Rich Embeds

clarkwinkelmann

CyberGene glad you figured the first mystery out!

There are a number of fallback methods that impact which images are chosen:

First, if there is an opengraph image, it will take priority. This is what happens when the SEO extension is active
Second, if the forum advertises the X-Powered-By: Flarum header (Flarum does it by default), and the link points to the first post/page of the discussion, then the extension will intelligently extract images from the first post of the discussion
Finally, if the link is not recognized as Flarum or is not for a discussion, any image on the page will be picked, in the order they appear

If you experience a different behavior, let me know and I'll double-check if my explanation above is correct. I might have changed a few things with each update.

I could add a setting to blacklist specific image URLs, so that you could exclude a particular site logo if it doesn't look good. But if I find a way to make the parser better by default for everyone I will also try that. The problem is, it's difficult to guess what is a site logo or part of the content when doing what is already a fallback solution. The ideal solution would be for all sites to implement opengraph so they can choose which image they want to promote.

Clamours

Thank you very much for your great work, but sorry, is it possible for this extension to only enable rich image embedding functionality without enabling other features such as link previews? I only need the functionality to avoid image loading offsets and nothing else.
There are a large number of pictures in the discussion list and post content of my Flarum site (https://www.moresound.club/). In the iOS Safari browser, if I enter a discussion content page and then return to the homepage discussion list, the image will reload and cause serious offset. Jump offset, this problem is suspected to be caused by the lack of height label of the image. Can your extension solve this problem? Or where can I see this extension in action? Thank you again.

clarkwinkelmann

Clamours it's true that there is currently no separate settings, I should add more options and make the existing options clearer.

Looking at the code, the way things are currently implemented, the image parsing does not follow the general embed permission, so you should be able to achieve what you desire by forbidding members from using embeds. The images should still be parsed in their posts.

The image embed also disregards the "disable embeds on this post" feature. Even if someone who can post embeds then hides the link embeds, the image embed feature will continue to work.

Do you already have the extension? Let me know if that doesn't work and I'll try to add more options soon. If you don't have the extension yet, you can purchase it for testing and if it doesn't fit your needs I'll refund the purchase.

CyberGene

BTW, I used to hate Flarum for that scrolling issue on iPhone and it’s only now that I realize Rich Embeds solved it for me long ago 🥳 You rock @clarkwinkelmann

Darkle

I have migrated (server) and updated extensions, I have noticed that this extension doesn't work, the cached links work but there is no way to create any new ones.

In the admin preview when entering a test link it stays in "Retrieving...", I have no logs neither from Flarum/php, so it is complicated to debug what is happening, any idea?

clarkwinkelmann

Darkle please share your php flarum info

If you are able to, check the browser JavaScript console while using the preview feature and see if any error is generated there

Darkle

clarkwinkelmann I deleted this message, as I wasn't 100% sure:

I was testing with almost everything disabled, I seem to have found the problem, redis (when disabled it seems to work), I will share the details of the configuration.

But yeah, the problem is when using redis, I am using this extension (https://discuss.flarum.org/d/21873-redis-sessions-cache-queues), extend.php:

// Redis configuration
    (new Blomstra\Redis\Extend\Redis([
       'scheme' => 'unix', 
       'path' => '/tmp/redis.sock',
       'port' => 0,
       'database' => 1
    ])),

By deactivating redis and purging the extension, it works again.

clarkwinkelmann

Darkle it's probably not related to the cache, because only the Google Drive preview feature relies on the cache. Most likely it's related to the jobs running asynchronously. I would need to do tests on my own server to investigate.

If you have access to the queue log or the database, could you check if you see any indication of the job starting and/or completing? The job is called ProcessUrl. In the kilowhat_rich_embeds table, you could look for the URL that was entered in a preview and check if retrieved_at column is still NULL or contains a date.

Darkle

clarkwinkelmann You pointed me in the right direction, the issue was with the redis queue, and it was a issue with my environment (a configuration for another site that was preventing the queue from running correctly), so nothing to do with the extension, sorry about that. I left you a message on discord about another matter related to this extension, thank you.

CyberGene

@clarkwinkelmann lately we stopped seeing YouTube previews, only a one liner link is seen. Other websites have a rich embed preview, but not YouTube and I don't see any errors in the logs. What could be the reason?

I haven't changed any settings on my forum for ages. The only recent change is the Flarum security update that I installed a few days ago.

In the Rich Embeds settings I have enabled "Allow playing YouTube videos from the preview". The other two options are disabled ("Use YouTube no-cookie iframe domain", "Enable advanced API-powered rich YouTube previews") and I have no Google API parameters provided.

Also, I've disabled YouTube in the Selective MediaEmbed in order to delegate YouTube rendering to the Rich Embeds.

clarkwinkelmann

CyberGene I don't have a live forum with the extension to check right now, I'll need to take a look on my development computer later.

