Flash video stops and starts but audio continues
Flash videos freeze momentarily then fast forward/catch up while the audio continues to play without a problem. Interestingly, I noticed on one video it freezes at the same spot (about 27-28 seconds in) each time I try it.
I'm using Win XP with FF 13 but the problem has been going on for about a month (ie under FF12 as well). The problem also occurs under IE which makes me believe that Adobe Flash is the culprit (I also tested Quicktime videos and they worked fine). Flash video seems to work fine under Win7 (rarely freezes) and Ubuntu.
I looked through similar questions (see below) and did find one thing that works but it is only a temporary fix for me. One person had HTML5 problems and had to opt out on Youtube. I did the opposite - I opted in and the videos worked fine. However, I like to stick on private browsing which would require me to 'opt in' each time I go to Youtube. Additionally, I encounter the same problem on other sites with flash video and they don't have an HTML5 option.
I have tried uninstalling/reinstalling flash, starting FF in safe mode, turning off my firewall and I my internet speed is fine (15Mbps down). I thought it could be my video card but videos on my computer play fine as did the quicktime video. I'm at a loss.
Note: Similar questions have been asked Videos (flash) freezes every few minutes for a few seconds but audio continues fine and html5 videos: video periodically freezes while audio continues to play. Firefox 12, Linux, Centos 5 up to date but none of the suggested solution worked for me except the above mentioned HTML5.
Modified by xtend
All Replies (11)
hello, it looks like there was a bug going on, but according to the mozilla qa team it has already been fixed with the final release of firefox 13 - if it isn't working for you, please comment at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/928677
Can you verify that is the correct link? The link goes to: "Youtube, Netflix, and other sites continue playing audio after the tab is closed" which isn't really my problem (audio stops a moment or two after closing the tab and I don't have to restart FF to stop the audio). I also updated to FF13 yesterday and it the problem persisted.
I also noticed that I do not have the problem at work on an XP machine with same addons in FF. Flash is v11,1,102,62 (at home I think I have the most updated: 11.2.202.235). I updated the XP machine at work to the latest flash and it still seems to work fine.
I did post to the link on the assumption it is being used as a consolidated topic for Flash and FF13 but it doesn't seem exactly related to my issue.
Does it help if you "Disable the hardware acceleration" in the Flash Player?
See also:
Flash "Display settings" window:
I will test it when I get home today and let you know if any of those work for me. Thanks for the help.
Have you tried updating your Flash Player?
cor-el: Thanks for the tips but none worked. I even updated my graphics driver (NVidia) to no avail.
B-Dubs - Yes, I did update Flash Player.
The computer I'm getting this on is about 7 years old (1 gig of RAM) but everything else still works fine on it (including other streaming video format such as quicktime and video on the hard drive plays fine too).
Also, the video problem also occurs on InternetExplorer so it is either a Flash problem or my computer is wearing out and can't handle streaming Flash video.
I may have isolated the problem! I just tried some flash videos on other sites (eg dailymotion, vimeo, and blip.tv). They worked fine. The problem seems to be isolated to Youtube's videos.
Now if I only knew why Flash on Youtube acts differently...
Edit: see later comment - the other sites also acted up the following day.
Modified by xtend
Clear the cache and the cookies from sites that cause problems.
"Clear the Cache":
- Tools > Options > Advanced > Network > Offline Storage (Cache): "Clear Now"
"Remove Cookies" from sites causing problems:
- Tools > Options > Privacy > Cookies: "Show Cookies"
I tried clearing the cache - I don't have cookies (I use the private browsing setting). I also noticed that vimeo was acting up when I tried looking at some videos on it today - no idea why it worked yesterday. Youtube has been consistently problematic.
hello, adobe has just released another (major) flash upgrade, can you try first to remove your current version from the windows control panel & then install 11.3: http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/
I tried to the update (uninstall and reinstall) but no luck. I noticed that the sound is also skipping. Beats me - it may just be that the new flash versions require more resources than the computer can provide (1024 MB (ie 1Gig) DDR RAM and 512 L2 Cache AMD 64 athlon, NVidia GeForce 6600 graphics w/ most recent driver, NVidia Nforce4 chipset).