Safari Hbo Max won't play

Downside here is tgat the recent change HBO made to the DRM in their player mechanism *may* have invalidated some of the older Safari compatibility despite HBOs stated level of support.

if you just updated MacOS, ensure tgat your Safari is also fully up to date. The Safari version that comes as part of the OS install is likely not the most recent version in that major code line. Safari is updated independently from MacOS from time to time, so see if you have any pending updates for Safari since your OS upgrade.

The key issue here is DRM. DRM is a delicate dance between provider, choice of delivery platform (a Google code platform behind the scenes in this case), and the browser. HBO’s app change in late October broke the balance for Safari, and it was only corrected as indicated just recently. Doesn’t mean it was fixed for every historical version though. So definitely check that you have the latest Safari you can get on HighSierra.

I too had a similar issue right after a Safari update across multiple sites - lots of them that just wouldn't work. That was corrected by re-installing Safari, which was possible using a standalone installer for Safari 14.x - apparently the "System" update method didn't quite take.

I'm on Safari 15 family for some devices, Safari 14 for others. I have not updated for a while - certainly not immediately before having the issue. I do not have auto-updates. Only HBOMax exhibits any issue - and all my computers started having the issue on the same day. So I'm still looking at HBO in this case. I haven't dug into their site/player source code yet only because of time to do a deeper analysis.

I remember it well - only because I had just finished watching Dune earlier the same day. When I came back later that evening to watch something else - boom. Nothing worked anywhere. It was also the same day I updated the HBOMax app on my iPhone. Which means HBO was doing "something" as the app description indicated that HBOMax was "improving" certain operations, in addition to bug fixes.

I'm not saying that it isn't some interaction with Safari - Safari is a significantly different code base after all. But, my contention remains that HBO did something in their app and did NOT properly test it with Safari. That doesn't make it Safari's fault, just because Apple uses a different security model in Safari than Chrome or Edge (since they are both gussied up Chromium). There are reasons we use Macs to start with, after all.

Bringing up the JavaScript Console during playback seems to indicate that there is an issue with the Codecs available and DRM being requested - DRM is filtering out all available codecs. That again says HBO changed something... Given the OP has the issue on Safari 14 Big Sur, I have it on Safari 15 Catalina and Safari 15 Big Sur.

I don't think this one is Apple's problem. All my Mac's (5) stopped working on HBOMax at the same time - different OS's, different Safari versions, and none on "auto-update" or anything.

The issue cropped up at the same time HBOMax released a new app on iPhone some days ago, which is working just fine. I suspect The HBO group was updating their player software, and something about the player software is broken with Safari.

More info. Analyzing the page source code indicates that HBOMax relies on the Google “Cast” platform for streaming. That opens the door to another possibility - tgat Google changed something in their Cast framework and code that isn’t fully compatible with Safari.

Another piece of evidence for the DRM theory... If you select a title that includes a promo for another show at the beginning, the promo plays successfully. You only get the "Can't play title" error when the actually show starts. Makes sense that there would not be DRM on the promos.

Of course not. Until they get mass complaints any standard first level support person is going to give the book answer. Typical of most any vendor support.

I need to pull out my really old MBP which as I recall is still Mojave and test there too. It’s a high enough Safari to be “supported”. If that one also doesn’t work, time to work escalations at HBO. Also time to go the cancellation route. Money gets noticed after awhile.

I had this same problem so I reluctantly downloaded Google Chrome (which I had deleted from my MacBook Air a while ago because it was too buggy and problem-ridden) and I can play HBO Max movies on it, but I would really, really rather use Safari, so I hope someone comes up with a fix for this.

I have the same issue. I also can't load xfinity Stream through Safari, but can through Chrome (and any other browser). So it's definitely an issue with the new version of Safari.

Same here. I even updated Safari since HBO listed my version of Safari as the last one accepted. Then I updated MacOS to see if that was part of the issue. It wasn’t. Definitely Apple’s problem. Safari allows for picture-in-picture for one, so urgently need a fix.

Should be fixed now. HBOMAX confirmed it was a DRM issue and it was fixed with version 50.60 of the desktop platform, released yesterday. I have confirmed it now works in Safari 15.1 running on MacOS 11.6.1.

Confirmed - I had installed Safari 15.1 last night on one computer and it was working, but hadn't yet attempted on the 15.0 before I saw this post update.

I am now also good across multiple Safari and MacOS versions.

My HBO+ worked fine through October 24 and hasn't played since October 25th. Still "Can't Play Title".

My 2011 iMac iOS was Sierra 10.12.6 , still HFS+ ... I just updated to the APFS iOS High Sierra and updated all security apps and also Safari. Cleared cache.

STILL "Can't Play Title" . . High Sierra is the last OS upgrade available for my machine.

I disagree. It happened right after the safari update and for more than one site. It wasn’t a few days ago that it started.