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Hello! I've recently been having some issues getting videos to play in the background from Firefox's audio notification media player feature. I very frequently use YouTube in the Firefox browser so that I can then exit the browser and still play the audio of a video via the media player, but last night that media player stopped working for me. When I close the Firefox app, I still get the notification as usual, but tapping the "play" button achieves absolutely nothing. I've tried to search the issue and test some fixes myself, but nothing has worked so far. The fixes I've tried include:

• Activated "Allow video and audio" in the Firefox Autoplay setting
• Made sure autoplay was allowed in the YouTube browser tab
• Tried to play the audio while connected to wi-fi and while on data
• Checked for updates to my phone, YouTube, and Firefox (I am up to date)
• Deployed the old "turn it off and turn it back on again" fix, both in Firefox (closing all tabs and re-opening), and for my phone (shut it down and restarted it).

None of the settings for the media player or general notifications for Firefox seem to govern this issue, so I'm bringing it here. Thank you for taking the time to read through all of this. Please let me know if you have any suggestions for me! (I've included a photo of the notification bar for extra reference)

I am using Firefox on android and since the most recent update the app will no longer let me play videos in the background, in another tab or with the screen locked.

Здравствуйте, у меня звуки из браузера перестали воспроизводиться сначала на 1 мониторе(со 2го воспроизводились), а затем и со 2го. Остальные приложения выводят звук исправно. Что делать? Спасибо

Any kind of video playback is taking so much time and even if it is playing the video playback is not smooth at all. I have disabled all the extensions, deleted the cookies, using the latest version still things are working the same.

Context

While playing YouTube videos in Firefox, intermittent crackling appears after a few minutes of playback. This report documents detailed testing that demonstrates the issue is not related to the DAC, USB interface, or system hardware, and is exclusive to Firefox.

2. System Configuration

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X @ 43 °C

RAM: 64 GB DDR4 dual-channel (16-20-20-38 @ 1572 MHz)

Motherboard: ASRock X570 Phantom Gaming 4 (AM4) @ 54 °C

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3050 (audio drivers disabled, audio hardware off)

Monitors: LG HDR WFHD 2560x1080@60Hz and IPS236 1920x1080@60Hz

Storage: Multiple SSD and HDD SATA drives (500 GB – 2 TB)

Audio: Realtek High Definition Audio disabled; iFi nano/UNO DAC connected via USB with power filtering, using Exclusive Mode / ASIO

3. Tests Performed 3.1 DAC and USB Validation

Continuous playback of PCM 384 kHz/24‑bit and DSD256 via Roon/ASIO.

Duration: over 25 minutes of uninterrupted DSD256 playback.

Result: no crackling, pops, or errors.

Conclusion: DAC, firmware, USB cables, ports, and power supply are fully operational; heavy data load does not cause errors.

3.2 Browser Comparison

Chrome (YouTube, identical conditions): continuous playback without crackling.

Firefox (YouTube, identical conditions): crackling progressively appears minutes into playback, temporarily disappearing when the video is paused.

3.3 Isolation of Variables

USB motherboard ports and original drivers fully tested.

GPU audio drivers and hardware disabled.

Windows Shared Mode off, Exclusive Mode enabled.

Predefined audio formats set according to DAC preferences.

USB power management disabled.

DAC temperature stable; no overheating observed.

4. Technical Conclusion

Hardware: DAC, USB, cables, power, firmware, and GPU are not the cause of the crackling.

Operating System: Windows 11 is correctly configured; Exclusive Mode / ASIO works without errors.

Browser: Firefox is the only element consistently reproducing the issue.

Most Likely Cause: Firefox’s buffer management and audio sandboxing interacting with Windows, causing intermittent interruptions in audio flow.

Summary: All hardware and OS factors have been tested and validated: DAC, USB, cables, power supply, firmware, GPU, and temperature do not produce crackling. The only consistent factor is Firefox, making this a software-bound issue.

Engineering Note: This diagnosis conclusively demonstrates that the intermittent audio crackling on YouTube is caused exclusively by Firefox on Windows 11, independent of DAC or USB hardware. The issue should be investigated at the browser level, specifically how Firefox handles continuous digital audio streams and buffers on Windows.

In Firefox, I have audio and video autoplay blocked globally, and added an exception for one particular website (Discord). However, Discord now only autoplays videos once, but doesn't loop them as it should (they implemented GIFs as videos, but now they don't loop).

Of course this could be interpreted as a bug in Discord's web client. However, there shouldn't be a difference between a website that got an exception and autoplay being globally allowed. Therefore i suspect that there is a bug in firefox where some property, state, or hint is set differently depending on whether a page has been added to exceptions or autoplay is allowed globally.

Is there anything i can do to work around this? I really want an autoplay exception to actually work as expected (the website doesn't need to know that it's special)