1233335 - Update to Firefox 43 (Linux, 64bit) breaks HTML 5 Video player

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1233429

(Core :: Audio/Video: Playback, defect)

Description

[joey23]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/38.0
Build ID: 20151214153240

Steps to reproduce:

After updating to Firefox 43, HTML 5 videos could no longer be played. I am using the 64bit Linux Firefox version provided by mozilla.com under Fedora Linux 23 64bit, unpacked to /usr/local and manually updated by running /usr/local/firefox/firefox as root (only to update Firefox manually via "Help" --> "About Firefox").

The Adobe flash player is also installed, but usually disabled via about:plugins.


Actual results:

HTML 5 (VP9) videos didn't play. On Youtube, the message "an error occurred. please try again later" was displayed.

I can rule out that this is a Youtube bug because the HTML 5/VP 9 videos were played by Google Chrome and by Firefox 38.5.0 on a different Linux installation (Mageia 5 with the Firefox-ESR shipped by the Mageia project) on the same machine. Also, when I right-click on the Youtube error message and chose "about HTML 5 video player", the Youtube site that appears claims that my browser was able to play HTML 5 videos.

After running Firefox 43, Firefox 38.5.0 on the affected Linux installation and the affected user profile didn't play HTML 5/VP9 videos as well. The only way to get Firefox 38.5.0 to play HTML 5 videos again was to delete my firefox profile and restore a backup.

The bug also appeared on other sites that have HTML 5/VP 9 videos like tagesschau.de


Expected results:

HTML 5/VP9 videos should have been played

Comment 1

[joey23]

Some additional information: I have created a new user account under the affected Fedora 23 installation and run Firefox 43 under that new user account. With a newly created Firefox profile, the HTML 5 video player works fine.

The Firefox profile that I am using under my normal user account is pretty old. I have a lot of passwords for forums etc. stored under that account (I use a different cryptic password for each site) that I can't export via the sync mechanism since the sync meachanism doesn't work no matter what I try. Also, I have made a significant number of changes in about:config to disable most of the new features introduced to Firefox in the last year or so (I don't want pocket, I don't want Hello, I like the old search field like it was etc.). Starting with a new firefox profile would mean a hell lot of work that I would like to avoid.

Comment 2

[Gingerbread Man]

(In reply to joey23 from comment #1)
> With a newly created Firefox profile, the HTML 5 video player works fine.
> Starting with a new firefox profile would mean a hell lot of work
> that I would like to avoid.

The Refresh Firefox feature preserves personal data like passwords and bookmarks.
https://support.mozilla.org/kb/refresh-firefox-reset-add-ons-and-settings

You can alternatively copy files manually between profiles.
https://support.mozilla.org/kb/recovering-important-data-from-an-old-profile

> Also, I have made a significant number of changes in about:config

In the future, you may want to separate your important preferences from the rest using either of the following methods.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/User.js_file
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Locking_preferences

Comment 3

[Jean-Yves Avenard [:jya]]

(In reply to joey23 from comment #0)
> Expected results:
> 
> HTML 5/VP9 videos should have been played

please provide a link to a video not playing.
Please attach the output of about:support

You must have set a pref that disabled something and I'm hoping it won't be hard to reset.

Comment 4

[joey23]

Attachment: Output from about:support as requested in comment #3

This is the output of about:support made under Firefox ESR 38.5.0 before running Firefox 43.

Comment 5

[joey23]

I have posted the requested output of about:support as an attachment.

Not a single Youtube video was playing with disabled flash plugin.
One of the videos that I've tried to watch was
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpdoERohqbo

Comment 6

[Jean-Yves Avenard [:jya]]

hmmmm I see nothing that could cause VP9 to not play.

Can you try setting media.fragmented-mp4.ffmpeg.enabled to false ?

which version of ffmpeg do you have installed?

FFmpeg will be used over libvpx if it supports VP9 ; maybe the issue is something to do with your version of ffmpeg. Try to upgrade to the latest 2.8.5

Thank you

Comment 7

[joey23]

I've toggled media.fragmented-mp4.ffmpeg.enabled to false with no effect.

