When Multi-Key FairPlay Fails in Safari - a Shaka Player Issue and Its Workaround
· 7 min read
Multi-key encryption is a DRM best practice, and we recommend it. On Safari with Shaka Player, it comes with one practical obstacle worth knowing about before you roll it out.
Multi-key FairPlay content can fail with Shaka error 3016, "Media failed to decode", while the same content encrypted with a single key plays without trouble. In the case we investigated, the cause lay in neither the packaging nor the license service. It came down to the order in which two Shaka polyfills were installed, and the fix was a few lines in the right place.