Firefox won't play youtube
Sometimes when I'm working on Firefox and watching youtube, the video will load but won't play. I've tried restarting firefox multiple times, but in the end I have to restart my whole computer in order for it to work. I've already tried refreshing Firefox and starting it in safe mode when this happens, but on occasion that doesn't fix it. I've also attempted to look and see if all of my plugins are up to date, but when I click on the web page to do so, I'm only getting the message "Congratulations! You are using the latest version of Firefox" which doesn't tell me if I'm lacking any updates. What can I check, update, or do to fix this problem as it's making Firefox almost unusable for me.
Chosen solution
Try disabling graphics hardware acceleration in Firefox. Since this feature was added to Firefox it has gradually improved but there are still a few glitches.
You will need to restart Firefox for this to take effect so save all work first (e.g., mail you are composing, online documents you're editing, etc.,) and then perform these steps:
In Firefox 54 and below:
- Click the menu button
and select Options (Windows) or Preferences (Mac, Linux).
- Select the Advanced panel and the General tab.
- Uncheck Use hardware acceleration when available.
- Close Firefox completely and then restart Firefox to see if the problem persists.
In Firefox 55 and above:
- Click the menu button and select Options (Windows) or Preferences (Mac, Linux).
- Select the General panel.
- Under Performance, uncheck Use recommended performance settings. Additional settings will be displayed.
- Uncheck Use hardware acceleration when available.
- Close Firefox completely and then restart Firefox to see if the problem persists.
Did this fix your problems? Please report back to us!
If the problem is resolved, you should check for updates for your graphics driver by following the steps mentioned in these Knowledge base articles:
Thank you.
Read this answer in context 👍 0All Replies (3)
Chosen Solution
Try disabling graphics hardware acceleration in Firefox. Since this feature was added to Firefox it has gradually improved but there are still a few glitches.
You will need to restart Firefox for this to take effect so save all work first (e.g., mail you are composing, online documents you're editing, etc.,) and then perform these steps:
In Firefox 54 and below:
- Click the menu button and select Options (Windows) or Preferences (Mac, Linux).
- Select the Advanced panel and the General tab.
- Uncheck Use hardware acceleration when available.
- Close Firefox completely and then restart Firefox to see if the problem persists.
In Firefox 55 and above:
- Click the menu button and select Options (Windows) or Preferences (Mac, Linux).
- Select the General panel.
- Under Performance, uncheck Use recommended performance settings. Additional settings will be displayed.
- Uncheck Use hardware acceleration when available.
- Close Firefox completely and then restart Firefox to see if the problem persists.
Did this fix your problems? Please report back to us!
If the problem is resolved, you should check for updates for your graphics driver by following the steps mentioned in these Knowledge base articles:
Thank you.
Having to restart Windows makes me think something Firefox sent to the system for decoding crashed or froze a Media Foundation component. But I'm not sure how to diagnose that...
At the time this happens, does your YouTube HTML5 test page show a checkmark for all formats?
If you temporarily disable Firefox from playing H.264/MP4 video, can you play other formats offered by YouTube on most videos (such as WebM)? Note: this is just for the situation and not very useful as a general setting...
(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful.
(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste mp4 and pause while the list is filtered
(3) Double-click the media.mediasource.mp4.enabled preference to switch the value from true to false
(4) Double-click the media.mp4.enabled preference to switch the value from true to false
Then reload the video page bypassing the cache (Ctrl+Shift+r) and see whether Google re-detects video compatibility and offers a working format. Any difference?
Did you try to reboot the computer?