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Bug 23194 - Timeout for GetUserMedia
Summary: Timeout for GetUserMedia
Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX
Alias: None
Product: WebRTC Working Group
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Media Capture and Streams (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Hardware: PC Linux
: P2 normal
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: public-media-capture@w3.org
QA Contact:
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Blocks:
 
Reported: 2013-09-10 11:07 UTC by Harald Alvestrand
Modified: 2013-09-27 12:11 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

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Description Harald Alvestrand 2013-09-10 11:07:54 UTC
Suggestion from Kiran Kumar:

After calling getUserMedia(), the pop-up for user acceptance is waiting indefinitely for user acceptance. It would be better, if that prompt gets timed out after some time, and send a negative status response to the applications (the response may be permission_denied or user_time_out error).

This proposal was initially made on the media-capture mailing list on August 29, 2013.
Comment 1 Gili 2013-09-11 05:48:17 UTC
I'd like to propose a variation of this proposal.

Instead of specifying a timeout, developers should be able to cancel a getUserMedia() call at any arbitrary time.

If we implement a mechanism similar to setInterval(), clearInterval() then users will be able to cancel after a timeout (as Kiran suggested) as well as due to external (server-driven) events. This has UX benefits.

Use-case: A user enters a video conferencing bridge. Before she grants permission to the camera, the call ends and all users are ejected from the room.

Instead of asking users to respond to a stale prompt, the server can abort the operation and notify the user that the call has ended.
Comment 2 Kiran 2013-09-11 09:09:39 UTC
The time out I proposed here, will comprise of both the cases.
1. A default timer will be started after calling getUserMedia().
2. A facility will be provided to the user to set his own timers (with some conditions for example very low or unacceptable values will be discarded).


(In reply to Gili from comment #1)
> I'd like to propose a variation of this proposal.
> 
> Instead of specifying a timeout, developers should be able to cancel a
> getUserMedia() call at any arbitrary time.
> 
> If we implement a mechanism similar to setInterval(), clearInterval() then
> users will be able to cancel after a timeout (as Kiran suggested) as well as
> due to external (server-driven) events. This has UX benefits.
> 
> Use-case: A user enters a video conferencing bridge. Before she grants
> permission to the camera, the call ends and all users are ejected from the
> room.
> 
> Instead of asking users to respond to a stale prompt, the server can abort
> the operation and notify the user that the call has ended.
Comment 3 Harald Alvestrand 2013-09-27 12:11:17 UTC
Closing as "Won't fix". No consensus to change detected.

A new bug may be opened in the future for considering whether it's possible to cancel a getUserMedia call, which would resolve this issue too, but that will not be in version 1.0.