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video is constantly jerky on every website

  • 4 replies
  • 90 have this problem
  • 14 views
  • Last reply by palatino

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Within the last few days I have noticed that video on every single website is constantly playing poorly. The motion is perpetually jerky, stilted, and choppy EXCEPT when I play the video in full screen and then it plays perfectly. Also, only the visual portion of the videos are affected, not the audio. This problem only exists for me on Firefox. I have tried other browsers where the same videos played without issue.

I have tried re-installing Flash, turning off hardware acceleration, changing refresh rates, and a host of other fixes I have found online via Google searches. I have never experienced this issue before and was dismayed when nearly every situation even remotely like this that I found was dated to last year or earlier as I had presumed that others may currently having the same issue.

I have not added any new add-ons or plug-ins recently to my knowledge and I am the only one to use this computer (MBP). Any recent changes would be attributed to various updates that would have happened as I make sure that all things are kept up to date as much as possible. I would really rather not have to use Safari every time I wish to watch a video online.

Within the last few days I have noticed that video on every single website is constantly playing poorly. The motion is perpetually jerky, stilted, and choppy EXCEPT when I play the video in full screen and then it plays perfectly. Also, only the visual portion of the videos are affected, not the audio. This problem only exists for me on Firefox. I have tried other browsers where the same videos played without issue. I have tried re-installing Flash, turning off hardware acceleration, changing refresh rates, and a host of other fixes I have found online via Google searches. I have never experienced this issue before and was dismayed when nearly every situation even remotely like this that I found was dated to last year or earlier as I had presumed that others may currently having the same issue. I have not added any new add-ons or plug-ins recently to my knowledge and I am the only one to use this computer (MBP). Any recent changes would be attributed to various updates that would have happened as I make sure that all things are kept up to date as much as possible. I would really rather not have to use Safari every time I wish to watch a video online.

All Replies (4)

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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).

To Enable SafeMode

  • You can open Firefox 4.0+ in Safe Mode by holding the Shift key when you open the Firefox desktop or Start menu shortcut.
  • Or open the Help menu and click on the Restart with Add-ons Disabled... menu item while Firefox is running.

FirefoxSafeMode

Once you get the pop-up, just select "'Start in Safe Mode" Safe Mode Fx 15 - Win

If it works in Safe Mode and in normal mode with all extensions (Tools > Add-ons > Extensions) disabled then try to find which extension is causing it by enabling one extension at a time until the problem reappears.

Close and restart Firefox after each change via "Firefox > Exit" (Windows: Firefox/File > Exit; Mac: "Firefox > Quit Firefox"; Linux: "Firefox/File > Quit")

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This was already among the results I had found using Google. Running Firefox in Safe Mode revealed that video playback could occur correctly on any website as presented on the page without going into fullscreen viewing, but of course does not solve a thing.

Turning off each add-on, deactivating each plugin, switching out of the main theme, etc. has taken several hours and never revealed what has suddenly become the issue. I don't mess around with my settings, yet it seems something has automatically changed what I had set or I wouldn't have this problem currently.

I'm still unsure as to the cause, but I'm not happy that this happened and I wish that updates would leave my current settings alone so I wouldn't have to hunt down something that I otherwise wouldn't have wasted so much time doing. For example, today's exercise alone has taken me over 5 hours to do. I don't expect too many people would even have the patience to do what I did.

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Hi, I am currently working on a mid-2013 RBMP (13") and I have exactly the same problem: every single video on firefox is jerky and this is true only when the video is not in fullscreen mode. As soon as I switch to fullscreen the problem disappears and everything goes smoothly. Audio is instead smooth both w/ and w/o fullscreen. The problem is present only on firefox, other browsers work fine with exactly the same videos.

Furthermore I'd like to add that I also find the scrolling to be a little jerky, it is not a major issue and it can be hardly noticed but if I compare the perfomance with safari I can see the difference.


I have tried every single troubleshooting method I have found: safe-mode, hardware acceleration, plug-ins, add-ons, reinstall, reset, etc. etc. Everything! Nothing works, it still is a problem and I can't seem to find any solution.

I really hate this because I love firefox and its flexibility but I usually watch a lot of videos and this is resulting in a really big problem.

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Google shows: Results for "Video is slow, choppy in Firefox 27" About 1,530,000 results (0.68 seconds)

So obviously this is a huge problem reported by hundreds of thousands of Firefox users, and STILL, 5+ years after these horrendous video playback issues emerged in Firefox, Mozilla is still advising people to screw around with their Add-Ins, instead of providing a solution that fixes the problem, or at least providing a clear and prominently posted explanation for what the problem is and why Mozilla can't seem to fix it.

If it that Adobe is foisting a forced and undisclosed HTML 5 option on us ? If so, how do we block that?

Or is it that we have to back down to Adobe Flash 10.3 because Adobe screwed up Flash and won't admit it or correct the Flash problem?

Surely Mozilla knows the answer. Why doesn't Mozilla own up to the problem and either fix it in Firefox, or if that is not possible because of the dependence on Flash, at least tell us what the workarounds are and their limitations.

Mozilla should be sending us bulletins disclosing these things without making us play "200 Questions" or "Find the needle in the haystack" on these user forums.

Mozilla has our browser registrations; they know how to reach us. How hard could it be to send out a tech support message advising us how to fix a problem that renders Firefox unusable for viewing online videos? Again, this is a well-known problem that's been going on for years, at least since about Firefox 13, is memory serves.

Does anybody have a rational explanation why Mozilla continues to ignore all the users with legitimate complaints that the Firefox browser is useless for viewing online video?