Safari "Location" and "Autoplay" settings failure

Question

Safari "Location" and "Autoplay" settings failure

I did a hd wipe and clean install of big sur on my late 2014 macbook pro, hoping that the website preferences settings for autoplay and location in safari would finally start to do what they're supposed to do. They still don't.

My biggest frustrations are with "locations" and "autoplay".

I set "locations" for all websites to "deny" but the settings never "stick"; websites still nag for my location, and the only way to stop this is to disable location services in system preferences/security privacy which unfortunately disables the feature in apps where I would LIKE to be located.

As for "autoplay", I set it to "deny" for all websites, which again doesn't "stick"; websites play media at will and many also prevent me from changing them individually via "settings for this website".

Any advice on how to fix this would be appreciated.

Thanks, Ron

MacBook Pro 13″, macOS 11.2

Posted on Mar 6, 2021 7:53 PM

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Answer 1

dominic23

Level 10

83,916 points

Mar 7, 2021 6:28 AM in response to frog's breakfast

Try one more time.

Visit the site a user wants to disable video autoplay.

2 Click Safari in the Safari menu bar and choose “Settings for This Website”

3. Click inside the drop-down box next to Auto-Play and choose “Never Auto-Play.

Video should stop playing automatically.

If the user wants to play the video, hit the play button.

For Location, choose "Ask" instead of "Deny"

For details:

https://support.apple.com/guide/safari/stop-autoplay-videos-ibrw29c6ecf8/mac

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Answer 2

Mar 11, 2021 8:26 PM in response to frog's breakfast

I found the following which solved my problem (for permanently defeating autoplay, at least):

Close Safari

Go to system settings/security and privacy/ and look for the full disk access tab.

Click the + sign and add Terminal, placing a check beside it to give Terminal full disk access.

Close system preferences and open Terminal

Paste the following in Terminal: defaults write com.apple.Safari IncludeInternalDebugMenu 1

Hit enter, then close terminal once the command has run.

Open Safari. There should now be an additional menu item: Debug

Click the Debug menu and select "Media Flags"

In the submenu check "Disallow Inline Video"

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Answer 3

Mar 7, 2021 8:27 AM in response to dominic23

Thanks, I've done what's suggested, but as indicated in original post, whatever is changed in autoplay does not "stick" or stay set the way I want it. When "setting for this website" is changed, the video does stop playing at that instant, but if the website is reloaded, or returned to later, the "setting for this website" changes, in most cases to "stop media with sound". I'm looking for a way to permanently deny playing of media... both with and without sound.

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Safari "Location" and "Autoplay" settings failure

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