Open Bug 1904394 Opened 8 months ago Updated 1 month ago

Follow-up bug for Youtube buffering issue

Categories

(Core :: Audio/Video: Playback, defect, P2)

Product:
Core
Component:
Audio/Video: Playback
Type:
defect

Tracking

()

People

(Reporter: alwu, Assigned: alwu, NeedInfo)

References

(Blocks 1 open bug)

Details

I will use this bug to address the review suggestions and add tests for bug 1878510 and bug 1900191.

Blocks: yt-playback

I still see issues with buffering on youtube when H.264 (avc1/mp4a) is used. It can be tested with h264ify installed.

(In reply to gudvinr from comment #1)

I still see issues with buffering on youtube when H.264 (avc1/mp4a) is used. It can be tested with h264ify installed.

What version of Firefox you're using? If that happens on h264, that will be a different problem than we addressed before. If you use Firefox Nightly, could you capture a profiled result by following this instruction? If you're using other version, follow the same instruction, but after selecting the media playback preset, paste following log modules timestamp,HTMLMediaElement:4,HTMLMediaElementEvents:4,cubeb:5,PlatformDecoderModule:5,AudioSink:5,AudioSinkWrapper:5,MediaDecoderStateMachine:4,MediaDecoder:4,MediaFormatReader:5,GMP:5,EME:5,MediaSource:5,MediaSourceSamples:5 in New log modules: before starting profiling.

Thank you!

Flags: needinfo?(gudvinr+bugzilla)

(In reply to Alastor Wu [:alwu] from comment #2)

If you use Firefox Nightly, could you capture a profiled result by following this instruction? If you're using other version, follow the same instruction, but after selecting the media playback preset, paste following log modules timestamp,HTMLMediaElement:4,HTMLMediaElementEvents:4,cubeb:5,PlatformDecoderModule:5,AudioSink:5,AudioSinkWrapper:5,MediaDecoderStateMachine:4,MediaDecoder:4,MediaFormatReader:5,GMP:5,EME:5,MediaSource:5,MediaSourceSamples:5 in New log modules: before starting profiling.

Unfortunately, profile just getting stuck on uploading after I stop logging. Not sure what to do here, there are no error messages, no progress indication. Just placeholder.

What version of Firefox you're using?

Latest stable 128.0

Operating System: Arch Linux
Kernel Version: 6.9.10-arch1-1 (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon RX Vega M GL Graphics

Hello, I am experiencing extremely laggy YouTube even on a clean profile. I'm not having any issues with videos buffering, but the entire site is just painfully slow, laggy, and has graphical glitches. Here is a Profiler link of me clicking around a few videos and experiencing all the issues: https://share.firefox.dev/4fqYt0S

(In reply to snab from comment #4)

Hello, I am experiencing extremely laggy YouTube even on a clean profile. I'm not having any issues with videos buffering, but the entire site is just painfully slow, laggy, and has graphical glitches. Here is a Profiler link of me clicking around a few videos and experiencing all the issues: https://share.firefox.dev/4fqYt0S

That sounds like bug 1910820.

I'm having issues with youtube always stopping and infinitely buffering at 20 seconds since yesterday (haven't used this device for a while before that) I've tried turning ublock and ghostery on and off but to no avail
https://share.firefox.dev/4fxpXSn

Youtube doesn't want to load videos at all for me anymore, adds still load fine though...
I tried it with a different browser (chromium) and that had no similar issues.
I tried to see if it had anything to do with my plugins, but even when running FF in troubleshoot mode the issue persists.

The rest of the site seems to work fine, or fine enough, aka it doesn't have a particularly noticeable drop in loading speeds or anything compared to yesterday.

Profile: https://share.firefox.dev/3LW1LvF

I am running Firefox 128.0.3 on Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS x86_64 with NVIDIA graphics, if thats of interest.