I've installed ffmpeg 2.8.3 from rpmfusion-updates-testing. There is no newer release of ffmpeg available on ffmpeg.org. I don't think that my version of ffmpeg is the problem here. As I've mentioned before, I have created a new Linux user account and run Firefox 43 under that account. There is no problem with VP9 videos on Youtube under that user account. I don't have any problem playing VP9 videos with the HTML 5 video player on Firefox ESR 38.5.0 or the Firefox version shipped by the Fedora project which is currently still 42.

I remember that I was struggling to get the HTML 5 video player running early this year because of the severe security issues with the flash player.

Comment 8

[dolphinoracle]

html5 playback in youtube also not working with Firefox 44 on MX-15 (debian jessie based)

in our case, changing media.fragmented-mp4.ffmpeg.enabled to false does enabled html5 playback at youtube, but only at Standard Def.  HD is not available.

Forcing playback thru flash does produce HD content.

about:support

Application Basics
------------------

Name: Firefox
Version: 43.0
Build ID: 20151208100201
Update Channel: release
User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:43.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/43.0
Multiprocess Windows: 0/1 (default: false)
Safe Mode: false

Crash Reports for the Last 3 Days
---------------------------------

All Crash Reports

Extensions
----------

Graphics
--------

Adapter Description: VMware, Inc. -- Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.5, 256 bits)
Asynchronous Pan/Zoom: none
Device ID: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.5, 256 bits)
Driver Version: 3.0 Mesa 10.3.2
GPU Accelerated Windows: 0/1 Basic (OMTC)
Supports Hardware H264 Decoding: No;
Vendor ID: VMware, Inc.
WebGL Renderer: VMware, Inc. -- Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.5, 256 bits)
windowLayerManagerRemote: true
AzureCanvasBackend: cairo
AzureContentBackend: cairo
AzureFallbackCanvasBackend: none
AzureSkiaAccelerated: 0
CairoUseXRender: 1

Important Modified Preferences
------------------------------

browser.cache.disk.capacity: 358400
browser.cache.disk.filesystem_reported: 1
browser.cache.disk.smart_size.first_run: false
browser.cache.frecency_experiment: 3
browser.download.importedFromSqlite: true
browser.places.smartBookmarksVersion: 7
browser.sessionstore.upgradeBackup.latestBuildID: 20151208100201
browser.startup.homepage_override.buildID: 20151208100201
browser.startup.homepage_override.mstone: 43.0
dom.apps.reset-permissions: true
dom.mozApps.used: true
extensions.lastAppVersion: 43.0
gfx.crash-guard.glcontext.appVersion: 43.0
gfx.crash-guard.glcontext.deviceID: Gallium 0.4 on llvmpipe (LLVM 3.5, 256 bits)
gfx.crash-guard.glcontext.driverVersion: 3.0 Mesa 10.3.2
gfx.crash-guard.status.glcontext: 2
media.gmp-gmpopenh264.abi: x86_64-gcc3
media.gmp-gmpopenh264.lastUpdate: 1450445766
media.gmp-gmpopenh264.version: 1.5.1
media.gmp-manager.buildID: 20151208100201
media.gmp-manager.lastCheck: 1450445764
network.cookie.prefsMigrated: true
network.predictor.cleaned-up: true
places.database.lastMaintenance: 1450454991
places.history.expiration.transient_current_max_pages: 19548
plugin.disable_full_page_plugin_for_types: application/pdf
plugin.importedState: true
privacy.sanitize.migrateFx3Prefs: true
storage.vacuum.last.index: 0
storage.vacuum.last.places.sqlite: 1450454991

Important Locked Preferences
----------------------------

JavaScript
----------

Incremental GC: true

Accessibility
-------------

Activated: false
Prevent Accessibility: 0

Library Versions
----------------

NSPR
Expected minimum version: 4.10.10
Version in use: 4.10.10

NSS
Expected minimum version: 3.20.1 Basic ECC
Version in use: 3.20.1 Basic ECC

NSSSMIME
Expected minimum version: 3.20.1 Basic ECC
Version in use: 3.20.1 Basic ECC