In the meantime can you share your php flarum info output? It will answer my next question, is FoF Formatting installed?

Is there a YouTube favicon next to the link or nothing at all?

CyberGene

clarkwinkelmann

Flarum core: 1.8.10
PHP version: 8.4.3
MySQL version: 8.0.39-30
Loaded extensions: Core, date, libxml, openssl, pcre, sqlite3, zlib, bcmath, bz2, calendar, ctype, curl, dba, dom, enchant, json, fileinfo, filter, ftp, gd, gettext, gmp, hash, iconv, intl, SPL, mbstring, session, standard, mysqlnd, mysqli, pcntl, PDO, pdo_mysql, pdo_pgsql, pdo_sqlite, pgsql, Phar, posix, random, readline, Reflection, exif, shmop, SimpleXML, soap, sockets, sodium, sysvmsg, sysvsem, tidy, tokenizer, xml, xmlreader, xmlwriter, xsl, zip, memcached, Zend OPcache
+-------------------------------------------+---------+--------+
| Flarum Extensions                         |         |        |
+-------------------------------------------+---------+--------+
| ID                                        | Version | Commit |
+-------------------------------------------+---------+--------+
| flarum-flags                              | v1.8.2  |        |
| flarum-approval                           | v1.8.2  |        |
| flarum-tags                               | v1.8.4  |        |
| flarum-suspend                            | v1.8.4  |        |
| flarum-bbcode                             | v1.8.0  |        |
| afrux-forum-widgets-core                  | v0.1.7  |        |
| fof-pages                                 | 1.0.8   |        |
| fof-byobu                                 | 1.4.1   |        |
| flarum-mentions                           | v1.8.5  |        |
| flarum-subscriptions                      | v1.8.1  |        |
| flamarkt-backoffice                       | 0.1.4   |        |
| flarum-markdown                           | v1.8.1  |        |
| zerosonesfun-inline-audio                 | 3.0     |        |
| v17development-seo                        | v2.0.6  |        |
| sycho-move-posts                          | v0.1.8  |        |
| rob006-last-post-avatar                   | 1.2.4   |        |
| kilowhat-rich-embeds                      | 1.3.1   |        |
| ianm-online-guests                        | 1.0.0   |        |
| fof-user-directory                        | 1.4.0   |        |
| fof-user-bio                              | 1.4.2   |        |
| fof-upload                                | 1.8.1   |        |
| fof-sitemap                               | 2.2.1   |        |
| fof-polls                                 | 2.2.12  |        |
| fof-nightmode                             | 1.6.0   |        |
| fof-merge-discussions                     | 1.4.1   |        |
| fof-links                                 | 1.3.0   |        |
| fof-ignore-users                          | 1.2.1   |        |
| fof-forum-statistics-widget               | 1.2.1   |        |
| fof-formatting                            | 1.0.3   |        |
| fof-follow-tags                           | 1.2.9   |        |
| fof-ban-ips                               | 1.1.2   |        |
| fof-anti-spam                             | 1.1.3   |        |
| flarum-sticky                             | v1.8.2  |        |
| flarum-statistics                         | v1.8.1  |        |
| flarum-pusher                             | v1.8.1  |        |
| flarum-nicknames                          | v1.8.2  |        |
| flarum-lock                               | v1.8.2  |        |
| flarum-likes                              | v1.8.1  |        |
| flarum-lang-english                       | v1.8.0  |        |
| flarum-emoji                              | v1.8.1  |        |
| davwheat-session-keepalive                | 1.1.0   |        |
| clarkwinkelmann-selective-mediaembed      | 1.0.1   |        |
| clarkwinkelmann-post-stream-search        | 1.1.0   |        |
| clarkwinkelmann-advanced-search-highlight | 1.0.3   |        |
| blomstra-spam-prevention                  | 1.8.0   |        |
| blomstra-mark-unread                      | 0.2.0   |        |
| blomstra-database-queue                   | 1.1.0   |        |
| askvortsov-rich-text                      | v2.1.7  |        |
| askvortsov-pwa                            | v3.4.1  |        |
| askvortsov-markdown-tables                | v1.2.1  |        |
| afrux-online-users-widget                 | v0.1.9  |        |
+-------------------------------------------+---------+--------+
Base URL: https://myforum.com/forum
Installation path: /home/customer/www/myforum.com/public_html/forum
Queue driver: database
Session driver: file
Scheduler status: Active
Mail driver: smtp
Debug mode: off

clarkwinkelmann is FoF Formatting installed?

Yes, it is. But I have Selective MediaEmbed enabled and YouTube is disabled there to delegate to Rich Embed. That's been a working configuration, I'haven't changed it for years.

clarkwinkelmann Is there a YouTube favicon next to the link or nothing at all?

