Known Issues and Workarounds

This document lists known issues that you might encounter when using the Amazon IVS low-latency streaming Web broadcast SDK and suggests potential workarounds.

• Viewers may experience green artifacts or irregular framerate, when watching streams from broadcasters who are using Safari on Intel-based Mac devices.

  Workaround: Redirect broadcasters on Intel Mac devices to broadcast using Chrome.

• The web broadcast SDK requires port 4443 to be open. VPNs and firewalls can block port 4443 and prevent you from streaming.

  Workaround: Disable VPNs and/or configure firewalls to ensure that port 4443 is not blocked.

• Switching from landscape to portrait mode is buggy.

  Workaround: None.

• The resolution reported in the HLS manifest is incorrect. It is set as the initially received resolution, which usually is much lower than what is possible and does not reflect any upscaling that happens during the duration of the webRTC connection.

  Workaround: None.

• Subsequent client instances created after the initial page is loaded may not respond to maxFramerate settings that are different from the first client instance.

  Workaround: Set StreamConfig only once, through the IVSBroadcastClient.create function when the first client instance is created.

• On iOS, capturing multiple video device sources is not supported by WebKit.

  Workaround: Follow this issue to track development progress.

• On iOS, calling getUserMedia() once you already have a video source will stop any other video source retrieved using getUserMedia().

  Workaround: None.

• WebRTC dynamically chooses the best bitrate and resolution for the resources that are available. Your stream will not be high quality if your hardware or network cannot support it. The quality of your stream may change during the broadcast as more or fewer resources are available.

  Workaround: Provide at least 200 kbps upload.

• If Auto-Record to Amazon S3 is enabled for a channel and the Web Broadcast SDK is used, recording to the same S3 prefix may not work, as the Web Broadcast SDK dynamically changes bitrates and qualities.

  Workaround: None.

• When using Next.js, an Uncaught ReferenceError: self is not defined error may be encountered, depending on how the SDK is imported.

  Workaround: Dynamically import the library when using Next.js.

• You may be unable to import the module using a script tag of type module; i.e., <script type="module" src="..."\>.

  Workaround: The library does not have an ES6 build. Remove the type="module" from the script tag.

Safari Limitations

• Denying a permissions prompt requires resetting the permission in Safari website settings at the OS level.
• Safari does not natively detect all devices as effectively as Firefox or Chrome. For example, OBS Virtual Camera does not get detected.

Firefox Limitations

• System permissions need to be enabled for Firefox to screen share. After enabling them, the user must restart Firefox for it to work correctly; otherwise, if permissions are perceived as blocked, the browser will throw a NotFoundError exception.
• The getCapabilities method is missing. This means users cannot get the media track's resolution or aspect ratio. See this bugzilla thread.
• Several AudioContext properties are missing; e.g., latency and channel count. This could pose a problem for advanced users who want to manipulate the audio tracks.
• Camera feeds from getUserMedia are restricted to a 4:3 aspect ratio on MacOS. See bugzilla thread 1 and bugzilla thread 2.
• Audio capture is not supported with getDisplayMedia. See this bugzilla thread.
• Framerate in screen capture is suboptimal (approximately 15fps?). See this bugzilla thread.