AirPlay play_url /play 404 response

Describe the bug

I’m trying to play a video file from a URL, any idea why /play is responding with 404 with valid airplay credentials? Thanks in advance

Error log

2021-12-10 00:42:53 DEBUG [pyatv.support.net]: Binding on *:5353
2021-12-10 00:42:53 DEBUG [pyatv.support.net]: Binding on 127.0.0.1:0
...
2021-12-10 00:42:56 DEBUG [pyatv.protocols.airplay.player]: Starting to play https://www.learningcontainer.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/sample-mp4-file.mp4
2021-12-10 00:42:56 DEBUG [pyatv.support.http]: Sending HTTP/1.1 message: b'POST /play HTTP/1.1\r\nContent-Length: 257\r\nUser-Agent: MediaControl/1.0\r\nContent-Type: application/x-apple-binary-plist\r\n\r\nbplist00\xd3\x01\x02\x03\x04\x05\x06_\x10\x10Content-Location^Start-Position_\x10\x12X-Apple-Session-ID_\x10hhttps://www.learningcontainer.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/sample-mp4-file.mp4\x10\x00_\x10$6505b070-6ac2-4826-b4b5-957c1f272e5d\x08\x0f"1F\xb1\xb3\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x01\x01\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x07\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\x00\xda'
2021-12-10 00:42:56 DEBUG [pyatv.support.http]: Received: b'HTTP/1.1 404 Not Found\r\nContent-Length: 0\r\nServer: AirTunes/377.25.06\r\n\r\n'
2021-12-10 00:42:56 DEBUG [pyatv.support.http]: Got HTTP response: HttpResponse(protocol='HTTP', version='1.1', code=404, message='Not Found', headers={'content-length': '0', 'server': 'AirTunes/377.25.06'}, body=''):
2021-12-10 00:42:56 ERROR [pyatv.scripts.atvremote]: Authentication error: status code: 404
2021-12-10 00:42:56 DEBUG [pyatv.scripts.atvremote]: Waiting for 0 remaining tasks
2021-12-10 00:42:56 DEBUG [pyatv.support.http]: Connection closed

How to reproduce the bug?

$ atvremote -n "[LG] webOS TV UM7300PUA" --airplay-credentials
641e7f20c7919a5c56c352294e1e7630dc0c64a97bbce09c07a306c7848950b9:fd9efcac8d477cf92f58e1f49f2e06e031c89d4023cb6f930f7540f77de805a3:35383a32383a42343a32333a31373a4244:32333666343966362d613162302d346564392d383030322d313165366333326330663230
--debug
play_url=https://www.learningcontainer.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/sample-mp4-file.mp4

What is expected behavior?

AirPlay to play video from URL

Operating System

macOS

Python

3.9

pyatv

master

Device

LG TV 55" UM7300PUA

Additional context

Trying to play mp4 video from URL on LG TV 55"

[postlund]

The exception is a bit misleading as that is obviously not an authentication error (I should fix that). My guess is that your TV does not support the /play command. I must say that I am not very confident as to what feature flag corresponds what actual feature in the protocol, but https://openairplay.github.io/airplay-spec/features.html with your feature flags (0x7F8AD0,0x38BCB46) suggests that video is not supported. HTTP live streams and audio are supported though (only audio streaming is supported by pyatv). So we are likely out of luck here until I get around supporting video streaming and to be honest, I’m not sure that will ever happen as it is very CPU intensive and hard to do in python. If offloaded to another application, maybe it can be accomplished.

[postlund]

Yeah, I totally agree! It’s so strange that they aren’t focusing more on streaming videos directly from the target device, e.g. via URL. Doing so now usually just breaks everything and makes stuff stop working (like metadata).