A clip whose file its host no longer has says so where the player stood, with the file's link, instead of sitting as a dead player under "Tap to play". A post's video "won't play" (Adam, 2026-11-01): the mp4 had been deleted from Primal's blossom, which answers a 404 with no CORS headers, so the probe couldn't read the status and the box waited for a tap that loaded nothing — no client renders it (the reply under the post says as much) and no other blossom host has the hash. The player is the first to know: its original failing now tries the server's copy once (a file the browser can't decode fails the same way, and the copy plays that one), and the copy failing too marks the clip gone for a day — the line and the link in the box, its cover, play button and controls off, a short box; the next paint of the post says it at once with no request, the media warm-up and the in-view hook leave it alone, and the videos grid leaves it out as it did a 404 the probe could read. Outside the feed the box used to be hidden on an error before anything was said; it gets the line too. tools/video-gone-test.js serves the clips from a second origin without CORS, one of them a 404, and checks the line, the untouched live clip and the silent repaint

Co-Authored-By: Claude Fable 5.1 <[email protected]>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01VMan6TFgisGKUDhdStLUvs

3 files changed, 46 insertions, 8 deletions

diff --git a/src/features/messages.js b/src/features/messages.js
index f634866..4e90646 100644
--- a/src/features/messages.js
+++ b/src/features/messages.js
@@ -6947,7 +6947,7 @@ export function messagesFeature(ctx) {
     if (!url || mediaReady.has(url)) return Promise.resolve();
     const known = videoDims.get(url) || dim;
     if (known) { rememberVideo(url, known.width, known.height); return Promise.resolve(); }
-    if (typeof document === 'undefined' || videoUnknown.has(url)) return Promise.resolve();
+    if (typeof document === 'undefined' || videoUnknown.has(url) || clipGone(url)) return Promise.resolve(); // (gone: nothing to measure)
     if (mediaWarming.has(url)) return mediaWarming.get(url);
     // the 64 KB probe first: it reads the shape from the file's own header
     // and costs nothing like a player's metadata load of an index-last file
@@ -7992,7 +7992,7 @@ export function messagesFeature(ctx) {
   // it (with sound — the reader asked for this one). The box is left alone
   // by the morph from here, or a repaint would take the cover off.
   function heavyCover(box, url, onPlay) {
-    if (box.querySelector('.vid-heavy')) return;
+    if (box.querySelector('.vid-heavy') || box.classList.contains('gone')) return;
     box._skipMorph = true;
     const cover = h('button', { class: 'vid-heavy', type: 'button', 'aria-label': t('videoTapToPlay'),
       onClick: (e) => {
@@ -8096,13 +8096,34 @@ export function messagesFeature(ctx) {
   const playSrc = (url) => !vmediaOk(url) || isHls(url) ? url
     : streamsHere(url) ? hlsOf(url)
     : !h264Failed.has(url) && (noPicture.has(url) || ((videoInfo.get(url) || {}).hevc && !canHevc())) ? h264Of(url) : url;
+  // A clip whose file its host no longer has: the player is the first to
+  // know (Primal's blossom answers a 404 with no CORS headers, so the
+  // probe couldn't read it and the box sat as a dead "Tap to play" — a
+  // post whose video "won't play", Adam, 2026-11-01). It says so where the
+  // player stood, with the file's link, and the grid leaves the clip out
+  // for a day, as it does a 404 the probe could read. The copy is tried
+  // first: a file the browser can't decode fails the same way, and the
+  // copy plays that one.
+  function clipDead(v, url) {
+    noteVideoInfo(url, { goneAt: Date.now() });
+    v._gone = true;
+    v.controls = false;
+    const box = v.parentElement;
+    if (!box) return;
+    box._skipMorph = true;
+    box.classList.add('gone');
+    for (const el of box.querySelectorAll('.vid-heavy, .vid-pp, .vid-sound')) el.remove();
+    if (!box.querySelector('.vid-nopic')) box.append(h('div', { class: 'vid-nopic' }, h('span', {}, t('videoGone')),
+      h('a', { href: url, target: '_blank', rel: 'noopener noreferrer', onClick: (e) => e.stopPropagation() }, t('videoOpenFile'))));
+  }
   // A player whose clip turns out to have no picture it can show (its
   // metadata says zero width) switches to the copy; if the copy fails too,
   // the original's sound plays under a line saying why, with the file.
+  // One whose original won't load at all tries the copy too; the copy
+  // failing as well means the file is gone (clipDead).
   function guardPicture(v, url) {
-    if (!vmediaOk(url)) return;
     const onCopy = () => (v.getAttribute('src') || '').startsWith(VMEDIA);
-    v.addEventListener('loadedmetadata', () => {
+    if (vmediaOk(url)) v.addEventListener('loadedmetadata', () => {
       if (v.videoWidth || onCopy() || h264Failed.has(url)) return;
       noPicture.add(url);
       const want = !v.paused;
@@ -8110,7 +8131,18 @@ export function messagesFeature(ctx) {
       if (want) v.play().catch(() => {});
     });
     v.addEventListener('error', () => {
-      if (!onCopy()) return;
+      if (!v.getAttribute('src')) return; // let go of (scrolled off), not failed
+      if (!onCopy()) {
+        if (vmediaOk(url) && !h264Failed.has(url) && !v._origFailed) {
+          v._origFailed = true;
+          const want = !v.paused;
+          v.setAttribute('src', h264Of(url));
+          if (want) v.play().catch(() => {});
+          return;
+        }
+        clipDead(v, url);
+        return;
+      }
       // the stream failed: the copy or the original, as it would have been
       if (isHls(v.getAttribute('src'))) {
         hlsFailed.add(url);
@@ -8120,6 +8152,7 @@ export function messagesFeature(ctx) {
         return;
       }
       h264Failed.add(url);
+      if (v._origFailed) { clipDead(v, url); return; } // neither the file nor a copy of it: gone
       const want = !v.paused;
       v.setAttribute('src', url);
       if (want) v.play().catch(() => {});
@@ -8150,7 +8183,7 @@ export function messagesFeature(ctx) {
   // — a second seek bar — stay off; the middle button and the sound button
   // are its controls then (Adam: "hide the main seek bar … and only show a
   // moments seek bar"). Otherwise the player's controls, once it has woken.
-  const nativeControls = (v) => { v.controls = !v._ownBar; };
+  const nativeControls = (v) => { v.controls = !v._ownBar && !v._gone; };
   function ownBar(player, on) {
     const box = player.closest('.note-video-box');
     if (!box || player._ownBar === on) return;
@@ -8244,8 +8277,7 @@ export function messagesFeature(ctx) {
       // learned now, used by the next paint of any row with this clip
       onLoadedmetadata: (e) => { rememberVideo(url, e.target.videoWidth, e.target.videoHeight); attachMediaTimeline(e.target, url); },
       // a touch's tap was taken at pointerup (below): its click, if one comes, is spent
-      onClick: (e) => { if (Date.now() - (e.currentTarget._tapAt || 0) < 800) { e.stopPropagation(); e.preventDefault(); return; } videoTap(e, url); },
-      onError: (e) => { if (!stable && !(e.target.getAttribute('src') || '').startsWith(VMEDIA)) { const b = e.target.parentElement; if (b) b.style.display = 'none'; } } });
+      onClick: (e) => { if (Date.now() - (e.currentTarget._tapAt || 0) < 800) { e.stopPropagation(); e.preventDefault(); return; } videoTap(e, url); } });
     guardPicture(v, url);
     // With its own controls up, Chrome on Android keeps a tap on the clip for
     // them (it shows or hides the bar) and the page never gets the click — so
@@ -8328,6 +8360,7 @@ export function messagesFeature(ctx) {
       () => {
         box._inView = true;
         clearTimeout(box._release);
+        if (v._gone) return; // nothing to load, and nothing to ask
         if (!v.getAttribute('src') && !v.getAttribute('data-lazy-src')) {
           v.setAttribute('src', playSrc(url));
           v.addEventListener('loadedmetadata', () => { v.style.minHeight = ''; }, { once: true });
@@ -8356,6 +8389,9 @@ export function messagesFeature(ctx) {
           try { v.removeAttribute('src'); v.load(); } catch {}
         }, 2500);
       });
+    // known gone already (this player, or one before it, found the file
+    // missing): said at once, no request made
+    if (clipGone(url)) clipDead(v, url);
     return box;
   }
 