(In reply to brendanmesters from comment #7)

Youtube doesn't want to load videos at all for me anymore, adds still load fine though...
I tried it with a different browser (chromium) and that had no similar issues.
I tried to see if it had anything to do with my plugins, but even when running FF in troubleshoot mode the issue persists.

The rest of the site seems to work fine, or fine enough, aka it doesn't have a particularly noticeable drop in loading speeds or anything compared to yesterday.

Profile: https://share.firefox.dev/3LW1LvF

I am running Firefox 128.0.3 on Ubuntu 22.04.4 LTS x86_64 with NVIDIA graphics, if thats of interest.

After a bit more tinkering it seems to have been caused by a change I made myself to the useragent.

Having read that using a user agent of a chrome instance would stop the artificial slowing down of google websites I had tried that, and I think that that triggered some safety warnings on youtube site, which probably resulted in them not streaming any videos to me.

After undoing that settings change everything seems to work like normal again

(In reply to crazybobsmithlol from comment #6)

I'm having issues with youtube always stopping and infinitely buffering at 20 seconds since yesterday (haven't used this device for a while before that) I've tried turning ublock and ghostery on and off but to no avail
https://share.firefox.dev/4fxpXSn

On Fx129, we have more fixes for the Youtube buffering problem. Would you mind to try Fx129 again to see if the issue still exists? If so, would you mind to capture a profiled result for me again? Thank you so much.

(In reply to brendanmesters from comment #8)

After undoing that settings change everything seems to work like normal again

Good to hear that!

Flags: needinfo?(crazybobsmithlol)

(In reply to Alastor Wu [:alwu] from comment #9)
Issue is still persisting, here is the capture

Flags: needinfo?(crazybobsmithlol)

(In reply to crazybobsmithlol from comment #10)
https://share.firefox.dev/4fBBArH
(apologies for the extra comment)

(In reply to crazybobsmithlol from comment #11)

(In reply to crazybobsmithlol from comment #10)
https://share.firefox.dev/4fBBArH
(apologies for the extra comment)

Thank you so much! BTW how did you capture that profiled result? Via Firefox Profiler or about:logging? As this doesn't have the log messages I need, you will need to follow this instruction. However, if the profile was already captured by that way, then that means we encounter a profiler issue, similar with bug 1906756, which fails to capture log message. Thanks!

Flags: needinfo?(crazybobsmithlol)

(In reply to Alastor Wu [:alwu] from comment #12)
yes, all those steps have been made. it's set to media and should be working fine.

Flags: needinfo?(crazybobsmithlol)

This became a problem for me immediately after the 129.0 update.
I had no/minimal issues before 129 but with 129 a lot of youtube videos just refuse to play after about 30-90 seconds.
This also includes live streams.

It appears to only affect videos with the vp09 codec:
vp09.00.51.08.01.01.01.01.00 (303) / mp4a.40.2 (140) (from yt stats)

This is Firefox 129.0 on Win11 10.0.22631.3880.
If more info is needed then just tag me with what someone would like to know.

Scroll up to Comment 12 for instructions on how to generate the appropriate log.

Flags: needinfo?(Conz)

I had to uncheck 'hidden url's' and screenshots or it wouldn't upload the profile.
Also my assumption that only vp9 videos were affected is WRONG but I can't edit my previous comment.
Also also, the bad behavior is spreading to more and more video's, videos that played just fine yesterday now suddenly stop loading after 45-60 seconds and then stop after the 30-40s buffer runs out. When watching the YT 'stats for nerds' graph it stops loading as soon as the green buffer health appears.
I tried downgrading to 128.0.2 and 126.0.1 and no difference. Tried updating to the nightly 130b3 and no difference.
I tried lower bitrates & disabling hardware acceleration but different results.

https://share.firefox.dev/3YHHUYK

Flags: needinfo?(Conz)

Hello, Conz,

Could you please try capturing a profiled result by about:logging, instead of going through Firefox Profiler? The instruction can be found here, and that can help us capture debug logs.

By looking your profile in the comment 16, the symptom looks familiar with bug 1900191, but I need debug log to do a further diagnose. Thanks!

