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I have an xml file which i share with my own smart TV app, but it doesn't work.

I have an xml file which i share to my own smart tv app. It has worked several years and suddenly today it doesn't work anymore. I did contact the support but they wanted me try here.. My question is, is it any problems with rendering? raw=1

It was gor some couple of years ago buy they fixed it. What's cha3from yesterday to today??...

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Accepted answers

lisadbx

We are rolling out a fix for issues with raw=1 and dl=1 links. Please try again and let us know if it's still not working.

All comments

Megan

Hi there, @deco10, I hope you're doing well!

I'm guessing you're using a shared link, is that correct? If not, then please feel free to clarify.

Does that shared link preview fine when you copy and paste it on a browser? Also, let me know if you use an API.

Do you get a specific error message and does this happen with any other file type?

Keep me posted!

deco10

Hi Megan,
Yes it is a shared file that is in my public folder. When i copy the shared link. I need to change the last part of the url from ?dl=0 to raw=1..after i have done that and i run it in chrome ut will open the xml file but the url is changing to something like this..

https://uc7axxxxxxxxx.dl.dropboxusercontent.com/cd/0/inline/xxxx/file#

deco10

This has worked fine for several years and I have not made any changes on my xml. Seems to me that Dropbox has done something tjis week.. the url changes after raw=1 is used in webbrowser, ref my last comment

Hannah

Hi from me as well, @deco10 and happy Friday!

Can you let me know if the link itself previews fine when opened from a computer browser or a phone?

If it does, this might have to do with some kind of update on the TV instead.

deco10

Hi Hannah, update is off and done manually. I haven't update it sense i bought it 😅.. As mentioned before it opens in webbrowser but it changes the url.. This didn't happen before.. It must be at Dropbox side..

Hannah

It's been a long time since a change on the URLs of the shared links happened.

Can you take a look at this thread and the solution provided, to see if it helps?

deco10

Hmm.. Weird, it has worked fine until this week.. And when i share and copy the url it does start like this.. https://www.dropbox.com/s
The crypted filename/filename?dl=0

I will try tomorrow with your suggestion.. I thought ? Raw=1 was the only change that was needed for render the shared link..

deco10

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/<token>/path.jpg?rlkey=<token>&raw=1

So this one should work for me?

Where token is crypted foldername, right?

Здравко

@deco10 wrote:
... As mentioned before it opens in webbrowser but it changes the url.. This didn't happen before.. It must be at Dropbox side..

Hi @deco10,

😁 It has always been the same way! When you open regular Dropbox link in non preview mode (e.g. to download the content or in inline/raw mode), new temporary link gets generated and the former link redirect to the new one. This is the way the links (either new or old style links - with or without rlkey) has always worked. The new (temporary) link expire after few hours, as you have found already. Every time you open the former link, new temporary link is generated (on rapid succession they may coincide). So to avoid expiring, you need to pass the former link with changed dl=0 to raw=1 as is, not as resulted in the web browser (after redirect to temporary)! Let you TV generate temporary link whenever opens the former link there; so everytime the temporary link will be valid. 😉

There is one more trick you can use: just set the link domain to dl.dropboxusercontent.com without changing anything else.

Hope this helps.

deco10

Well, the way my url was worked fine until this week.. Can you explain why?

Also i tried this methods without any success

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/<token>/path.jpg?rlkey=<token>&raw=1
https://dl.Dropboxusercontent/scl/fi/9mmmmgfddj34g/path.xml?rlkey=9mmmmgfddj34g&raw=1

Where in this case 9mmmmgfddj34g is jibrish

Before this weekend i had something like this

Https://www.dropbox.com/s/9mmmmgfddj34g/path.xml?raw=1

When i try this with chrome, the new way is downloading the file. The old way is rendering.. But the url is changed as i mentioned before..

deco10

I deleted the sharing and added again.. Suddenly the new version of url sharing was there..

Https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/bdgfshgjjg123/myfile.xml?rlkey=hgfhhfhhkj&dl=0

Where i change the last to raw=1
It's rendering in chrome as it did with the old way.. But its redirecting to different url and that makes problem because my tv can not follow that..

