Video playback awful after most recent update. Switching to Chrome.
My FireFox just updated after closing and reopening it, and the videos would play, as in there'd be sound and the progress bar would be moving, but the picture would be black. I got an extension to enable switching between Flash and HTML5, but at best it just makes the playback really choppy and having to stop every 3 or so seconds, for about 2 seconds at a time, making videos unwatchable.
And no, this isn't a problem with my computer. The videos were working just fine this morning, literally just before the update, and had these problems afterward. Videos play fine on both IE and Chrome, which I just downloaded (had been using it off and on). When IE outperforms a browser in something, you know there's a problem. It is absolutely not my computer's problem since I'm enjoying the normal video playback that I was before, only on Chrome. With internet speeds of 20 Ping, 92.96 Mbps download, and 15.82 Mbps upload, I know it's not suddenly my connection. The videos are playing choppier on FireFox than when I had 8 Mbps download speed and about 0.1 Mbps upload.
I don't wanna go through a whole lot of rigamarole to get something to work, when I now have a perfectly working browser in the form of Chrome. I'm just gonna wait for FireFox to get its s*** together, and fix something that IT broke. I'm perfectly fine not using it until then. I'm not gonna put myself through tons of hassle for problems that FireFox itself has caused. This is just to maybe bring it to their attention that this is an issue that's occurring, and if I sound a bit annoyed, this is more civil than I originally felt.
All Replies (5)
Wouldn't play correctly* My bad.
Hello ShinkuNoYami,
Why is it that so many people immediately blame Firefox when something goes wrong ?
The problems you're dealing with just might be caused by one of your extensions, so (if you're willing) let's try Firefox in Safe Mode, to see if maybe one of your extensions (or something else) could be causing this :
If Firefox is not running : Hold down the Shift key when starting Firefox.
If Firefox is running : 3-bar menu => ' ? ' (at the bottom of the dropdown) => 'Restart with Add-ons disabled'. Then OK the restart. A small dialog should appear. Click 'Start in Safe Mode' ( not 'Refresh' !)
See : https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-issues-using-safe-mode
Hi ShinkuNoYami, is this problem primarily with YouTube videos?
Firefox 63 enabled support for Google VP9 encoding and some users have reported that it really hammers their CPU, making it unusable on some systems. Unfortunately, I am not aware of a Firefox setting to disable VP9, but I read about an add-on that somehow coaxes YouTube into giving you an H.264/MP4 stream. You could experiment with that if you want to let us know whether VP9 is the issue:
I don't have any extensions on FireFox, aside from the one to let me switch from Flash to HTML5, which upgraded from a black screen to a screen that freezes every 3 seconds. This wasn't the result of any changes I made, because I didn't make any changes. I closed FireFox, and when I went to open it, it went through an update process. When the updates were done and FireFox opened, suddenly the videos were having problems. I watch videos all day, as YouTube is my form of entertainment and also my job. They definitely weren't running like this before the update.
So, it has nothing to do with my extensions because I didn't add any extra extensions, or have any to begin with. And it's not my computer because videos play perfectly fine on IE and Chrome. If the problem was with YouTube or my computer, then the videos wouldn't be playing smoothly on those browsers either. I was able to watch a live stream on Chrome with no issues as well.
The issue isn't just with YouTube vids, but it's where I watch them the most. I was thinking of maybe removing FireFox and downloading a previous version, but I was having a hard time finding the one I might want. I mean for now I can just watch videos on Chrome, since it doesn't have any of my sites saved like FF does. I just can't watch vids on FF, which is what I do most of the time lol.
But yeah it was only after the update. I'd been watching Chilled with his Shellshock Live playlist all morning, and FireFox updated at around noon, and only then were the vids choppy (or rather, completely black until I downloaded that extension to enable both Flash and HTML5). It's never been nearly that bad, except on maybe our first ever computer back in 2005. Now our internet's better than it's ever been, and it reflects when I watch videos on Chrome, or on my phone. I had a feeling something with the update wasn't agreeing with either the computer or YouTube. I mean, I'm not a computer wiz, but it doesn't take an IQ of 159 to be like "They were working seconds ago before the update, and now don't work after the update" xD
And this isn't even a "I'm giving up on FireFox" thread. I mean yeah I was annoyed by a botched update, but I only said I'm switching to Chrome, because if I wanna watch videos, I have to. I'm fine with waiting until it's fixed by either using Chrome or an older version of FireFox. As it stands, this update screwed the pooch, at least for me and other users.
YouTube no longer supports Flash, so I suggest removing that extension and trying the other one I mentioned.