing as it is already enabled. Unsure how to proceed with the Widevine comments. Anyone able to explain for the non-technical savvy folks?

[gcapris]

Hey zeeps!

Back when I encountered this error, I've tried at least 5 different solutions to it and none were successful. That included cleaning the browser cache, checking in anonymous/incognito mode if Spotify was working, checking if it was an ad-block extension or something that was causing the issue, trying to update Widevine in the Extensions area inside of your browser options, deleting the Widevine folder in the Google Chrome files for the browser to force update it; even waiting for an update of Chrome itself to check if things would normalize.

Using Google Chrome in Pop_OS! (Linux based Operating System), the only thing that worked for me was the chown command in the terminal, which is basically to change the owner of a file and/or directory. Setting it as Root by using the following command: sudo chown -R root:root /home/(USER)/.var/app/com.google.Chrome/config/google-chrome/WidevineCdm/(VERSION NUMBER)

In which sudo stands for "super user do" (a Linux/MacOS thing); -R is for the recursive operation allowing the Root to be set for all files in the given directory, as well as for files and directories within all sub-directories; (USER) is your user name and (VERSION NUMBER) is Widevine's current version.

I imagine you are using Edge in Windows (10 or 11, probably). If you haven't tried the first solutions yet, I highly recommend you doing so just for the sake of testing. But if you want to skip to the chown one, check if this command applies to Windows and how can you "translate it" to use it in the Windows Command Prompt (CMD), as well as the right path to your Widevine folder inside Microsoft Edge's files. If chown is not a Windows thing, check on how can you change owner to Root. And remember to reboot your system afterwards.

Sorry for the wall of text but hopefully it might help you! 😁

Good luck!

[Technonyte]

I am using ChromeOS on Chrome, and when I login to Spotify, it gives me a "Playback of protected content is not enabled" message. I tried to fix it using Spotify Support, but it doesnt fix it. After a while, I find the open.spotify.com site settings, and "Protected Content IDs" are blocked. I try to enable them, but right after selecting "Allow", it switches back to Block. I am not quite sure why, but it's not allowing me to use Spotify.