Tried also with dl.dropb.. And dl.Dropboxusercontent

Any other suggestions that dont redirect to, without http 302 redirecting

https://ucea67gdjjhxvhc.dl.dropboxusercontent.com/cd/0/inline/gggghhhddfuugjjgghhh/file#

Https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/token/path.xml?rlkey=tlkeytoken&dl=0 will only download the file

Dl=1 will also download the file

Tried also scl/fo..raw=1 Its doing 302 redirecting.. Dl=0 in chrome works but it seems that only dropbox page with login opens..

Also i hope this rlkey token will not change!

Здравко

@deco10 wrote:
Well, the way my url was worked fine until this week.. Can you explain why?
...

Ha...😀 Are you complaining because of this?

Probably you changed something on your end. Both the old file link style (looking like dropbox.com/s/...) and new link style (looking like dropbox.com/scl/fi/...) works in the same way. Dropbox links have parameters (something different compared to other sources) and the only difference between styles is that old one use 1 parameter (either dl or raw and could be without parameter too - defaulting to dl=0), but new one use 2 parameters (dl or raw from one side - again optional - and one more mandatory - rlkey). Both styles used redirects (302) to redirect to dynamic temporary link. This has ALWAYS been and is still!!! All new links are new style. The existing old links keep their initial style, but if you recreate some link the style will change (move to the new).

@deco10 wrote:
...
When i try this with chrome, the new way is downloading the file. The old way is rendering.. But the url is changed as i mentioned before..

The behavior should be the same. I just checked and it always render the files in my case. If you have some issue with your browser - check it up. In some case it's matter of settings. Also, make sure in both cases you have raw=1 (not in one raw=1, but in other dl=1)!

@deco10 wrote:
... But its redirecting to different url and that makes problem because my tv can not follow that..

Hm...🤔 That's strange. Do you mean your TV browser (or whatever you use to open your link in) doesn't support redirect? 🧐 In such a case (if that's true) the old link would be impossible to open too, but you state you have used it. You are missing something here! Your description is... impossible. 🙋

In general, for devices and software that don't support redirect, the second workaround, I described before, is usable. While using it the link doesn't redirect (directly returns 200). For old style link you should change it to something like dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/... and for new style link - to something like dl.dropboxusercontent.com/scl/fi/...

I tested it and everything works. Don't change anything else in the links while using the second way (only the dl param may get wiped out - you don't need to change to raw). Also take care to format properly - your previous links are wrong formatted and that's why wouldn't work if you used them as you have posted them here and not a copy/paste error (on some places even TLD is missing 😜)! I cannot say anything more.

Good luck.

deco10

No i haven't done anything on my end as i mentioned. No update or whatsoever..

No, it doesn't work as the same way otherwise i wouldn't complain 😊

No it didn't redirect 302 to new url before!! Raw=1 redirects with new url that's the problem.

I use nstreamplayer which is pointing to the xml file. Nothing is changed in my end, it just stopped working Tuesday this week.

One can only think logic and if i didn't update nor change anything then it must be in the other end. Dropbox made this change this year, i Googled it. Its a pitty that Dropbox don't send any info about it before they do so..i think they just stopped the old eay this week and implemented redirect 302 tjis week

The old url structure works as the new, redirecting 302 right now. If i delete sharing the old share and create new sharing i will not get the old structure anymore. This new structure is also redirecting 302.

This problem was also several years ago when Dropbox changed it from another structure to raw

Dl is downloading the file, i don't want that.

Thanks for your input. I just hope Dropbox could help me with this further.

deco10

Perpahps i could explain it better 🙂

@Hannah @Megan

Long time ago I created a share link using dropbox API and got this url

https://www.dropbox.com/s/randomstring_foldernam/tv.xml?dl=0

I needed to change it to raw=1 so that my application(nStreamplayer could get the xml file(render):

https://www.dropbox.com/s/randomstring_foldernam/tv.xml?raw=1

my xml would look like this:

<channel>
<title><![CDATA[Test]]></title>
<playlist_url>https://www.dropbox.com/s/randomstring_foldernam/tv.xml?raw=1</playlist_url>
</channel>

Tuesday this week suddenly then link didnt work, i havent updated the TV(its on manual) and nothing is done to the app(still the same as 10 years ago).