BTW, if the profiled result in the comment16 was already captured by that way, then it means that we hit bug 1906756 and we would need to find a way to fix it first in order to get the debug log.

Flags: needinfo?(Conz)

Hello Alastor, you didnt ask me specifically but since I currently face the same issue I have tried logging a video this issue ocurred on for me according to the instructions in the Cideo you linked: https://share.firefox.dev/3YNw27i
Since the video played close to a minute before it got stuck I was unsure which timeframe you needed, so I refreshed the tab and logged the whole Minute from starting the video to it getting Stuck. I hope this helps.

The profiled result from the comment 11 and the comment 16 don't contain the debug log, but from the marker chart, we can see Youtube stopped appending more video frames at the early time.

The profiled result in the comment 18 has the debug log we need, and it also shows that Youtube stopped appending more frames. The log captured the process of appending video frames from 22000000 to 54983000. One interesting thing is only the first video frame 22000000 is key frame, and all other video frames are non-key frame.

By checking the log on the main thread, we can see that there are still plenty of spaces in the buffer for Youtube, so this is not the same as the previous bugs, eg, bug 1904937, where the buffer is full so that Youtube can't append more data.

Unfortunately, so far I still couldn't explain the reason why Youtube stops appending more data even if the buffer still has plenty of spaces. We might need to talk to Youtube to see if they can help on this problem.

Karl, Matthew, Paul, I have a short analysis in the comment 19, and I wonder if you have any thought about why Youtube would stop appending data? The issue seems mostly happening on vp9, but it also affects other format per comment 16. Thanks!

Type: task → defect
Flags: needinfo?(padenot)
Flags: needinfo?(kinetik)
Flags: needinfo?(karlt)
Priority: P2 → P1

BTW, this question is for anyone who can reproduce the issue. I wonder if the issue (infinite buffering) can be reproduced on the same video constantly? Eg. reload the page, would the issue happen 100% again? Or the issue happens intermittently? Does the issue happen on the private browsing mode, or on a Firefox without any extension installed?

Thanks!

Hi Alastor,
I am able to reproduce the issue. Specific videos are affected. This video for example always gets stuck: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCroQjx8YXQ

I just reproduced the issue both in a private browsing tab, after a browser restart and with no extensions. I can find more examples if you want.

Hello, Simon,
How do you reproduce issue on that video? Simply start playing it from the start position, and you would hit the issue? Or you need to go through some special steps, eg. seeking, in order to make the issue happen? Thanks!

Flags: needinfo?(simxn)

Hi Alastor,
I simply start playing the video and after playing for 20 seconds to 2 minutes the video gets stuck and stops buffering. If i skip forward, I can delay the video getting stuck for a moment, but it feels like if i let the video play for 10-20 Seconds without skipping it stops continuing to buffer. At this point the video will no longer buffer when i skip forward. once the end of the already buffered video is reached and the video gets stuck, it is completely stuck and i can only go back and watch the previously buffered part, but can no longer go forward.

Flags: needinfo?(simxn)

Based on our investigation so far, it appears that this issue is likely related to the YouTube web player, which seems not to append the necessary data for playback. I will report this issue to them and await their response.

We can see that the media element started playing around 1.248s and the media time was growing forward successfully. The MSE buffered range was starting from (0, 20) and grew to (0,54.99) later. During 7.22s to 8.183s, Youtube appended data (20,54.99), and they should have kept appending more as the media time was moving forward, but they didn't. By checking the size of buffered data, we can know the source buffer still had a lots of spaces for data, the buffer is far from being full.

From all information above, I can't think of any possibilities preventing Youtube from appending more data. Playback was going well, the media time grew correctly, the timeupdate events were dispatched successfully as well, and the source buffer was still not full.

(In reply to Alastor Wu [:alwu] from comment #21)

BTW, this question is for anyone who can reproduce the issue. I wonder if the issue (infinite buffering) can be reproduced on the same video constantly? Eg. reload the page, would the issue happen 100% again? Or the issue happens intermittently? Does the issue happen on the private browsing mode, or on a Firefox without any extension installed?

