1080 Youtube videos freezing, in Chromium they play fine
I have issues with playing HD 1080 Youtube videos on my desktop PC, in Firefox. 1920/1080@60 - the image freezes virtually immediately, the audio continues. (in "stats for nerds" I see growing number for "dropped frames). 1920/1080@25 - the image will freeze after some 5 - 10 seconds. the 1920/1080@24 plays fine, although seems to be not that smooth as in Chromium. codec: vp9
I have to reiterate - they all play fine in Chromium. (In Chromium, only few frames are dropped here and there, when resizing to or back from fullscreen)
I believe I tried all the available tips and tricks that can be found in this and other forums Like starting in Safe mode (same issue), disabling add-ons (same issue ), clearing cache&cookies, .. restart .... etc.
My configuration: Intel Pentium CPU G645 @ 2.90GHz x 2, 4GB RAM, Graphics: Intel Sandybridge Desktop x86/MMX/SSE2, OS type: 32-bit, Firefox Quantum 57.0.3, Ubuntu 16.04 LTS
Looks like Firefox could be more HW hungry ? Or should I definitely be able to play HD videos with that HW config in FF too ? What could be the problem then ? Re-installing the OS to 64bit ?
Modified by romino
Chosen solution
Well, that was only a workaround - to set to stop playing VP9 codec videos, and play the other type instead.
Now I have the real solution - I reinstalled Ubuntu from 32bit to 64bit, and vp9 videos in Firefox work like a charm !!! Even the 60 FPS, nice and smoothly !!
Omg, I should have done it in the first place (I'm even asking that question in my original post >> "Re-installing the OS to 64bit ? ") .. instead of waisting so much time fiddling around.
Hope this will help someone
Read this answer in context 👍 2All Replies (6)
Well, I launched "System Monitor" on my PC, when playing the videos in FF. "Web Content" Process uses 55 - 60% of CPU in average. With all the rest of the processes, definitely no more than 70% in total.
When using Chromium, some other process is using most of the CPU, so called "chromium browser --type renderer... " etc., and it uses much less - it varies between 20 to 45%, mostly ~30% (while "Web Content" is only at around 6%). Total CPU usage no more than 50%, mostly ~40%.
Could this be the reason for the "working" vs. "not working" youtube video playing ?
... and , in that System Monitor, I see there is tab "Resources", clicking on it > graph "CPU History". And there, the curve is definitely hitting top 100% when the image gets stuck (actually, 2 curves, CPU1 and CPU2).
When using Chromium, this gets to only around max. 80%. Well, seems to be clear now.
Please : go to the Firefox 3 Bar Menu --> Options --> Privacy & Security panel and under Permissions check (put a tick in the box) the setting to Prevent Accessibility Services from accessing your browser.
Monitor in Task Manager. Should stay below 2 gigs. If excessive then do below and monitor and change if need to...Test and go up again , go back down, it will eventually get a zone you and it can live with.
Go to the 3 Bar Menu then Options --> General --> Performance and untick everything. change the recommended size lower then see how it runs. Note: 1 = No Multiprocessor = slow again. Try 2 Restart Firefox after making these changes please.
Note : Hardware Acceleration is for Video so monitor for tearing or turn it back on.
Please let us know if this solved your issue or if need further assistance.
Thank you for your response. However, it does not solve my issue. Either with "Prevent Accessibility..." enabled, or with the "Hardware acceleration..." disabled ... or enabled but with value process limit "1" only .... still no change whatsoever. (and after each change I restarted FF)
Simply, graph for CPU goes to 100% - and the picture stops, the audio continues. After few seconds the CPU drops to low values, video continues to play for a second or two .. CPU jumps up to 100% again , video freezes.. and so on.
Seems that I fixed it. In "about:config", I listed the "media.mediasource". 4 items appears in the list. I had them all "true". I only changed the "media.mediasource.webm.enabled" to False, restarted the youtube video and now it plays OK. I noticed in the "stats for nerds" for that video, that now the codec is: avc1.640028. Not vp9 anymore ! And the CPU is on lower levels, of course.
And the other way around: if I set that item back to True, refresh the tab with the youtube video, codec vp9 is back, and the video will freeze immediately. The resolution stays 1080 all the time, no change there. Interesting, Chromium plays this vp9 codec fine ...
Modified by romino
Chosen Solution
Well, that was only a workaround - to set to stop playing VP9 codec videos, and play the other type instead.
Now I have the real solution - I reinstalled Ubuntu from 32bit to 64bit, and vp9 videos in Firefox work like a charm !!! Even the 60 FPS, nice and smoothly !!
Omg, I should have done it in the first place (I'm even asking that question in my original post >> "Re-installing the OS to 64bit ? ") .. instead of waisting so much time fiddling around.
Hope this will help someone