1799308 - Video hanging on first frame and not loading on Windows

Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME

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

Description

[ch1902a]

Attachment: about_support.txt

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:106.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/106.0

Steps to reproduce:

1. Navigate to youtube.com
2. Click on any link to a video player, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gQ2oZjGFNU
3. Click the play button

Actual results:

Only the first frame of the video loads, the progress bar continues downloading the video and makes it about half way and then stops, the video doesn't play, eventually the message "If playback doesn't begin shortly, try restarting your device" appears.

On navigating away from the page, either via the reload button or following an external link, the video plays a few more frames until the whole page unloads and is replaced with the new page.

This example uses youtube, however the same issue occurs with various video players on many different websites. Some video players do work, however, the test video at https://test-videos.co.uk/vids/bigbuckbunny/mp4/h264/1080/Big_Buck_Bunny_1080_10s_1MB.mp4 plays, as do tumblr videos.

This has only been a problem with Firefox and only since at least FF103. Chrome and Edge on the same system are unaffected. I have tried starting in Troubleshoot Mode, a fresh profile, a fresh install of the developer and nightly editions, updating installed video codecs and media packs, and toggling some about:config flags as suggested by others on reddit. None of that has fixed the problem.

I have attatched my about:support details and the system details are:

AMD Ryzen 7 4800H with Radeon Graphics
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti
Edition Windows 11 Home
Version 22H2
Installed on ‎05/‎10/‎2022
OS build 22621.755

Expected results:

The video should have begun playing immediately as it downloaded/buffered.

Comment 1

[Ardelean Oana, Desktop Test Engineering [:oardelean]]

Hello, thank you for the bug report!
I really appreciate you leaving your "about:support" information beforehand! Unfortunately, after installing the add-ons and changing the prefs in about:config to match those in your attachment, I couldn't reproduce the issue on Youtube or other video-playing websites( I tried Twitch and Vimeo). This might be an Nvidia Driver issue. Sadly, I don't own a machine that has the same GPU configuration nor Windows Edition, and if you say that the problems are persisting in a clean environment( new profile, Troubleshoot mode and also on other versions/channels of the Firefox browser then it could be a hardware-related bug.)
I'll try re-testing this on the same Windows System and similar GPU configurations and hopefully return with results.

Moving the Product to "Core" and Component to "Audio/Video: Playback". Please change it if you think there's a better fit.
Thank you.

Comment 2

[Alastor Wu [:alwu]]

This has only been a problem with Firefox and only since at least FF103.

If so, would you mind to use mozregression to find out the culprit?

In the same time, it would be helpful if you can use Firefox profiler to capture this issue.

Eg.

1. Go Firefox profiler and enable that
2. Click the profiler icon, and choose media in the drop down menu
3. Start recording via the profiler
4. Start reproducing what you said in the comment0
5. After the issue happens, stop capturing (which will pop out a new result page)
6. In the result page, click upload the local result and make sure all "Include xxx" are clicked.

Thank you so much.

Comment 3

[ch1902a]

I've uploaded the profiler output following the steps above (load url, play video, reload page): https://share.firefox.dev/3Uj7yha

I'll have a go at mozregression soon.

Thanks!

Comment 4

[ch1902a]

OK, so I can't get a version between 96 and 106 to actually play any youtube videos past the first frame using mozregression. This is definitely only a new issue, it didn't date back that far, and it's definitely only affecting Firefox, not Chrome or Edge.

My last windows update package installed was KB5018496 on 28/10/2022, I have no idea why that would stop youtube videos working only in Firefox :-/

Comment 5

[Alastor Wu [:alwu]]

Would you also mind to try the latest Nightly or to open a new profile on your Firefox (making sure no extension enabled) to see if the issue still exists?

From the profiled result, I saw that Youtube stopped appending video data, and I also saw you were using uBlock. I wonder if that affects the Youtube's player.

Thanks!

Comment 6

[Alastor Wu [:alwu]]

This has only been a problem with Firefox and only since at least FF103. Chrome and Edge on the same system are unaffected. I have tried starting in Troubleshoot Mode, a fresh profile, a fresh install of the developer and nightly editions, updating installed video codecs and media packs, and toggling some about:config flags as suggested by others on reddit. None of that has fixed the problem.

Ah ok you said you already tried the Nightly and a new profile. How did you update the codec and media packs, I wonder if the media foundation on your computer is broken..?

Comment 7

[Alastor Wu [:alwu]]

I wonder if all videos on Youtube won't work for you? Or some of them are playable? If so, could you check what format they are by right clicking Youtube video, and choose stats for nerds?

Comment 8

[ch1902a]

OK well I fixed the issue, I reinstalled/updated the audio drivers in Windows and now videos are working in Firefox again. I guess the Big_Buck_Bunny video worked because it has no sound? I don't know if that was a one off issue with my system or something with the way Firefox handled it, but it's resolved from my end so I'll let you guys decide what to do with this report! I did upload a profiler recording after the fix just in case you needed to see the difference audio made: https://share.firefox.dev/3NRNcsX

Thanks a lot!

Comment 9

[Ardelean Oana, Desktop Test Engineering [:oardelean]]

Marking the bug as RESOLVED WORKSFORME based on Comment 8. Please re-open if the issue is encountered again.