diff --git a/src/i18n.js b/src/i18n.js
index 636362e..fdcd1e1 100644
--- a/src/i18n.js
+++ b/src/i18n.js
@@ -303,6 +303,7 @@ const STR = {
     pagerPrevPic: 'Previous picture',
     pagerNextPic: 'Next picture',
     videoNoPicture: "This browser can’t show this video’s picture",
+    videoGone: "This video couldn’t be loaded from its host",
     videoOpenFile: "Open the file",
     wnDevicesTitle: 'Group invitations',
     wnDevicesHelp: 'White Noise and other Marmot apps invite one of your devices, and only that device gets the group. Keep the invitations coming to the device you actually use.',
diff --git a/src/style.css b/src/style.css
index f26fac3..cef3663 100644
--- a/src/style.css
+++ b/src/style.css
@@ -1846,6 +1846,7 @@ body::after {
   color: #fff; font-size: 14px; text-align: center; text-shadow: 0 1px 3px rgba(0, 0, 0, .6);
 }
 .vid-nopic a { color: #fff; text-decoration: underline; pointer-events: auto; }
+.note-video-box.gone .note-video { max-height: 160px !important; aspect-ratio: 16 / 9; }
 .media-tile-cost {
   position: absolute; inset: 0; display: flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center;
   color: rgba(255, 255, 255, .8); font-size: 12px; font-weight: 600; background: #16181d;