527781 - Embedded video causes Firefox to not respond; not just YouTube

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(External Software Affecting Firefox Graveyard :: Flash (Adobe), defect)

Description

[Jeremy]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.15) Gecko/2009101601 Firefox/3.0.15 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.15) Gecko/2009101601 Firefox/3.0.15 (.NET CLR 3.5.30729)

I have repeated this problem 5-6 times with the current build of Firefox (3.15) and the last previous build.
Embedded players cause FF to stop responding. 
I have verified this with Youtube and Amazon video player.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Find an embedded video
2. If it's Youtube (or autoplay on page load), do nothing, the browser will stop
3. If it's Amazon or whatever, and requires you to hit the play button, hit play
Actual Results:  
The browser hangs and does nothing except that the little loading circle sits there. If you give it a VERY long time it might automatically shut down. 
Trying to close the window takes another 1-3 minutes.
Otherwise you have to open the Task Manager to exit anywhere close to immediately.

Expected Results:  
Play video.

I did this with the last version of Firefox a few times, then upgraded to 3.15 and it does it either way.

Comment 1

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

What version of flash are you running? I occasionally notice very short hang (1 sec or so), but only rarely. Does it happen in a new profile? http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Managing+profiles?s=profile

Comment 2

[Jeremy]

Here are some websites that cause Firefox to freeze:
Any youtube video
http://www.amazon.com/Under-Dome-Novel-Stephen-King/dp/1439148503/ (Play any)
http://www.hulu.com/watch/106763/v-pilot#s-p1-so-i0

Comment 3

[Jeremy]

Those are not all flash videos, anyway, but I just updated Flash Player before trying the above sites.

The only thing new I have done to this computer since the last time I watched embedded videos (Saturday Nov 7) is install updates for Win7.

Comment 4

[Ria Klaassen (not reading all bugmail)]

I see a similar hang, but only the first time of the day I start a flash movie. In my case it is probably due to an ineffective driver (is my bet).

Comment 5

[Stephen]

I have exactly the same problem, I have a brand new laptop, 2 weeks old, came preinstalled with Windows 7, I have installed the latest version of Firefox and whenever I go to a website with an imbedded video that automatically starts playing, firefox will hang. If the video requires you to press play everything is fine until you press it, then it hangs after a few seconds.
My initial thought was it's something to do with Flash, I have tried reinstalling flash and changing some flash settings such as disabling Hardware Acceleration to no avail. I have also confirmed that it ALSO hangs IE on the same webpages!

Comment 6

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Is the video just not playing for a short time, then it starts? Can you use other parts of the OS (ie, open the start menu)? Can you use other parts of the browser?

Comment 7

[Stephen]

(In reply to comment #6)
Only the browser hangs, it completely hangs, you can't click on anything in the browser window, the video never starts, though it does appear to start buffering before the hang and only actually hangs at the moment of starting to display the video. 
Windows carries on fine, if you start clicking in the browser eventually windows will say Firefox has stopped responding and ask if I want to kill it, wait or have windows search for a solution (which just closes it).
The exact same thing happens with IE on the same pages with video. I think it has to be either a Win7 problem or a Flash problem. Flash is 32bit and Win7 is 64bit, so maybe there's something wrong with windows handling of it.

Comment 8

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

It could be a flash issue. 32bit wouldn't have anything to do with it, because that only applies to the browser. Firefox is only 32bit on windows right now, so it can only use a 32bit plugin (which is all ther si right now). same with IE, although there is a 64bit version, which does not have a stable flash plugin atm. CC'ing cliss.

Comment 9

[Jeremy]

I have upgraded to 3.5.5. I'm not sure why, but FF did not tell me that there were upgrades past 3.15 or 3.2 (I forget). I had to go and manually install 3.55.
I still have the same issues. Still Windows 7.

Comment 10

[Jeremy]

I uninstalled all Adobe 10 flash components, restarted, and re-installed them.
So far, video is working.

Comment 11

[Stephen]

As I was having the same problem with Firefox AND Internet Explorer I
downloaded Google Chrome and video works on that no problem, so at least I have
a workaround for when I need to view video for the moment. 
This also would indicate that Windows 7 itself is not the problem.

I think I just did a reinstall of Flash, I'll do a complete uninstall, reboot and reinstall same as you did and see what happens. It will have to wait till this evening (Australian time) as I'm at work at the moment.

Comment 12

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Internet Explorer use a different flash plugin than firefox and Chrome, which share the same one. So your reproducibility is bringing up more issues :)

Comment 13

[Charles]

Possible a bad install or corrupt Local Shared Object?  I have not seen any way to reproduce this in house.  Is there a version number of Flash Player that this happens on.  Flash Player 10 has various updates so we need a specific version number.

Comment 14

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Is this still happening with Firefox 3.6.2 or later and flash 10.0 r45 or later?

Comment 15

[Jeremy]

Not AFAICT. 
There are still times when video won't play occasionally, but *usually* uninstalling and reinstalling browser plus Flash (newest versions) fixes it.

And about 2/week my computer locks up when the _only_ thing open is Firefox with multiple tabs. (Has happened maybe 20+ times). I can't identify which tab is causing that issue, assuming it is Firefox at all and not something in the background.

Comment 16

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Well, whole system hangs aren't the fault of firefox, they have to be caused by something like drivers, firewall, etc. Make sure windows is 100% updated too.

Comment 17

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Reporter, are you still seeing this issue with Firefox 4.0.1 or later in safe mode or a fresh profile? If not, please close. These links can help you in your testing.
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Safe+Mode
http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles

Comment 18

[Jeremy]

It still happens sometimes, but it's Flash, not Firefox (and not restricted to YouTube). The most common problem in YouTube is any VEVO music video not playing at all--those work less than 25% of the time.
But I have this problem across all browsers. It crops up no matter how often I update Adobe Flash and my browsers (IE, Chrome, Firefox).

Comment 19

[smadayag]

@jeremy - try updating your video drivers.  there are times when fixes are rolled out by video partners.  but, if you happen to have a laptop or other device which the makers roll out drivers...  it may take longer for them to release it.

Comment 20

[jfuhring]

I had a very similar problem when I last updated FF.  I am using Vista and have never had a problem playing videos before this latest FF update.  I checked the operation of YouTube videos played on Chrome and IE and they continued to work just fine.  I updated everything I could possibly think of, but to no avail.  I wasted hours of (unhappy) time on this.  Finally I reverted to my OS to a week ago.  After an hour, my computer was finally ready with the older version of FF now operating.  Videos play normally, no hangups and everything is fine except I am extremely reluctant to allow FF to do the latest update.
To tell the truth, I was ready to drop FF over this, but I really like some of the features of FF so I reverted to the older version.

Comment 21

[smadayag]

@jfuhring you may want to start a new bug and specify which version of firefox you are upgrading from and upgrading to.  this bug is much older and was reported in FF3.5-3.6 timeframe...

Comment 22

[Benjamin Smedberg]

I'm closing a lot of bugs which are filed as Adobe Flash bugs which are either irrelevant, not actionable, or not serious enough to track in the Mozilla bug tracker. For the most part, Flash bugs should be filed in Adobe bugbase, and we'll only track a few highly-critical issues in the Mozilla tracker.