Widevine L1 reportedly downgraded to L3 for some OnePlus 8T users

OnePlus is, for the most part, an enthusiast brand. A brand that predominantly appeals to tech-heads and people who generally know their stuff when it comes to technical aspects of their devices.

It is, therefore, only a matter of time before users noticed that the Widevine L1 certification on their OnePlus 8T devices is broken, leaving them with Widevine L3.

For the uninitiated, Widevine L1 is instrumental in allowing certified devices to play HD videos from various video-streaming platforms such as Amazon Prime Video and most popularly, Netflix.

Being downgraded to L3 means that while the said devices still get some level of certification and are able to stream content from said platforms, the experience is diminished.

Is there anybody else facing the same issue? Everything was working fine, and today suddenly I was unable to play HD videos in Netflix/Prime videos. When I checked my Widevine certification is L3!

I haven’t unlocked/rooted my device, it’s good as stock. I’m on 11.0.6.8
Source

MY 8T got downgraded to L3 automatically. I haven’t modified/rooted/unlocked it. It’s stock, recently updated to 11.0.6.8. After update also everything was working. Today now suddenly it’s down to L3 , can’t play HD content now.
Source

Most of these reports (1,2,3,4,5,6) are fairly recent, all pointing to the latest OxygenOS 11 update as the culprit that could have caused this downgrade from Widevine L1 to Widevine L3 for these OnePlus 8T users.

Interestingly though, there are a few users that have been facing this problem way before their devices got updated to the latest OxygenOS 11.0.6.8.

At the time of writing, it remains unclear what exactly causes this issue and when it is likely to be fixed. That said, affected users are encouraged to report this issue on OnePlus’ Feedback page.

It is also worth noting that the OnePlus 8 series of devices are facing a similar issue. The Widevine L1 downgrade to L3 was first reported for the OnePlus 8 back in May 2020 and to date, there still are reports of the same. More on that here.

We shall continue to keep an eye on this story and update as and when we get more info so stay tuned.

NOTE: We have these and many more OnePlus stories in our dedicated OnePlus section.

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