So tried to copy this:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/randomstring_foldernam/tv.xml?raw=1

to Chrome..what happend was that Chrome opened the xml but it redirected to this url:

https://randomstring.dl.dropboxusercontent.com/cd/0/inline/randomstring/file#

and the app in tv can not redirect as chrome did. So this 302 can not have been before.

After I put my problem here in this forum i found out that Dropbox had made some changes this year, which i didnt know. So I tried this new methoed but i didnt work

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi (because i didnt have the rlkey)

so I deleted that sharing and created a new one in the dropbox application and got this format when i copied that new created sharing link, with rlkey:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/{RANDOM_STRING}/{FILENAME}?rlkey={RANDOM_STRINGfor_rlkey}&{dl=0}

in Chrome with dl=0, its opens the XML fil in chrome but you need to log in to dropbox. This doesnt work with my app.

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/RANDOM_STRING/FILENAME.xml?rlkey=RANDOM_STRING_for_rlkey&dl=0

and dl=1, it downloads the file, doesnt work with my app.

with raw=1 - works, but as the old structure it would redirect to this and wont work with my app

https://randomstring.dl.dropboxusercontent.com/cd/0/inline/randomstring/file#

I have also tried dl.dropbox.com, dl.dropboxusercontent.com with no sucess.

deco10

@Hannah @Megan
Could you please help me with this?

deco10

Is there any support here from Dropbox staff at all??!

I tried every possible way and it's not working for me.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/scl/fi/blablabla/image.jpg?dl=0&rlkey=bbbmm&raw=1
It does 302 redirect and this is n8t working for me. Why has it worked several years not anymore?

Do you have any support where i can send mail? Phone call?

Здравко

@deco10 wrote:
...
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/scl/fi/blablabla/image.jpg?dl=0&rlkey=bbbmm&raw=1
It does 302 redirect and ...

Hm..🤔 I just tried with one image and the result follows:

As you can see, no any 302 redirect. 🙋 Just 200 status code.

On other side with unchanged domain and set raw=1:

Of course, here is 302 redirect on the initial link and 200, but on the resulted temporary link. 🤷 That's it.

If you want, produce a link to small dummy image that you can invalidate once complete (to avoid traffic drain) and post it here so we see how this redirect cannot be removed (or maybe can). 🙂

deco10

The first one is downloading the file!

I have used raw=1 always.

I need redirect without the temporary url path or whatever the way ot was before last week worked fine .. What's going on Dropbox staff?? What changes did you do last week and please undo or come with solutions to my problem? Redirecting is working fine with webbrowser but as you see the url is different. Is it possible to render without redirecting to new url?

any tips to make this work?

I have tried all this methods:

<playlist_url><![CDATA[https://dl.dropbox.com/scl/fi/<token.a>/filename.xml?rlkey=<token.b>&dl=0]]></playlist_url>

</channel>

<playlist_url><![CDATA[https://dl.dropboxusercontent/scl/fi/<token.a>/filename.xml?rlkey=<token.b>&dl=0]]></playlist_url>

</channel>

<playlist_url><![CDATA[https://dl.dropbox.com/scl/fi/<token.a>/filename.xml?rlkey=<token.b>&dl=0]]></playlist_url>

</channel>

<playlist_url><![CDATA[https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/<token.a>/filename.xml?rlkey=<token.b>&dl=1]]></playlist_url>

</channel>

<playlist_url><![CDATA[https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/<token.a>/filename.xml?rlkey=<token.b>&raw=1]]></playlist_url>

</channel>

lisadbx

https://dl.dropboxusercontent/scl/fi/<token.a>/filename.xml?rlkey=<token.b> should not have any redirects. Could you try it with "" around the URL, in case it's not handling some special characters

deco10

@lisadbx
That url is downloading the file...

Why can you not see what changes you made before this occurred? I have used raw=1 until this problem occurred..

tahjdbx

Could you try using the https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/RANDOM_STRING/FILENAME.xml?rlkey=RANDOM_STRING_for_rlkey&dl=0 format link but in the sharing settings setting it to public(if you're ok with this being a publicy shareable link). This should allow the page to render without prompting a log in.

Здравко

@tahjdbx, As seems you're totally out of topic. 🤷

The issue is not that some prompt that invites for authorization comes up! The complain is about fact that is needed a link without redirect and a way to avoid 'attachment' directive in the header - something that seems missing for no redirect links while available for redirect links only. I still don't understand why at all such thing would be need, but it's matter of different topic.

