SourceBuffer: abort() method

Limited availability

This feature is not Baseline because it does not work in some of the most widely-used browsers.

Note: This feature is available in Dedicated Web Workers.

The abort() method of the SourceBuffer interface aborts the current segment and resets the segment parser.

Syntax

js
abort()

Parameters

None.

Return value

None (undefined).

Exceptions

InvalidStateError DOMException

Thrown if the MediaSource.readyState property of the parent media source is not equal to open, or this SourceBuffer has been removed from the MediaSource.

Examples

The spec description of abort() is somewhat confusing — consider for example step 1 of reset parser state. The MSE API is fully asynchronous, but this step seems to suggest a synchronous (blocking) operation, which doesn't make sense.

Saying that, current implementations can be useful in certain situations, when you want to stop the current append (or whatever) operation occurring on a source buffer, and then immediately start performing operations on it again. For example, consider this code:

js
sourceBuffer.addEventListener("updateend", (ev) => {
  // ...
});

sourceBuffer.appendBuffer(buf);

Let's say that after the call to appendBuffer BUT before the updateend event fires (i.e. a buffer is being appended but the operation has not yet completed) a user "scrubs" the video seeking to a new point in time. In this case you would want to manually call abort() on the source buffer to stop the decoding of the current buffer, then fetch and append the newly requested segment that relates to the current new position of the video.

Specifications

Specification
Media Source Extensions™
# dom-sourcebuffer-abort

Browser compatibility

Report problems with this compatibility data on GitHub
desktopmobile
Chrome
Edge
Firefox
Opera
Safari
Chrome Android
Firefox for Android
Opera Android
Safari on iOS
Samsung Internet
WebView Android
WebView on iOS
abort
Available in workers
Experimental

Legend

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Full support
Full support
Partial support
Partial support
No support
No support
Experimental. Expect behavior to change in the future.

See also