Firefox hangs when opening a youtube.com video page after a few seconds
Hi,
I'm really fed up with this problem. I had this issue with Windows 8, then in 8.1 and now in Windows 10. The same happened with Geforce 470 and now with Geforce 960.
Description: - Open FF, go to youtube.com, click a video - Press play, click on video, pause it, change time of video, does not matter but seems like this makes it worse (= takes longer) - After a few seconds FF hangs totally for 5-30 seconds - Any change of window size will sometimes trigger this again
System: Windows 10 Professional 64-bit and 6 core i7 Desktop with 32GB of RAM Boot drive is Samsung EVO SSD (FF and profile folder reside in there)
This has happened with many versions of Firefox in past 1.5-2 years at least. - It now happens with latest beta (41.0b9) - It also happens with latest FF non-beta version - It used to happen with Flash videos in youtube.com - It now also happens with HTML5 videos
It's really hard see why this happens. - This does not happen with embedded youtube videos - This does not happen with any other video site - This does not happen at gaming.youtube.com - This does not happen with other browsers
I'm suspecting it has something to do with how FF "renders" youtube.com video page.
I've tried to fix it many times, using hacks such as: - Disabling/changing stuff from about:config - Using hacks I've found by searching similar issues. - Starting FF in safe mode - Disable FF hardware rendering - Cleanup cache - Doing cleanup settings using about:support / Refresh - Manually removing plugin file leftovers from profile folder - Set allow full access for FF exe files in firewall - Checked for viruses, I've got AVG free running all the time - Disabled previously mentioned virus scanner - Updated display driver - Did rollback in system restore, I had installed one software (UE4.9) but that didn't seem to cause it
These changes don't make any difference.
8 months or so ago, in Windows 8.1 after installing some earlier version of FF the problems went away. After updating to Windows 10 a month or so ago, everything worked just fine. Now that this started happening once again yesterday.
I've no idea what goes on under the hood, since I'm not a web developer, but this sucks.
When I open Tools/Webdeveloper/Performance window and start recording, then if I play youtube video (it hangs for some time) and stop recording, graph shows drop of framerate from 60 to 0-1FPS or something similar.
Windows task manager also shows that FF is in unresponsive state when this happens.
My guess It seems to me that this is just some issue how FF handles youtube.com. It's not happening just with video playback, neither was it limited to Flash only as it now happens with youtube.com pages that have HTML5 videos. I've seen many posts and threads while googling talking about similar symptoms, but none of the solutions seem to work. Either the problem is different or solutions are outdated as FF is updated and things have changed.
I might be naturally wrong, as I just don't know what causes this and I can't pinpoint the cause for this problem. I feel like I'm about to go chrome only for YT.
Any help / suggestions how to fix this are welcome!
Chosen solution
I had this exactly problem, for whatever reason the cause is the list populated in the sidebar of Youtube. It really doesn't appear that heavy duty but it causes me several delays of around 5 seconds every time a page is loaded. I tracked the lag using the Performance tab under F12 and could see 3 pauses block-waiting on Graphics.
The workaround I'm using is to install the addon "Stylish" to allow custom CSS, then use a rule to hide the long Subscriptions list from the sidebar to avoid the layout engine bothering rendering it. (I am subbed to around 250 channels)
This is my rule to use in Stylish:
@-moz-document domain("youtube.com") {
#guide-channels{
display:none !important;
}
}
I now have no noticeable delay on any YT page.
Read this answer in context 👍 5All Replies (4)
Does this happen in a new profile? It might identify if its a customization in your current profile.
This happens for me for a millisecond when I click on a time in the play controls. However it loads pretty quickly.
Hi there guigs!
Thank you for this - It didn't help at all *BUT* I noticed something.
As I made a new profile for testing purposes, it reset all settings - including logins. It seems like (I'm 100% sure actually) that when I watch youtube videos without logging to my account - video playback starts immediately, and there won't be any freezing / stopping / unresponsiveness at all ?!?
However, the moment I log into my youtube account - it's back. Does not matter if it's using completely clean profile or my old profile - the result is same.
So, it's still some Firefox issues no matter what :/. I already used Vivaldi ( Opera spin-off) for some days, and it works without problems at all with youtube.
I don't see that content of my Youtube account (500+ subscriptions) would somehow affect Firefox, as it doesn't show up as anykind of long lists / heavy pages based how google formats youtube pages.
I was also thinking about identity protection of AVG now, but disabling AVG completely doesn't seem to help. I think last time this happened I also tried uninstalling AVG an it didn't help at all.
Chosen Solution
I had this exactly problem, for whatever reason the cause is the list populated in the sidebar of Youtube. It really doesn't appear that heavy duty but it causes me several delays of around 5 seconds every time a page is loaded. I tracked the lag using the Performance tab under F12 and could see 3 pauses block-waiting on Graphics.
The workaround I'm using is to install the addon "Stylish" to allow custom CSS, then use a rule to hide the long Subscriptions list from the sidebar to avoid the layout engine bothering rendering it. (I am subbed to around 250 channels)
This is my rule to use in Stylish:
@-moz-document domain("youtube.com") {
#guide-channels{
display:none !important;
}
}
I now have no noticeable delay on any YT page.
Hi there lamiejang!
I can verify that after installing Stylish and creating script like you instructed, there is no longer delay.
Naturally I lose the channels list (actually 850+ subs) but it doesn't matter too much as it's already useless in my case.
In my opinion your finding verifies my initial suspicion that it's something to do with FF and how it renders Youtube page - so it is not just Google/YT issue.
Big thanks to you!