Thanks!

yes, I cannot watch ANY video in youtubve.
I have this exact issue and the only way for it to disappear is for me to loadup firefox in marionette mode - there I can watch youtube with or without UBO enabled.

(In reply to Kristian from comment #26)

yes, I cannot watch ANY video in youtubve.

Do you mean that ALL video on Youtube would enter infinite buffering? No matter you're on a normal window, or a private browsing window?

I have this exact issue and the only way for it to disappear is for me to loadup firefox in marionette mode - there I can watch youtube with or without UBO enabled.

How to use Firefox in marionette mode? I've never heard of that. If you don't mind, would you help me capture profiled results on both situations (with/without marionette) by following this instruction?

Thank you so much.

Flags: needinfo?(spacewalkingninja)

In addition, FYI, if anyone thinks this is a regression on Firefox, not a Youtube problem, feel free to use the mozregression, which is a tool to test different versions of Firefox easily. If this issue is caused by a specific change on Firefox, using that tool could help us catch a culprit. Thanks!

(In reply to Alastor Wu [:alwu] from comment #27)

(In reply to Kristian from comment #26)

yes, I cannot watch ANY video in youtubve.

Do you mean that ALL video on Youtube would enter infinite buffering? No matter you're on a normal window, or a private browsing window?

I have this exact issue and the only way for it to disappear is for me to loadup firefox in marionette mode - there I can watch youtube with or without UBO enabled.

How to use Firefox in marionette mode? I've never heard of that. If you don't mind, would you help me capture profiled results on both situations (with/without marionette) by following this instruction?

Thank you so much.
1 - I CONFIRM, I AM NOT ABLE TO WATCH ANY SINGLE YT VIDEO AT ALL (With & Without UBO; Incognito & Normal mode)
2 - marionette mode is firefox being fired through selenium for automating. I use it for NON GOOGLE RELATED stuff. But when this issue started happening, and because I need youtube for music, I had to start using youtube in marionette mode. Which made me discover yet another bug:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1696425
We need a way to manually set whether we are in marionette mode or not even when we are in marionette mode.

So anyway, the OG bug:
YT in normal window not working : https://share.firefox.dev/46SvX4v
YT in firefox, marionette, with a copy of the same profile plays video : https://share.firefox.dev/3XbA8Vz

Note that in both cases UBOrigin IS ENABLED.

Flags: needinfo?(spacewalkingninja)

Per the comment 26, I wonder if this issue is a network problem. In bug 1904168, the Youtube buffering problem was caused by DNS over HTTPS.

Kershaw, I wonder if you could help provide any insight to see if this is a network problem, Thanks!

Flags: needinfo?(Conz)

NI for the comment 30.

Flags: needinfo?(kershaw)

Hello, Kristian,
If you create a new profile of Firefox, would the issue still persist? By checking your profiled result, the problem you're facing are different from the buffering issue we discuss in this bug. It's more like no data being downloaded at all. I've NIed another colleague who knows that part better to see if he has any thought. Thanks!

Flags: needinfo?(spacewalkingninja)
Flags: needinfo?(padenot)

(In reply to Kristian from comment #26)

(In reply to Alastor Wu [:alwu] from comment #21)

BTW, this question is for anyone who can reproduce the issue. I wonder if the issue (infinite buffering) can be reproduced on the same video constantly? Eg. reload the page, would the issue happen 100% again? Or the issue happens intermittently? Does the issue happen on the private browsing mode, or on a Firefox without any extension installed?

Thanks!

yes, I cannot watch ANY video in youtubve.
I have this exact issue and the only way for it to disappear is for me to loadup firefox in marionette mode - there I can watch youtube with or without UBO enabled.

