Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

Firefox 43 - Netflix - Silverlight not recognized, not working.

  • 4 replies
  • 3 have this problem
  • 7 views
  • Last reply by turnipleaf

turnipleaf
turnipleaf
more options

Using Windows 7 64-bit SP1. Using Firefox 43 32-bit.

After upgrading to Firefox 43 Netflix does not recognize Silverlight and forces playback in built-in HTML5 player. HTML5 player uses 90% cpu and is, therefore, unusable. Tried usual solutions: clear cache etc; uninstall, reinstall Silverlight; restart. Silverlight still not recognized or working. Tried Microsoft test site. Says Silverlight is installed and working. Tried Netflix in Internet Explorer. Siverlight is working.

I need one of two solutions: (1) working Silverlight; or (2) usable HTML5 player with moderate CPU usage.

Thank you.

Using Windows 7 64-bit SP1. Using Firefox 43 32-bit. After upgrading to Firefox 43 Netflix does not recognize Silverlight and forces playback in built-in HTML5 player. HTML5 player uses 90% cpu and is, therefore, unusable. Tried usual solutions: clear cache etc; uninstall, reinstall Silverlight; restart. Silverlight still not recognized or working. Tried Microsoft test site. Says Silverlight is installed and working. Tried Netflix in Internet Explorer. Siverlight is working. I need one of two solutions: (1) working Silverlight; or (2) usable HTML5 player with moderate CPU usage. Thank you.

Chosen solution

Thank you. Changing user-agent string could work, but I don't want change the headers.

Bottom line from my point of view: Silverlight cannot be used in Firefox 43 with Netflix. The change was not documented or communicated in the release notes on December 15. The blog announcements listed above were released on December 17 and only state that HTML5 playback is available, which is different from saying that Silverlight is unavailable.

My time has been wasted for stupid reasons.

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (4)

the-edmeister
the-edmeister
  • Moderator
more options

Posted to the web yesterday: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2015/12/17/firefox-users-can-now-watch-netflix-html5-video-on-windows/

http://techblog.netflix.com/2015/12/html5-video-is-now-supported-in-firefox.html

http://blogs.adobe.com/primetime/2015/12/netflix-html5-on-firefox/

Not sure if that is automatic and the user has no choice now to use Silverlight, so you may want to contact Netflix to see if there is a user configurable setting for your account @ Netflix.

turnipleaf
turnipleaf Question owner
more options

Thank you for the links.

I spoke with Netflix agent. Silverlight available in Firefox 42 and lower. Not available in Firefox 43 and higher. No user choice.

In [Account > Playback Settings] I switched from high data usage to low data usage. It helped but not enough. The decrease in CPU usage was mostly in the plug-in process; i.e. the Adobe Content Decryption Module. Not much decrease in the main Firefox process.

If anyone has a solution please post.

cor-el
cor-el
  • Moderator
  • Top 10 Contributor
more options

You can try to override the user agent to show a Firefox 42 version for the Netflix website.

turnipleaf
turnipleaf Question owner
more options

Chosen Solution

Thank you. Changing user-agent string could work, but I don't want change the headers.

Bottom line from my point of view: Silverlight cannot be used in Firefox 43 with Netflix. The change was not documented or communicated in the release notes on December 15. The blog announcements listed above were released on December 17 and only state that HTML5 playback is available, which is different from saying that Silverlight is unavailable.

My time has been wasted for stupid reasons.