How to Fix Cannot load M3U8: Crossdomain Access Denied

Cannot load M3U8: Technically speaking, a file with the M3U8 file extension is a UTF-8 Encoded Audio Playlist file. What in the world does that mean? Well, simply put it means that they are just ordinary plain text files that can be used by both audio and video players to show where media files are located.

An M3U8 file may give us a reference to some Youtube video while another may be created on your system to support your playlist. It refers to a media file or an entire set of media files absolute paths, relative parts or URLs.

How to open M3u8?

Most text editors such as notepad can be used to open and edit these files. However, opening such a file in notepad only let us read the file references.  Because text editors are not the same as media players as they cannot play these files.

Programs which can open and use M3U8 files include VLC media players, Windows media players, songbird, Apple’s iTunes and M3U player. On Linux, these files can be opened with XMMS (mainly used for audio but can be used for videos too) while mac users can open it using Coco ModX ( audio player).

HSLPlayer.net can be used to open online M3U8 files (you need to have a URL to the M3U8 file and the files it references are online). With the chrome extension Play HLSM3u8, you can play M3U8 files you find online. This is also useful while fixing video loading errors like Hulu error codes.

Cannot Load M3U8 error: What is it?

This kind of error may occur while you try to play a video on the internet. The error doesn’t allow the user to play a video. “Cross-domain access denied“, “No levels to play” and “404 not found” are three different messages that the error displays on the screen.

Causes 

Three of the most common reasons that cause the error are as follows:

1. Firewall: It occurs when the file is blocked via a firewall or proxy server. The error displays the message  “Cannot load m3u8: Crossdomain access denied” on the screen.
2. Cookies: This error displays the message  “No levels to play “ on the screen. This error occurs when content privacy settings are set to block third-party data and cookies.
3. Removal: If the content that you are looking for was removed by the platform or the uploader then “404 not found” is shown on the screen.

Fix Cannot Load M3U8

The firewall may be the possible cause of blocking your apps. It blocks suspicious behaviour most of the time but a particular unknown application triggers it to block from the firewall. Allowing it manually can solve cannot load M3U8.

Solution 1: granting access in Firewall

1. Use the search bar and type in “Firewall“.
2. Choose Firewall & network protection from search results.
3. Now, tap on “Allow an app through firewall” option.
4. A screen with checkboxes against some programs appears. Now make your browser checked in both Public and Private networks.
5. Restart the browser.

Solution 2: Allow cookies

Google Chrome

1. Open the browser and click on the three dots on the top right-hand corner.
2. A drop-down list appears, click on the option settings.
3. Scroll down and click on Advance.
4. On the new list that appears click on Content Settings.
5. Now, select Cookies.
6. Make sure the Block Third-Party Cookies is unselected.

Mozilla Firefox

1. First, you need to launch Mozilla Firefox.
2. Next, click on the menu button(≡) in the top right corner and choose Options.
3. Head over to the Privacy & Security panel and then visit the History section.
4. On the right side of the “Firefox will” entry, you can see a drop-down box. From the drop-down menu select the “Use custom settings for history” option.
5. Confirm that the “Accept third-party cookies” option is set as always.
6. Now, restart Mozilla Firefox and try logging in to the Ubisoft website and check if the issue persists.

Microsoft Edge

1. Open the browser and click on the three dots in the top right-hand corner.
2. From the drop-down list that appears, click on Settings.
3. Select the Privacy and security settings to form the left pane.
4. Now, under cookies, there will be a “Don’t block cookies” option. Make sure it is selected.
5. Now, restart the browser and check the error status.

Solution 3: Disable AdBlock

Google Chrome

1. Open google chrome and open extensions. You can either do this by selecting more tools from the drop-down list obtained by clicking the three dots on the top right corner and then clicking on extensions or by opening settings from the same drop-down list and selecting extensions from the left pane. (Or, just type the following in URL bar – chrome://extensions/)
2. Now look for the Adblock extension and after finding it, toggle it off.
3. If you want to remove it permanently, then click on the Remove option.

But if you want to pause AdBlock for a particular site, then click on the AdBlock icon on the top right-hand corner of the screen near the three vertical dots and click on Pause on this site.

Mozilla Firefox

1. Launch Firefox and type the following in the URL bar – about:addons
2. Locate your AdBlock extension and tap on its setting(three horizontal dots).
3. Finally, select remove and that’s it.

Microsoft Edge

1. Open the Edge browser. Click the three-dot setting icon on the top right-hand corner and select extensions from the drop-down list that appears.
2. There might be several extensions. Find the Adblock extension from this and click the geared setting icon.
3. Toggle the AdBlock from on to off if you want to temporarily disable the AdBlock. If you want to remove it permanently then click on the uninstall button below.

Solution 4: Enable flash

This problem only arises in the case of some flash players on some sites and can be resolved by allowing flash in the browser so as to play the video. So, enabling flash is likely to fix cannot load M3U8 error.

Google Chrome

1. Click on the three dots on the top right-hand corner of the screen and select settings from the drop-down list.
2. Now select advanced settings from the left pane.
3. Under the privacy and security section, search for content settings and click it.
4. Now you can see the flash option, click it.
5. Make sure you have disabled Block sites from running first.

Mozilla Firefox

1. Launch Firefox and type the following in the URL bar – about:addons
2. Navigate to Plugins section from the left menu.
3. Find Shockwave Flash from the list of plugins.
4. Make sure you enable it as Always Active.

Microsoft Edge

1. Open Edge browser and click on the three dots in the top right-hand
2. From the drop-down list that appears, click Settings near the bottom of the menu.
3. Click on view advanced settings under the Advanced Settings
4. Toggle Use Adobe Flash Player to On.

Wrapping up,

I hope you are now clear about the fundamental meaning of an M3U8 file and its purpose. When a specific video doesn’t load, it makes us wonder everywhere to find a solution or move to an alternative. But using the solution provided above, you will certainly fix cannot load M3U8 error.