Hi, could you try to capture a http log with following steps:

  1. Start Firefox
  2. Go to about:logging and select logging to file. Click Start logging.
  3. Go to youtube.com and watch any video.
  4. Wait for a few seconds and stop logging.
  5. Send the log file to necko@mozilla.com.

Thanks.

Flags: needinfo?(kershaw)

I also intermittently face buffering issue with yt. I think that it may be due to my shitty ISP.

However, I have captured a profile with media preset logging : https://share.firefox.dev/3MiUupP . Look at the last 10-15 seconds if you find it useful.

(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqjLFuNZ8eg&t=225s at 1440p.
Video ID / sCPN
nqjLFuNZ8eg / HZX9 MCN3 HCM6 KZCG 62QG
Viewport / Frames
1019x573*1.50 / 17 dropped of 6272
Current / Optimal Res
2560x1440@60 / 2560x1440@60
Volume / Normalized
100% / DRC (content loudness -0.4dB)
Codecs
vp09.00.51.08.01.01.01.01.00 (308) / opus (251)
Color
bt709 / bt709
Connection Speed
11343 Kbps
Network Activity
0 KB
Buffer Health
5.05 s
Mystery Text
SABR, s:4 t:334.12 b:263.467-339.166 P pl_i:702 pbs:5453
Date
Sat Aug 24 2024 16:30:20 GMT+0530 (India Standard Time)
)

Edit: I have also shared a networking+http/3 log with necko@mozilla.com.

(In reply to Mayank Bansal from comment #34)

However, I have captured a profile with media preset logging : https://share.firefox.dev/3MiUupP . Look at the last 10-15 seconds if you find it useful.

In last 10-15 seconds where the playback started becoming stutter, I can see sometime it took Youtube long time to append another cluster of new data (eg. 40.807 -> 42.196, 44.430 -> 45.584, 45.784 -> 47.050). If Youtube could append data in a short interval like other, then the data would be efficient all the time. But I don't know why at those time, Youtube waited such a long time to append another data.

The media time and timeupdate event seems both correct, I'm wondering if there are any network issues happening around those time, which causes Youtube not being able to download video data in time, but I couldn't verify that assumption.

Hello, I am having problems with yt loading in the page, comments, and other assets. The video sometimes takes a while to start but once it's going, I face no stuttering. I see 100 percent CPU usage. I was told to share a profile with media preset from r/firefox. https://share.firefox.dev/3T63Gll

Hello guys!
Still havent made the recording as you asked but apparently the solution was making a new profile(did that yesterday and worked).
Sorry, it's all the hassle of closing all tabs and windows, but yesterday had to restart ffox because it was eating 27gb ram..
Another thing i noticed in that old profile is that my homepage went blank, but that was not a hassle that bothered me as I type urls.
GOnna try deleting all my google / yt cookies on the old profile to see what happens.

New profile works good with ublock ofc, no ads allowed in this house

(In reply to Kershaw Chang [:kershaw] from comment #33)

(In reply to Kristian from comment #26)

(In reply to Alastor Wu [:alwu] from comment #21)

BTW, this question is for anyone who can reproduce the issue. I wonder if the issue (infinite buffering) can be reproduced on the same video constantly? Eg. reload the page, would the issue happen 100% again? Or the issue happens intermittently? Does the issue happen on the private browsing mode, or on a Firefox without any extension installed?

Thanks!

yes, I cannot watch ANY video in youtubve.
I have this exact issue and the only way for it to disappear is for me to loadup firefox in marionette mode - there I can watch youtube with or without UBO enabled.

Hi, could you try to capture a http log with following steps:

  1. Start Firefox
  2. Go to about:logging and select logging to file. Click Start logging.
  3. Go to youtube.com and watch any video.
  4. Wait for a few seconds and stop logging.
  5. Send the log file to necko@mozilla.com.

Thanks.

Flags: needinfo?(spacewalkingninja)
Depends on: 1904750
Flags: needinfo?(kinetik)
Flags: needinfo?(karlt)
Severity: N/A → S3
Priority: P1 → P2
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