Hi there,

Sorry about these problems you're experiencing. I'm trying to understand this better - when you say you experience dropouts of audio, do you mean when you're playing videos on website, or are we talking about audio dropouts on your computer in general? Any specific websites where this problem occurs (that could help me identify what type of problem we're dealing with here)?

Unfortunately I don't know what you mean with streaming your audio to a server - could you clarify what that is exactly?

Thanks! - David

Hello David.

Thanks for getting back to me so quickly.

To clarify a bit, whether I am watching videos or listening to audio, it just stops all of the sudden. The sound drops out on everything. I can re-load the browser and it will fix it temporarily, but eventually it seems to drop out again without rhyme or reason.

It affects all websites, not just one specific one.

As to the streaming, what I mean is that I host an audio based program a few nights a week. I stream via icecast and through FF to the server.

When the audio drops out on the browser, it seems to drop the outgoing signal as well in many instances.

I hope this clarifies a bit.

Thanks for your time.

Hi again,

Looking at your list of plugins (the "More System Details" in the right sidebar of this page), it does look like you have multiple media-related plugins, such as RealPlayer, Flash, QuickTime. Normally when you visit Youtube.com, it uses Flash, but I'm not sure if those other plugins would interfere with it.

There is an article that walks you through the process of disabling plugins that you don't need. It might be worth trying these steps out to see if it fixes the problem: Troubleshoot issues with plugins like Flash or Java to fix common Firefox problems

Another thing you can try that is a bit more extreme is to use the Reset Firefox feature. What it does is that it removes all of your add-ons, and creates a fresh copy of the Firefox settings, but it keeps your most important data such as your bookmarks, history, passwords, and cookies. It's a bit like starting fresh again, but without losing your personal data. If this sounds something you'd be open to trying, here are the instructions: Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings

Please let me know if this solves the problem so I can tick this off of my todo list - or please let me know if you need more help and I'll get on this again to sort it out for you!

Thanks, David

Hello:

I was really trying to avoid re-setting FF if at all possible. It is sort of cumbersome to re-tool everything.

I will play around with disabling some of the add ons and see if that might help. Worst case, I suppose I have no choice but to re-set it.

I'll let you know how it goes ASAP

I updated the plugins that the checker said were in need of updating, and disabled some that were not in use.

For now, I'll say that all is well. But if something comes up, I hope that I might be able to re-open this in the future.

Thanks for all your help.

Start Firefox in Safe Mode to check if one of the extensions (Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) or if hardware acceleration is causing the problem (switch to the DEFAULT theme: Firefox/Tools > Add-ons > Appearance).

• Do NOT click the Reset button on the Safe Mode start window or otherwise make changes.

• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Safe+Mode
• https://support.mozilla.org/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes

You can check for problems with current Flash plugin versions and try these:

• disable a possible RealPlayer Browser Record Plugin extension for Firefox and update the RealPlayer if installed
• disable protected mode in Flash 11.3 and later
• disable hardware acceleration in the Flash plugin

• http://kb.mozillazine.org/Flash#Troubleshooting