Yes, the link has the YouTube favicon on the left but that's all there's to it.

CyberGene

@clarkwinkelmann did you have the chance to check if it's the extension or it's YouTube that changed something?

clarkwinkelmann

CyberGene I have run some tests with Flarum 1.8.10. Things seems to work as expected.

I have found one bug that was already present before: if a link contains 2 or more ampersands (&), it always renders using the inline template. I will publish an update for this shortly.

If your problem is not the double ampersands, could you send me a link to a public page on your website where I can see the problem? You can send me the link privately if needed.

Can you check the following:

Do older YouTube embeds that worked before still work, or did all stop working?
When you hover over the link with the favicon, does the floating box with more details appears?
Does the floating box contain the video thumbnail and play button?
Does refreshing the embed with the refresh button at the top of the floating box changes anything?

CyberGene

clarkwinkelmann here's one such discussion:
https://pianoclack.com/forum/d/1903-david-sprunger-pattern-piano-course-review/3

See how 7 days ago the embed was OK and then the embeds stopped working. It's that same user who reported it to me. I also checked in other discussions, including with videos that previously used to work (and their embeds are still visible) but not when used in new posts.

As I said, the only thing that I did recently was to update to the latest Flarum core (the security issue fix).

To your other questions:

Older embeds are OK
Hovering will show the floating box but there's no preview there, it says that no preview could be generated
Refresh using the floating box refresh button doesn't help either

clarkwinkelmann

CyberGene thanks. So it's definitely a different issue.

Maybe your server IP has been blacklisted by YouTube.

You could try the following command over SSH and check/share the output:

php flarum kilowhat:rich-embeds:process -v https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm-o8GIMtHQ

Should give you an output like this one:

Retrieved: 2025-03-18T22:23:30+00:00
HTTP Status: 200
OpenGraph: {
    "url": "https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Tm-o8GIMtHQ",
    "type": "video.other",
    "title": "Dave Brubeck Quartet - St Louis Blues- Belgium 1964",
    "images": [
        {
            "url": "https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/Tm-o8GIMtHQ\/hqdefault.jpg?sqp=-oaymwEmCOADEOgC8quKqQMa8AEB-AHeA4AC6AKKAgwIABABGGUgZShlMA8=&rs=AOn4CLABkqWlMxMzDHa2rbVYAzLp-WFHiA",
            "width": 480,
            "height": 360
        }
    ],
    "site_name": "YouTube",
    "description": "Dave Brubeck - pianoPaul Desmond - alto saxophoneEugene Wright - bassJoe Morello - drumshttp:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Soniricallhttps:\/\/twitter.com\/Soniricall"
}
Icons: [
    {
        "href": "https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/s\/desktop\/dd6eea47\/img\/logos\/favicon.ico",
        "type": "image\/x-icon"
    },
    {
        "href": "https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/s\/desktop\/dd6eea47\/img\/logos\/favicon_32x32.png",
        "sizes": [
            {
                "width": 32,
                "height": 32
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "href": "https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/s\/desktop\/dd6eea47\/img\/logos\/favicon_48x48.png",
        "sizes": [
            {
                "width": 48,
                "height": 48
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "href": "https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/s\/desktop\/dd6eea47\/img\/logos\/favicon_96x96.png",
        "sizes": [
            {
                "width": 96,
                "height": 96
            }
        ]
    },
    {
        "href": "https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/s\/desktop\/dd6eea47\/img\/logos\/favicon_144x144.png",
        "sizes": [
            {
                "width": 144,
                "height": 144
            }
        ]
    }
]
Fallback: {
    "title": "Dave Brubeck Quartet - St Louis Blues- Belgium 1964 - YouTube",
    "description": "Dave Brubeck - pianoPaul Desmond - alto saxophoneEugene Wright - bassJoe Morello - drumshttp:\/\/www.facebook.com\/Soniricallhttps:\/\/twitter.com\/Soniricall"
}
API Resource: null

And you could also try the following command if you have curl installed on SSH:

curl -I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm-o8GIMtHQ

Which should produce an output like this one:

HTTP/2 200 
content-type: text/html; charset=utf-8
x-content-type-options: nosniff
cache-control: no-cache, no-store, max-age=0, must-revalidate
pragma: no-cache
expires: Mon, 01 Jan 1990 00:00:00 GMT
date: Tue, 18 Mar 2025 22:25:21 GMT
content-length: 898569
x-frame-options: SAMEORIGIN
strict-transport-security: max-age=31536000
permissions-policy: ch-ua-arch=*, ch-ua-bitness=*, ch-ua-full-version=*, ch-ua-full-version-list=*, ch-ua-model=*, ch-ua-wow64=*, ch-ua-form-factors=*, ch-ua-platform=*, ch-ua-platform-version=*
report-to: {"group":"youtube_main","max_age":2592000,"endpoints":[{"url":"https://csp.withgoogle.com/csp/report-to/youtube_main"}]}
origin-trial: AmhMBR6zCLzDDxpW+HfpP67BqwIknWnyMOXOQGfzYswFmJe+fgaI6XZgAzcxOrzNtP7hEDsOo1jdjFnVr2IdxQ4AAAB4eyJvcmlnaW4iOiJodHRwczovL3lvdXR1YmUuY29tOjQ0MyIsImZlYXR1cmUiOiJXZWJWaWV3WFJlcXVlc3RlZFdpdGhEZXByZWNhdGlvbiIsImV4cGlyeSI6MTc1ODA2NzE5OSwiaXNTdWJkb21haW4iOnRydWV9
cross-origin-opener-policy: same-origin-allow-popups; report-to="youtube_main"
content-security-policy: require-trusted-types-for 'script'
p3p: CP="This is not a P3P policy! See http://support.google.com/accounts/answer/151657?hl=de for more info."
server: ESF
x-xss-protection: 0
set-cookie: YSC=EehG1zTPxgQ; Domain=.youtube.com; Path=/; Secure; HttpOnly; SameSite=none
set-cookie: __Secure-YEC=CgstdmR4ZlUxaW5LcyjR5ee-BjIKCgJDSBIEGgAgLw%3D%3D; Domain=.youtube.com; Expires=Fri, 17-Apr-2026 22:25:20 GMT; Path=/; Secure; HttpOnly; SameSite=lax
set-cookie: VISITOR_PRIVACY_METADATA=CgJDSBIEGgAgLw%3D%3D; Domain=.youtube.com; Expires=Fri, 17-Apr-2026 22:25:22 GMT; Path=/; Secure; HttpOnly; SameSite=none
set-cookie: VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=; Domain=.youtube.com; Expires=Wed, 22-Jun-2022 22:25:22 GMT; Path=/; Secure; HttpOnly; SameSite=none
alt-svc: h3=":443"; ma=2592000,h3-29=":443"; ma=2592000

If your IP is blocked, the HTTP response will be different from 200 in both commands, or there will be some sort of timeout message.

CyberGene

Hmm, I did yet another upgrade-migrate-clear cycle and it seems to be fixed now, although there don't seem to be any related upgrades, only two extensions and one package. Could be the clear that fixed it?

Anyway, apologies for the false alarm, apparently it was a temporary glitch.

clarkwinkelmann

CyberGene Hmm, I did yet another upgrade-migrate-clear cycle and it seems to be fixed now, although there don't seem to be any related upgrades, only two extensions and one package. Could be the clear that fixed it?

Do the previously broken embed work without having been refreshed? Or only new links? That would be quite strange, I'm not sure how the data could have been successfully retrieved before but not render 🤔 But good if it works again!

CyberGene

clarkwinkelmann Do the previously broken embed work without having been refreshed?

No, they remain broken but at least a refresh fixes them, which wasn't the case before.

clarkwinkelmann

CyberGene interesting, so it must have been a network issue of some sort that prevented the server from retrieving the YouTube pages.

If you have not yet refreshed every broken embed, perhaps you could check the database for the error message so I can check if that's something I can handle better. The data is in the kilowhat_rich_embeds table, the most important columns for this are http_status and error.

You can use the SQL query SELECT url, http_status, error FROM kilowhat_rich_embeds WHERE url='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tm-o8GIMtHQ' (choose one of the URLs that's currently broken on the forum). For a successful embed, it would show <url>,200,<null>. For errors, the last 2 values will be different.

CyberGene

clarkwinkelmann Unfortunately I went and refreshed all YouTube links, they weren't much, our forum is not very active. But if it happens again or I notice a link I forgot to refresh, I will do what you suggested, thank you.

BTW, I see that the link preview is generated asynchronously by the Database driver queue, which in turn is an "each minute" cron job. And I'm wondering if I should temporarily disable the cron job when upgrading the forum because it's possible that the scheduler was invoked during the upgrade and I'm wondering if that messed up something with the preview jobs?

CyberGene

clarkwinkelmann You can use the SQL query...

We've just started having the same problem again, however I queried the DB for one such URL and all seems OK, the http_status is 200 and the error is null. Here's one such post:

https://pianoclack.com/forum/d/199-keybird-pianos/34

This time cache/clear doesn't help, executed it multiple times. BTW, I just tried to upgrade the forum and I see FoF Formatting has a new version but that doesn't help either... Not sure why that happens with the YouTube videos, I can't see any errors in the logs either. Actually it seems to not be working for other websites too.

P.S. When I enable "Generate rich embeds for pages without OpenGraph data" it shows a little rectangle with slightly more data and if you click on it, then it expands and shows a YouTube preview window.

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