iPlayer stopped working?

[Trev]

There is a bloody echo around here.
Told you I wasn't interested, that's why I hadn't read post whatever.
Just sayin'.

 

[Black Hole]

Did you miss out on the sanatogen round today?

 

[Owen Smith]

It may be necessary to lift the certificate from the new HDR Fox T2 firmware to put it into the HD Fox T2. Who knows whether Humax will be willing to update the HD Fox T2.

 

[prpr]

A firmware update, followed by a default settings.

If customised, I now have a package to do it which doesn't need a reset to defaults to be performed. Just a reboot.

If the firmware update just introduces a new certificate, it should be straightforward enough to back-port that to any modern CF.

It (more or less) does, and (more or less) is.

If confirmed, it looks like I will have to eat my hat.

Better put your false teeth in then.

It may be necessary to lift the certificate from the new HDR Fox T2 firmware to put it into the HD Fox T2. Who knows whether Humax will be willing to update the HD Fox T2.

Humax have updated both, but the changes are the same and could have been lifted as described had they only provided the HDR fix.

 

[Owen Smith]

It sounds as if Humax have done a bit more than just updated the certificate. Do you know what?

 

[prpr]

I don't think they have. Any other changes just seem to be fallout from someone else building the image, but it's difficult to be sure.
They even left the old cert. in the filesystem which doesn't appear to be referenced now (not surprisingly).

 

[Owen Smith]

If I'd been doing the job I would have considered very carefully just replacing the certificate and updating the version number, with binary editors potentially and re-signing the image as necessary. That way I'd be certain nothing had been broken. Care is needed with software this long out of maintenance.

 

[prpr]

Well ysmoon seems to know what he/she is doing. Use of binary editors seems like a load of hassle you don't need and build systems don't age if not used and nothing else changes. Much better to build properly as was done originally. The only thing I would potentially criticise is them not removing the /usr/browser/opera_dir/certs/client/hdrfoxt2_20101001.p12 file after it was replaced with the hdrfoxt2_20201202.p12 file.

 

[MartinLiddle]

The only thing I would potentially criticise is them not removing the /usr/browser/opera_dir/certs/client/hdrfoxt2_20101001.p12 file after it was replaced with the hdrfoxt2_20201202.p12 file.

As a matter of interest do we know how long the new certificate is valid for?

 

[prpr]

I am no expert at this but...
There are two certificates in the old file, both of which expired 28 Sep 2020.
There are also two in the new file, one of which expired 28 Sep 2020 and one that expires 19 Nov 2070.

 

[MartinLiddle]

There are also two in the new file, one of which expired 28 Sep 2020 and one that expires 19 Nov 2070.

I think 2070 should be long enough for even the most diehard HDR-FOX T2 advocate. I suspect iPlayer on the HDR-FOX T2, which is pretty ropey now, will be unusable with a few years anyway.

 

[Black Hole]

I think 2070 should be long enough for even the most diehard HDR-FOX T2 advocate.

My certificates will have expired well before that.

 

[prpr]

I think 2070 should be long enough for even the most diehard HDR-FOX T2 advocate.

The whole thing will probably keel over on 19 Jan 2038 anyway, due to the 32 bit time_t limitation. I won't even be as old as Trev by then.

 

[Owen Smith]

A bit strange that the new file has a certificate that has already expired in it. But at least it looks like with the 2070 they learnt their lesson about the original expiry.

 

[prpr]

But at least it looks like with the 2070 they learnt their lesson about the original expiry.

Yes, I half expected it to say 2030 and half expected it to say 2038.

 

[Black Hole]

For the benefit of newcomers to this thread, I have edited a summary into post 2. Let me know if there are corrections:

Update 20/02/2021 (summary of subsequent discussion in this thread and elsewhere)

It came to light that certificates embedded in the Humax firmware, which authorise the Internet interactions with BBC iPlayer, expired around the date of the OP. Much to my amazement for a consumer product well past its shelf life, Humax (eventually) made updated certificates available in the form of a firmware update, which (so far as I know, currently) is not available to download from their website and can only be obtained on request. Ditto for HD-FOX.

Prior to availability of new certificates, the custom firmware universe for HDR-FOX and HD-FOX came up with a work-around, which is to re-route accesses to BBC iPlayer away from the Humax proprietary portal, to the access mechanisms used by other iPlayer clients instead. Details here: iplhack package. This method is superseded by a better alternative below. To use iplhack: you need to have Custom Firmware installed; you need to enrol for beta package testing participation; and you need to have DHCP enabled in Menu >> Settings >> System >> Internet Setting.

With the availability of new certificates, non-CF users have the option to request the updated firmware to install in the usual manner:

Over at MyHumax.org Barry has announced that a beta version of a fix for the iPlayer problem on the HDR-FOX T2 is available on request.

For the enlightened however, until the CF including updated certificates is made generally available (currently in beta), installing the iplfix package substitutes working certificates each boot. You need to have Custom Firmware installed and you need to enrol for beta package testing participation. If you had iplhack installed previously, that needs to be uninstalled before installing iplfix.

The forum members we need to thank for these developments are: /df; prpr; xyz321.

 

[prpr]

I guess you mean "enrol" not "enrole" (twice).

 

[Black Hole]

I guess you mean "enrol" not "enrole" (twice).

I guess I do... but my first reaction was surely you mean "enroll", and I had to look it up. Of the three, "enrol" looks the least acceptable!

 

[Black Hole]

Looking back through this thread, the following is remarkably prophetic:

Of course there's always the possibility it was something that was going to happen anyway... a "Y2K" style bug from a clock wrapping round or a certificate expiring or something

It was another 6 days before /df pinned it down to exactly that.

 

[Black Hole]

For information: the iplfix package is now available in the standard (not beta) repo, available for CF users to install: WebIF >> Package Management >> Check for updates >> Available.

iplfix installs new certificates (at boot time) to replace the expired ones, so making TV Portal >> iPlayer work again (to the limited extent it actually "worked" before!).