videos recently stopped playing on one website (load but no play)
Hello, just recently (probably after some update), video stopped playing on one website for me - vimeo.com. The video is there, it just won't "play". The pause/play button toggles, and the time strip along the bottom of the video shows that advance data is downloaded, but playing never starts. If I advance the time by clicking to a later spot in the video, it goes to the picture at that later point in the video and additional data downloaded, but just won't start "playing" it from there. It seems to be any video there (at least the few I sampled). I'm playing fine on youtube, cnn, and bbc. Can someone else check videos there? Any thoughts? For experiment, I turned off two add-ons just to check (adblock and ghostery) and no change. Flash was off and needing update which I did, and whether it's always enabled or disabled there was no change. I traditionally do not allow Flash to run at all on Firefox, and this site and the others have worked before, and this site worked just a week or two ago. (btw, I did reload the page for each experiment.) This must have started after a recent update of something. It's a Mac desktop with latest macOS Sierra and Firefox. And Safari is playing fine on this site and the others. (May 2017)
Chosen solution
I solved the problem on a hunch (below). But sorry - the above answers didn't help in this case. Something I didn't mention in the above report was that I routinely clear all history++ after leaving almost any website (which includes cookies, cache, and everything else). Just a security habit of mine!
Also, this website vimeo.com doesn't seem to require Flash (modern!), and whether I have it always-active or never-active it's no difference. And I have it back to never-activate.
Solution: The hunch I had is that I remembered setting one parm a long time ago in the "about:config" parm list - I had "media.autoplay.enabled" OFF. Setting this parm back on fixed the problem for this particular website. (It's the only parm I think I've ever set in this list - a pet-peeve of mine about auto-playing content!). It's interesting that this parm does not affect the other websites I use in this way. It's also interesting that with this parm disabled, the pause/play button still visually toggles as expected but it doesn't actually start playing the video.
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Check your Flash Player Note: Windows users should download the ActiveX for Internet Explorer. and the plugin for Plugin-based browsers (like Firefox).
Note: Windows 8 and Windows 10 have built-in flash players and Adobe will cause a conflict. Install the plugin only. Not the ActiveX.
Flash Player Version: 25.0.0.171
https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/ Direct link scans current system and browser Note: Other software is offered in the download. <Windows Only>
https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/otherversions/ Step 1: Select Operating System Step 2: Select A Version (Firefox, Win IE . . . .) Note: Other software is offered in the download. <Windows Only> +++++++++++++++++++ See if there are updates for your graphics drivers https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/upgrade-graphics-drivers-use-hardware-acceleration
miketx said
Can someone else check videos there? Any thoughts?
Did as you asked and those videos play just fine for me - Flash (and even AdBlock Plus) enabled, but : Do you by any chance have extensions installed, like Flashblock or NoScript ?
What solved this problem for some other users :
Clear the cache and cookies only from websites that cause problems.
Clear the Cache:
3-bar menu => Options => Advanced => Network => Cached Web Content : 'Clear Now'
Remove Cookies from sites causing problems:
3-bar menu => Options => Privacy => Cookies : 'Show Cookies'
Chosen Solution
I solved the problem on a hunch (below). But sorry - the above answers didn't help in this case. Something I didn't mention in the above report was that I routinely clear all history++ after leaving almost any website (which includes cookies, cache, and everything else). Just a security habit of mine!
Also, this website vimeo.com doesn't seem to require Flash (modern!), and whether I have it always-active or never-active it's no difference. And I have it back to never-activate.
Solution: The hunch I had is that I remembered setting one parm a long time ago in the "about:config" parm list - I had "media.autoplay.enabled" OFF. Setting this parm back on fixed the problem for this particular website. (It's the only parm I think I've ever set in this list - a pet-peeve of mine about auto-playing content!). It's interesting that this parm does not affect the other websites I use in this way. It's also interesting that with this parm disabled, the pause/play button still visually toggles as expected but it doesn't actually start playing the video.
By the way, in retrospect, it's possible I've never had it working on this site and I've always defaulted to Safari for this one site. But don't remember absolutely now. And my bookmarks imply that I have been using Firefox for this site before.
So glad that you've finally got things working again ! Resetting the preference in about:config may very well have done the trick, so please, remove the 'Chosen Solution' mark from my post and mark yours as such, will you ? You did a pretty good job - kudos   !