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Youtube videos starting with a delay and shockware player crashing constantly

  • 9 replies
  • 45 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by mox386

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Hey, as the title says youtube videos start with a delay of about 10-12 seconds, and no it's not my internet's fault and it's not loading just doesn't start for ~12seconds or if the page is refreshed(then it starts immediatly). And this happens very randomly for some time 1/2 of the videos can start fine and then 3-5 in a row will have that 12second period.

And the second issue which i also noticed some other people have is shockware plugin crashing on a regular basis. And all this started today, before that it was all ok and today the troubles started.

The shockware plugin was crashing so constantly i tried updating flash player(didn't help), deleting and reinstalling(didn't help). I tried safe mode still youtube freezing and plugin crasher were there, updated my GPU drivers(no effect), disabled hardware acceleration(no visible effect)

So i downgraded to flash player 10.3 plugin crashes became more rare but youtube problem is still there, extremely frustrating. And no such thing happening in Chrome, but i don't want to ditch Firefox as i've been using it since 2007.

Hey, as the title says youtube videos start with a delay of about 10-12 seconds, and no it's not my internet's fault and it's not loading just doesn't start for ~12seconds or if the page is refreshed(then it starts immediatly). And this happens very randomly for some time 1/2 of the videos can start fine and then 3-5 in a row will have that 12second period. And the second issue which i also noticed some other people have is shockware plugin crashing on a regular basis. And all this started today, before that it was all ok and today the troubles started. The shockware plugin was crashing so constantly i tried updating flash player(didn't help), deleting and reinstalling(didn't help). I tried safe mode still youtube freezing and plugin crasher were there, updated my GPU drivers(no effect), disabled hardware acceleration(no visible effect) So i downgraded to flash player 10.3 plugin crashes became more rare but youtube problem is still there, extremely frustrating. And no such thing happening in Chrome, but i don't want to ditch Firefox as i've been using it since 2007.

All Replies (9)

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Exactly the same problem here, too. Plus, I sometimes don't get the re-size boxes and remove annotations button in the YouTube player window :(

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Same thing here. I noticed it maybe a day or two ago. 'Could have been going on for a bit longer though, maybe not.

It's not my system.. I'm on a Core i&, fast gfx card, lotsa gigs 'a RAM, 55Mbit net connection.

Youtube vids used to start playing right away after clicking on a thumbnail. Now it sits there and doesn't even start sending the video code until about 5 seconds after I click. (I run a video 'catcher' to download videos direct, and it pops up a little icon as soon as it recognizes a video stream - and even it doesn't pop up until about 5 secs after now too.. so the actual stream is being delayed about 5 seconds).

I can't remember doing a Flash update recently on this computer... but what else could it be?

Note: This lag problem DOES NOT happen with IE.

EDIT: Changing resolution in youTube also does not take effect immediately with Firefox anymore. (it does with IE though) So this seems to be a firefox issue. Initially I thought it to be an issue with a new version of Flash.

Modified by z0diac

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Anyone know why this is happening? As I said, Internet Explorer loads YouTube vids instantly. Firefox has a long delay (and long delay when jumping around in the video using the slider, and long delay when changing resolution)

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I am unable to sensibly view more and more video content. Example, IMDB.com (trailers), youtube amongst others.

IMDB : Picture freezes from the outset but sound starts. YouTube : same as above, plus it can freeze up my whole browser, and yes, plug-in crash issue.

I've been a FF only user for many years now, but unfortunately this is becoming such an issue it is time to say goodbye and start using another browser.

Yes, I'll keep my eye out to see if this gets 'reliably' fixed ... but at the moment it just impractical to carry on.

I notice noone from Mozilla has replied to this thread yet ? Maybe a sign that times are changing, and an indicator that Mozilla isn't what it used to be ? :(

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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 the Flash plugin (Flash 11.3+ on Windows Vista and later)
  • disable hardware acceleration in the Flash plugin
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Thanks Co-el,

but, please understand this....

Playing video content in the year 2013, is what I would call a minimum basic requirement of any browser I use. I mean seriously !?!?? Let me clarify that, I expect my browser to just 'do it'. Greedy ? Maybe. But when othe browsers 'just do it' ... what is my motivation for farting around to get FF to do the basics ?

Do I want to spend hours adjusting settings, reading forums, investigating, experimenting, farting about for hours on end ? Unfortunately not.

Also consider, not only an hour maybe to troll through the links you gave, but also an hour for the 'fixes' to Microsoft Office, another hour to work out why my photos won't upload to ebay in FF but they will with IE .

... it's not just 'a few minutes' for 1 fix, but a few minutes for each of dozens of endless fixes for endless number of incompetent providers.

I've had enough of putting MY time into fixing OTHER PEOPLE's products. Who makes the money out of this arrangement ? Who should 'I' sort the shit out for other people's profit  ?

Modified by simonB2013

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FIREFOX DOES NOT PLAY VIDEOS ALL BY ITSELF, unless the video is in HTML 5 video format! And some HTML5 video content which is encoded in a proprietary format may need the help of a Plugin, too.

Firefox relies upon Plugins [made by 3rd parties] to play audio / video content on webpages. The format used by the website isn't decided by Mozilla.

If you are having a problem, you're going to have to do the "heavy lifting" to get that problem fixed. As far as "profit" goes, Firefox is a free application and will always be free - it costs you nothing, except your time.

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Dear the-edmeister,

I appreciate what you are saying about how FF works and 3rd Party Plug-ins.

I am just saying, that the net result of that, is that FF no longer does the basics of a browser .... unless the end user spends hours fixing it.

For me, that's just too high a cost, maybe those without jobs and families to look after will feel differently.


As for Profit ... yes Moz if a non-profit ... but people I assume still get wages for doing work in the company ? If not I'd be interested to understand why they do all work otherwise. .. especially when the product doesn't even work at the end of it all.

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I'm convinced that this problem is a result of the constant upgrading by mozilla of firefox. It's gone from version 10-25 in 1 year. Somebody needs to be kicked off the team, this is idiotic and smells like there's a rat in here.