Dropbox decides alone what type of directive to set on non redirect link. While for an image, for instance, is a header like:

content-disposition: inline; filename=...

... but for XML file it looks like:

content-disposition: attachment; filename=...

... and there is no way this to be changed (as far as I know) for such types of links. That's it.

Maybe the solution would be both 'attachment' and 'inline' to be dropped completely from such types of links (only filename to stay) or parameters 'raw' and 'dl' to keep matter (not to be ignored, as they are now).

Hope this clarifies the matter of issue. 😉

deco10

I have put the xml in "the tv" instead to point to the Dropbox folder. I see that the logos, jpg, is showing fine and they are using the old structure and with raw=1..i have copied the jpg:s url and tried in webbrowser.. It's redirecting as the xml file but somehow jpeg is working.. Noticed this is the same "cd/0/inline" for both files but when redirecting. I don't understand why jpeg is working but not xml files

deco10

It works somehow now 😂.. I haven't done anything. And i use raw=1..its redirecting as before but now it works..

lukaszg

hi there,

Sorry for potentially noob question but Im trying to understand this issue better.

Im struggling to understand why some of my dropbox videos can be embedded on the page and other not. Im sharing the video, generating link, changing dl=0 to raw=1 and still 50% of the videos works like this and 50% does not. Links generated are completely different and Im sure it has something to do with that. they both work on dropbox, both open in browser when copy-paste generated code but one can be embedded on toy website and one not:

example of Link whihc is not working:

removed

help!

Здравко

Wow... @lukaszg, You just find out something very interesting and stupid - all new links are no more raw!!! Hope this is some confusion and bug that will be fixed soon! Otherwise - no more new embedded links. Hope this is not something intentional by Dropbox.

The reason of inability to embed is that, as seems, all new links don't point to raw content directly (or after redirection), but to a HTML content that on its own redirects. Most of the audio/video players (including browser embedded players) cannot recognize HTML content as something that can be played and they don't expect to be redirection inside (so just they skip it).

RIP for the media links if stay so. 😯😡

Again - let's hope this is just some confusion and stupid move.

lukaszg

wow bravo me 😛

but to be honest, I spoke to Dropbox team yesterday and they seemed to be completely unaware what's the issue.

The way I made it work (and this is also how I got to your response in a first place) is by copying dropbox share code into a new browser window and than using this new link to embed on the website. I would like to know if this new link, is this some sort of preview which will expire after some time or is this a reliable link (it works on the website now but I need it to stay there forever 😄 )

so dropbox gave me this:

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/5tnvka4fke1uqxkrhbist/aaa.mp4?rlkey=nf7i5v4lbpqdgneasq046bo0f&st=91v7ciqu&dl=0

I changed dl=0 to raw=1 opened it in browser which changes it to this :

https://ucbda9a5ff06a102bcc834670f77.dl.dropboxusercontent.com/cd/0/inline/CSTBCvlwUMuWVJRjMpaMmwSPizsYlL_sQmdFZ6kwGLI2bst6ePs3rzFjwoEfBHYqpLr6_Gp1jPGo7UjarG9qtytwbpAH-Jl_l_lA0hE24z4Qk2_kAyP3a_x8bstpR6YV8rHsFEeDqzlGHP9-l-vFQoEz/file

this link work as an embed on my page but I dont know for how long?

Здравко

@lukaszg wrote:
.... I would like to know if this new link, is this some sort of preview which will expire after some time ...

If it is not changed, such links have limited validity (typically 4 hours). 🤷 So better don't rely on for long time.

The only workaround for now is Dropbox Embedder usage instead of raw link:

изображение.png

Good luck... to all of us.

PS: Oh... I forgot to notice that:

@lukaszg wrote:
...
but to be honest, I spoke to Dropbox team yesterday and they seemed to be completely unaware what's the issue.
...

Would be strange they be aware of... it's rare they to know something...

As seems broken inter-department company communication. The "specialists" there are just PR staff. 😁 Usually they know that something changed when complains start raining.

lukaszg

could you point me to this dropbox embedded please 😄

Also, side not, I just discovered chrome app Dropbox Direct Link Generator which seems to be doing the trick somehow!