Open Bug 1782322 Opened 3 years ago Updated 3 years ago

Certain Youtube videos freeze without playing

Categories

(Core :: Audio/Video: Playback, defect, P3)

Firefox 103
defect

Tracking

()

People

(Reporter: erwinm, Unassigned)

References

Details

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.14; rv:103.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/103.0

Steps to reproduce:

I configured Firefox to block certain types of animation, and tried to watch this youtube video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZSYtd8Ldrc

Actual results:

An animated loading indicator, and no video.

Expected results:

Normal loading, once I click play.

I get the same behavior in troubleshoot mode.

Mozregression points here: https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/pushloghtml?fromchange=e5bbc662ff73fcbaa3e9654732045f4870d5ab64&tochange=ba26a5ced2ef60ae3f3a6ce1655f667351d8d1fd

Most of the listed bugs are Access Denied.

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Core::Audio/Video: Playback' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Component: Untriaged → Audio/Video: Playback
Product: Firefox → Core

A second run got the same Mozregression results. Clearing cache and relevant cookies did not work. Running the console got it to work for some reason. I still suspect trouble with rendering changes in that period.

Hi,

  1. Can you describe in detail what you meant by "I configured Firefox to block certain types of animation" and how did you do it? With that additional info, we might be better able to reproduce the issue that you see.

  2. The regression range that you saw (https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/pushloghtml?fromchange=e5bbc662ff73fcbaa3e9654732045f4870d5ab64&tochange=ba26a5ced2ef60ae3f3a6ce1655f667351d8d1fd) contains changes that are less than 1 year old. Using mozregression tool, it is possible to narrow the regression range further to a single changeset. Is it possible for you to try and do that?

Flags: needinfo?(erwinm)

It pointed here:

https://hg.mozilla.org/integration/autoland/rev/ba26a5ced2ef60ae3f3a6ce1655f667351d8d1fd

criss — Backed out changeset e2b20899353c (bug 1746907) for causing build bustages. CLOSED TREE

Given the description, I figured it was one of the immediately preceding changes.

I can;t recall all the relevant changes to Firefox. prefers-reduced-motion, image.animation_mode none, ui.caretBlinkTime 0, smooth scroll off, autoscroll off, autoplay off with about-config settings to further block it, lazy loading disabled, font and color substitutions for readability, etc. Some user css, and add-ons such as uBlock Origin, but I get the same results in Troubleshoot Mode so I doubt they're involved.

Flags: needinfo?(erwinm)

After reducing and re-expanding my Firefox window size, it works again, no idea what that would change anything.

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:jimm, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Flags: needinfo?(jmathies)
See Also: → 1683052

Marking as New given Asif's regression-range test

Status: UNCONFIRMED → NEW
Ever confirmed: true
Severity: -- → S4
Flags: needinfo?(jmathies)
Priority: -- → P3

I am also encountering this issue. It seems to occur on random videos. I haven't changed any animation settings recently and resizing the window doesn't fix it.

As an update, I have found refreshing the page several times seems to fix the issue.

An affected user in SUMO noted that changing the video quality from Auto to something else fix the problem ⇾ https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1383825#answer-1530157

Has been an annoying issue here for a long time.. certainly before updating to 103... in W10, and now W11. Random Videos, and some suggested by others often load fine, and some that refuse to start now can be fine when tried again after a while.. ( maybe 30 minutes to 1 hour or more later.).
Have tried Troubleshooting mode, safe mode, and even 105.0b4.. and the same url for the video behaves the same way in all.. Refreshing makes no difference, as I have sat trying that for 10 odd times with no effect... and now I findthe suggestion to change video quality actually works.. as in https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1383825#answer-1530157 , so it has taken about 2 years to actually find a displayed solution.

I've been hitting the behaviour described here (and in bug 1782687, and in bug 1785149) recently, with Nightly builds on Linux.

Things that help:

  • switching the video quality
  • opening the page in a Private Browsing window
  • logging out of YouTube, clearing all cookies and storage, then logging in again

Things that don't help:

  • turning off my ad blocker
  • turning off Firefox's Enhanced Tracking Protection
  • turning on autoplay for audio/video

Hello
My parents have the same issue. It happens only with their Windows 10, I am not concerned (Ubuntu 20.04).
They have updated to the last Firefox version (104.0.1), but the youtube videos aren't still played.
Issue totally random: one day the video is played, the next day the same video (with the same equipment) is not played.
What they've tried :

  • private window (instead of normal)
  • Youtube cookies deleted
  • uBlock Origin activated or not
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