HLS variant is missing the RESOLUTION attribute
Without RESOLUTION a player cannot avoid downloading a rendition larger than the screen can show.
What it means
An EXT-X-STREAM-INF tag omits RESOLUTION, so the master playlist does not say how large each variant is.
Why it matters
Players cap resolution to the display. Without the attribute they cannot, so a phone may pull a 1080p rendition it will immediately scale down — burning the viewer’s data and battery for no visible benefit, and pushing them into a rebuffer that a smaller rendition would have avoided.
How to fix it
- Add RESOLUTION=WIDTHxHEIGHT to every video variant.
- Audio-only renditions legitimately omit it; those are declared with EXT-X-MEDIA instead.
Check your own stream
The free HLS analyzer runs this check on every analysis and links each finding straight back here.
Open the HLS analyzer →Frequently asked questions
- What does "HLS variant is missing the RESOLUTION attribute" mean?
- An EXT-X-STREAM-INF tag omits RESOLUTION, so the master playlist does not say how large each variant is.
- Why does it matter?
- Players cap resolution to the display. Without the attribute they cannot, so a phone may pull a 1080p rendition it will immediately scale down — burning the viewer’s data and battery for no visible benefit, and pushing them into a rebuffer that a smaller rendition would have avoided.
- How do I fix it?
- 1. Add RESOLUTION=WIDTHxHEIGHT to every video variant. 2. Audio-only renditions legitimately omit it; those are declared with EXT-X-MEDIA instead.
- How do I check an HLS playlist for this automatically?
- Paste the master or media playlist URL into the free HLS analyzer. It runs this check on every analysis alongside the ladder, timing and live-edge audits, and links each finding back to the page that explains it.
- What is the first thing to try?
- Add RESOLUTION=WIDTHxHEIGHT to every video variant.
Related HLS checks
- HLS ladder has a bitrate inversionA lower-resolution variant is allocated more bandwidth than a higher-resolution one, so adaptive switching picks the wrong rendition.
- HLS variant is missing the CODECS attributeWithout CODECS, players must download a segment before they can tell whether they can play the rendition at all.
- HLS variant references an undeclared rendition groupA variant points at an AUDIO or SUBTITLES group that has no matching EXT-X-MEDIA entry, which breaks playback on strict players.
- HLS segment is longer than EXT-X-TARGETDURATIONA segment rounds to more than the declared target duration, which violates the HLS specification.
- HLS live window is shorter than three target durationsThe playlist holds too little content, so any player that falls slightly behind runs off the end of the window.
- HLS playlist has no EXT-X-PROGRAM-DATE-TIMEWithout program date-time the stream cannot be mapped to wall-clock time, which breaks DVR seeking and multi-stream alignment.