I'm experiencing a frustrating issue with live VP9 WebM streams on Safari for iOS 26.0.1. This stream works perfectly on Windows, macOS, Linux, and even on older iOS versions, but Safari just refuses to play it. I've tested it on VLC for iOS 26.0.1 and it plays fine, so the issue seems specific to Safari. The MIME types and codecs are all set correctly. Have others faced this problem? If anyone can test this issue on different iOS versions or Safari builds, I would appreciate it. It might help to file a bug report with WebKit if the issue can be replicated.
3 Answers
Ugh, that sounds so frustrating! Thanks for confirming it's a WebKit regression; that really helps. I'll try adding an explicit Content-Length header and see if HLS fallback works. It’s strange how these regressions always seem to impact third-party codecs like WebM, while Apple’s own formats like HLS seem to be unaffected. I’ll definitely file a WebKit bug and share the link here once I get it submitted.
Welcome to the joys of developing for Safari! This is actually a known issue with WebKit – iOS 26.0 and later have broken chunked transfer encoding specifically for WebM streams. I’ve seen it affect Icecast streams across several sites too. One workaround that’s worked for me is serving the stream with an explicit Content-Length header, or using HLS fallback for Safari users. Just a heads up, filing a bug report might help, but don’t hold your breath for a quick fix – they took about nine months to resolve a similar issue with MP4 last year.
Just to add on, I’ve tested this on my iPhone 14 Pro running iOS 26.0.1, and Safari still won’t start playback. VLC for iOS plays it just fine, so it seems like it's a Safari-specific issue. If anyone else can validate this with their device and iOS version, it would be really useful for confirming if it's a WebKit issue across the board.
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