NSSSSL
Expected minimum version: 3.20.1 Basic ECC
Version in use: 3.20.1 Basic ECC

NSSUTIL
Expected minimum version: 3.20.1
Version in use: 3.20.1

Experimental Features
---------------------

Sandbox
-------

Seccomp-BPF (System Call Filtering): true
Seccomp Thread Synchronization: true
User Namespaces: true
Media Plugin Sandboxing: true

Comment 9

[Jean-Yves Avenard [:jya]]

So far of all the report stating that html5 didn't work all were reported as fixed once they used a clean profile. So you should try that too

Comment 10

[dolphinoracle]

(In reply to Jean-Yves Avenard [:jya] from comment #9)
> So far of all the report stating that html5 didn't work all were reported as
> fixed once they used a clean profile. So you should try that too

digging a little deeper, the distribution in question had a distribution.ini file that contained these values.

media.gmp-gmpopenh264.abi: x86_64-gcc3
media.gmp-gmpopenh264.lastUpdate: 1450445766
media.gmp-gmpopenh264.version: 1.5.1
media.gmp-manager.buildID: 20151208100201
media.gmp-manager.lastCheck: 1450445764

commenting out those values did the trick without making a new profile.

Comment 11

[dolphinoracle]

(In reply to dolphinoracle from comment #10)
> (In reply to Jean-Yves Avenard [:jya] from comment #9)
> > So far of all the report stating that html5 didn't work all were reported as
> > fixed once they used a clean profile. So you should try that too
> 
> digging a little deeper, the distribution in question had a distribution.ini
> file that contained these values.
> 
> media.gmp-gmpopenh264.abi: x86_64-gcc3
> media.gmp-gmpopenh264.lastUpdate: 1450445766
> media.gmp-gmpopenh264.version: 1.5.1
> media.gmp-manager.buildID: 20151208100201
> media.gmp-manager.lastCheck: 1450445764
> 
> commenting out those values did the trick without making a new profile.

whoops, that actually is not the right set of values.  copy and paste went haywire.  Here is the set I commented out here.

#media.mediasource.enabled=true
#media.mediasource.webm.enabled=true
#media.fragmented-mp4.ffmpeg.enabled=true
#media.fragmented-mp4.gmp.enabled=true
#media.fragmented-mp4.exposed=true

Comment 12

[Jean-Yves Avenard [:jya]]

Mid-air conflict:
Interesting. My guess is that media.fragmented-mp4.gmp.enabled is also set to true. Something you do not want

So it's that. Re-enable the other media pref, in particular the new MSE pref. This is what we enable adaptative HD streaming with YouTube

Comment 13

[dolphinoracle]

(In reply to Jean-Yves Avenard [:jya] from comment #12)
> Mid-air conflict:
> Interesting. My guess is that media.fragmented-mp4.gmp.enabled is also set
> to true. Something you do not want
> 
> So it's that. Re-enable the other media pref, in particular the new MSE
> pref. This is what we enable adaptative HD streaming with YouTube

aha!  very good.  yes by default media.fragmented-mp4.gmp.enabled = false.  the distribution.ini was overriding it!  Good.  Now I know the whys!  Thanks.

Comment 14

[Anurag Goyal]

Attachment: ff.txt

This is an issue on Max OSX 10.6.8(yes I use old version even now).
see about:support info for details.

I have always enabled webm previously to supposedly save on bandwidth. {list of flags enabled in attachment}

Comment 15

[Anurag Goyal]

Adding to above note:
media.mediasource.webm.enabled is set to true.
Which was all that was needed for VP9 to work in previous releases.

Comment 16

[Jean-Yves Avenard [:jya]]

(In reply to anuragg from comment #14)
> Created attachment 8700308 [details]
> ff.txt
> 
> This is an issue on Max OSX 10.6.8(yes I use old version even now).
> see about:support info for details.
> 
> I have always enabled webm previously to supposedly save on bandwidth. {list
> of flags enabled in attachment}

Please open a new bug.. This is about Linux..
Thank you

Comment 17

[Anurag Goyal]

Opened https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1233970 for OSX. Thx.