why does firefox hate youtube?
For some reason I have always had issues loading/running youtube videos. Most of the time they play for 2 seconds freeze, I get the spinning dot and nothing loading/using bandwidth. Some times I have no issues, some times they will start playing after a few seconds, some times reloading get it to go, but a lot of time I just give up and close youtube. This has been on going for quite a while and I just go to chrome to watch youtube expecting it to be fixed, 18 months and no fix.
Here is an example, this vid will not play at all on firefox, never has https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE01dViWqAM I have to go to chrome to watch it.
All Replies (6)
Could you start by verifying that YouTube's preferred HTML5 player is supported in your Firefox?
This page displays colored boxes indicating which technologies work:
By default, the first five boxes should be blue, and the last red.
Assuming all is well there, do HTML5 videos on other sites give you similar problems? For example, this test page:
http://www.quirksmode.org/html5/tests/video.html
IMPORTANT: scroll down past the obsolete table, that is not a live test, and look for the first two players:
- H.264/MP4
- WebM
Do both of those play all the way through?
You can try to disable hardware acceleration in Firefox.
- Options/Preferences -> Advanced -> General -> Browsing: "Use hardware acceleration when available"
You need to close and restart Firefox after toggling this setting.
Tried both suggestions. vids still catch/freeze up.
Not sure whether you're commenting on this or haven't gotten around to trying it yet:
Could you start by verifying that YouTube's preferred HTML5 player is supported in your Firefox?
This page displays colored boxes indicating which technologies work:
https://www.youtube.com/html5
By default, the first five boxes should be blue, and the last red.
Assuming all is well there, do HTML5 videos on other sites give you similar problems? For example, this test page:
http://www.quirksmode.org/html5/tests/video.html
IMPORTANT: scroll down past the obsolete table, that is not a live test, and look for the first two players:Do both of those play all the way through?
- H.264/MP4
- WebM
Ya, checked all that, was fine. I'm just going to give up and go to chrome to watch youtube. I spend too much time trying to watch youtube to not go to a browser that can actually run it.
This has been an on going issue for months, I have been waiting for a fix but is has become abundantly clear there isn't one.
i5 3.0, 8 gig, Gf730, AT&T 5,5DSL. I watch movies and vids on other sites just fine, it's only youtube I have this issue with, and only 1/3 of the videos there. Ya 1 in 3 videos ether not playing or start and stopping is a PITFA.
ManStan said
Ya, checked all that, was fine.
My guess is that Firefox either is not offloading the video decoding to your graphics card drivers, which can cause high CPU use and dropped frame, or it is using your graphics adapter but there is a compatibility issue of some kind. If no updates are available -- and Windows 10 is already pretty good at finding them -- then a change on Firefox's end might be required. But it's just a guess.
Upgrade your graphics drivers to use hardware acceleration and WebGL