trouble shooting embedding video in a gatsby site

2019-12-18

~3 min read

569 words

Update: I found a more general embedder in the Plugin library: gatsby-remark-embedder Replacing gatsby-remark-embed-video with it worked like a charm - and, at least so far, haven’t had any issues with ordering. Here’s the PR in which I replaced it.

One of the great parts about Gatsby is its plugin ecosystem. As of this writing, there are ~1500 different plugins offering easy integrations with dozens of services and tools to build a website.

I noticed recently that one of mine, the gatsby-remark-embed-video plugin had stopped working — or maybe it never worked. Either way, I wanted to get it working, so I started with the documentation on Github.

At the time, my gatsyb-config configured gatsby-transformer-remark like so:

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    //...
    {
      resolve: `gatsby-transformer-remark`,
      options: {
        plugins: [
          {
            resolve: `gatsby-remark-prismjs`,
            options: {
              classPrefix: "language-",
              inlineCodeMarker: null,
              aliases: { bash: "zsh" },
              showLineNumbers: false,
              noInlineHighlight: false,
            },
          },
          {
            resolve: `gatsby-remark-images`,
            options: {
              maxWidth: 590,
            },
          },
          {
            resolve: `gatsby-plugin-facebook-pixel`,
            options: {
              pixelId: "pixel id here",
            },
          },
          {
            resolve: `gatsby-plugin-google-analytics`,
            options: {
              //trackingId: `ADD YOUR TRACKING ID HERE`,
            },
          },
          {
            resolve: `gatsby-remark-responsive-iframe`,
            options: {
              wrapperStyle: `margin-bottom: 1.0725rem`,
            },
          },
          {
            resolve: `gatsby-remark-embed-video`,
            options: {
              width: 800,
              ratio: 1.77,
              height: 400,
              related: false,
              noIframeBorder: true,
            },
          },
          `gatsby-remark-autolink-headers`,
          `gatsby-remark-copy-linked-files`,
          `gatsby-remark-smartypants`,
        ],
      },
    },
  ],
}

Immediately, the first issue becomes apparent.

In the docs for gatsby-remark-embed-video it says:

Note: if you also rely on gatsby-remark-responsive-iframe, you have to define the embed-youtube plugin first:
plugins: [
  "gatsby-remark-embed-video",
  "gatsby-remark-responsive-iframe"
]

My first attempt to fix was to swap gatsby-remark-embed-video and gatsby-remark-responsive-iframe:

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    //...
    {
      resolve: `gatsby-transformer-remark`,
      options: {
        plugins: [
          {
            resolve: `gatsby-remark-prismjs`,
            options: {
              classPrefix: "language-",
              inlineCodeMarker: null,
              aliases: { bash: "zsh" },
              showLineNumbers: false,
              noInlineHighlight: false,
            },
          },
          {
            resolve: `gatsby-remark-images`,
            options: {
              maxWidth: 590,
            },
          },
          {
            resolve: `gatsby-plugin-facebook-pixel`,
            options: {
              pixelId: "pixel id here",
            },
          },
          {
            resolve: `gatsby-plugin-google-analytics`,
            options: {
              //trackingId: `ADD YOUR TRACKING ID HERE`,
            },
          },
          {
            resolve: `gatsby-remark-embed-video`,
            options: {
              width: 800,
              ratio: 1.77,
              height: 400,
              related: false,
              noIframeBorder: true,
            },
          },
          {
            resolve: `gatsby-remark-responsive-iframe`,
            options: {
              wrapperStyle: `margin-bottom: 1.0725rem`,
            },
          },
          `gatsby-remark-autolink-headers`,
          `gatsby-remark-copy-linked-files`,
          `gatsby-remark-smartypants`,
        ],
      },
    },
  ],
}

Sadly, this did not work. The reason was gatsby-remark-images, which was pointed out by the Scotch.io tutorial on embedding videos in Gatsby:

See how I have used gatsby-remark-embed-video plugin before gatsby-remark-images & gatsby-remark-responsive-iframe plugins since it is the requirement.

I tried bringing the embed-video higher up the chain (and rearrange the plugins that do not have options to the top):

module.exports = {
  plugins: [
    //...
    {
      resolve: `gatsby-transformer-remark`,
      options: {
        plugins: [
          `gatsby-remark-autolink-headers`,
          `gatsby-remark-copy-linked-files`,
          `gatsby-remark-smartypants`,
          {
            // Using gatsby-remark-embed-video before gatsby-remark-images & gatsby-remark-responsive-iframe plugins.
            resolve: `gatsby-remark-embed-video`,
            options: {
              maxWidth: 800,
              ratio: 1.77,
              height: 400,
              related: false,
              noIframerder: true,
            },
          },
          {
            resolve: `gatsby-remark-prismjs`,
            options: {
              classPrefix: "language-",
              inlineCodeMarker: null,
              aliases: { bash: "zsh" },
              showLineNumbers: false,
              noInlineHighlight: false,
            },
          },
          {
            resolve: `gatsby-plugin-facebook-pixel`,
            options: {
              pixelId: "pixel id here",
            },
          },
          {
            resolve: `gatsby-plugin-google-analytics`,
            options: {
              //trackingId: `ADD YOUR TRACKING ID HERE`,
            },
          },
          {
            resolve: `gatsby-remark-images`,
            options: {
              maxWidth: 590,
            },
          },
          {
            resolve: `gatsby-remark-responsive-iframe`,
            options: {
              wrapperStyle: `margin-bottom: 1.0725rem`,
            },
          },
        ],
      },
    },
  ],
}

This did work. And now, I can embed Youtube (or other) videos easily into my website.

Hi there and thanks for reading! My name's Stephen. I live in Chicago with my wife, Kate, and dog, Finn. Want more? See about and get in touch!