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Vimeo Videos Autostart Problems - doesn't load until clicked

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I have a website that has a vimeo hosted video on it. It loads fine in all other browsers but somehow the autostart seems to stall in Firefox. You can see the loading bar on the bottom and when you actually click into the video frame, it starts pretty quick.

The video only has that problem in FF and I have had several people check on it. On some computers it works just fine in others like my clients and my own, the video takes up to 30 seconds to load unless you click in the frame.

The url is esmartnow.com Vimeo has walked my client to update everything in his browser settings to make sure he has everything enabled but no better result.

I have a website that has a vimeo hosted video on it. It loads fine in all other browsers but somehow the autostart seems to stall in Firefox. You can see the loading bar on the bottom and when you actually click into the video frame, it starts pretty quick. The video only has that problem in FF and I have had several people check on it. On some computers it works just fine in others like my clients and my own, the video takes up to 30 seconds to load unless you click in the frame. The url is esmartnow.com Vimeo has walked my client to update everything in his browser settings to make sure he has everything enabled but no better result.

All Replies (8)

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Mine takes a while to start, maybe more like 10 seconds.

Are you getting the native HTML5 player, or the fallback Flash player? You can check on the embedded page by right-clicking the video:

http://player.vimeo.com/video/75971599?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0&api=1&autoplay=1&player_id=video1

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It looks like I'm getting the flash player. The funny thing is that when I use the old embed code for the flash object, it loads fast as well. The site needs to be mobile optimized so flash is not an option plus it's not a supported way to embed videos anymore.

How would I force the html5 player as a fallback, if that's what you think is the problem?

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The code in the iframe uses browser detection. For me, the script inserts a <video> tag (Flash is used as a fallback if JavaScript is disabled). I'm not sure why yours works differently.

<div id="player" class="player">
  <noscript>
    <object id=flash-object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="100%" height="100%" data="...">
      <param name=flashvars value="...">
      <param name=movie value="...">
      <param name=allowfullscreen value=true>
      <param name=allowscriptaccess value=always>
      <param name=wmode value=opaque>
      <param name=quality value=high>
      <param name=scalemode value=noscale>
      <div class=fallback>
        <iframe src="..." frameborder=0 title="Player Fallback Message"></iframe>
      </div>
    </object>
  </noscript>
  <div class="video-wrapper">
    <div data-thumb="..." class="video">
      <div style="background: none repeat scroll 0% 0% rgb(255, 0, 0);" class="flideo">
        <video poster="" src="..." preload="" x-webkit-airplay="allow"></video>
      </div>
    </div>
  </div>
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Hi J, thanks for your reply. Does that mean there might be a way to control what the fallback would be and make it work that way? By the way, the vimeo video is now here: http://esmartnow.com/test-vimeo/

What is the code above? Are you saying I should try this one instead? Sorry, I'm not a video person... Thanks.

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Note that you can also use code by this (add the type and the URL as a data attribute to the object tag; Firefox doesn't use the movie parameter).

<object width="1120" height="630" id="video1" data="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=75971599&amp;force_embed=1&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=0&amp;show_byline=0&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=00adef&amp;fullscreen=1&amp;api=1&amp;autoplay=1&amp;player_id=video1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash">
<param name="allowfullscreen" value="true" /><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always" />
<param name="movie"  value="http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=75971599&amp;force_embed=1&amp;server=vimeo.com&amp;show_title=0&amp;show_byline=0&amp;show_portrait=0&amp;color=00adef&amp;fullscreen=1&amp;api=1&amp;autoplay=1&amp;player_id=video1" />
</object> 

I get the Flash player as well in your initial example.

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Oh... it's an MP4 video. Starting in Firefox 21, the browser will attempt to play MP4 video using libraries available in the OS; on Windows Vista and higher, that would be the "Windows Media Foundation". This article describes that in more detail: HTML5 audio and video in Firefox ("Patented Media" section).

Maybe Vimeo is checking for MP4 support in its script? Have you disabled it in about:config? You could check here:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the filter box, type or paste media and pause while the list is filtered

(3) If media.windows-media-foundation.enabled is bolded and user set to false, you can switch back to the default value of true by double-clicking it. Not sure whether this takes effect immediately when you reload the tab you were in or whether you need to restart Firefox before it takes effect.

Note that some users turn this off so they can download MPEG media without Firefox trying to play it. Therefore, you can't count on a particular user having a particular setting...

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It is enabled on mine. But maybe you are going in the right direction. Are you saying that if we use a different format, we might not have that problem? And if so, which one would you recommend?

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Hi Jewel123, consider WebM as a very cross-browser compatible and less patent-encumbered format/codec.