Bug 177404 - www/firefox: youtube videos in firefox not working
Summary: www/firefox: youtube videos in firefox not working
Status: Closed Works As Intended
Alias: None
Product: Ports & Packages
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Individual Port(s) (show other bugs)
Version: Latest
Hardware: Any Any
: Normal Affects Only Me
Assignee: freebsd-gecko (Nobody)
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2013-03-27 02:10 UTC by Yury
Modified: 2014-09-15 07:27 UTC (History)
2 users (show)

See Also:


Attachments

Note You need to log in before you can comment on or make changes to this bug.
Description Yury 2013-03-27 02:10:00 UTC
YouTube became useless in latest Firefox last days. It either hangs in the video area, or tells me to upgrade Flash (it is the latest one for Linux, and from FreeBSD ports). In Epiphany YouTube still works. HTML5 is still too buggy, and not available for all videos, if works at all. Also severe audio-video de-sync  occurs when it is possible to start video in YouTube in Firefox (or lagging in reaction, sound is still on several seconds after closing youtube tab).

Fix: 

Set dom.ipc.plugins.enabled to false in about:config of Firefox.
How-To-Repeat: Try to watch youtube in firefox with nspluginwrapper-1.4.4 and linux-f10-flashplugin-11.2r202.275.
Comment 1 Lena 2013-04-07 09:07:49 UTC
HTML5 is not available for videos with resolution 240p only.
Examples:

Resolution 240p, doesn't play - complains of Flash version
(if dom.ipc.plugins.enabled is set to true - default):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KjnxFjsVVM8

Resolution 480p, plays with HTML5:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdeLXyolaLc

Setting dom.ipc.plugins.enabled to false tells Firefox
not to use plugin-container (execution of plugins in separate processes),
then youtube plays with Flash.
But that decreases stability: if a plugin crashes, Firefox crashes too.
Also, a report on
http://forums.freebsd.org/showthread.php?p=214710#post214710 :

> some non-Youtube videos will not play if
> [dom.ipc.plugins.enabled] is set to false

Perhaps youtube cannot determine Flash version if plugin-container is used?
Do Linuxes have this problem?  If no, why FreeBSD does?

How to discern with what (Flash or HTML5) a video is played:
right-click the video, the last line in the pop-up menu
displays Flash version if the video is played with Flash.
Comment 2 Lena 2013-04-07 11:46:35 UTC
http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-ports/2013-March/082254.html :

> my guess would be an issue
> with IPC e.g., libevent14 is getting in the way again. Try setting
> dom.ipc.plugins.enabled -> false.
Comment 3 Lena 2013-04-09 10:58:06 UTC
A better workaround: in about:config right-click any line, choose New,
Boolean, enter the name dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npwrapper.libflashplayer.so ,
choose false. Then dom.ipc.plugins.enabled can be set to true (default).
This disables plugin-container for Flash plugin only.
Other plugins are executed in separate processes
protecting Firefox from crashing when a plugin crashes.

However, it's still a workaround, not a fix.
With this workaround, if Flash plugin crashes, Firefox crashes too.
Also, the abovementioned report that some non-Youtube videos will not play
if the parameter is set to false.
Comment 4 Mark Linimon freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2013-04-09 19:46:51 UTC
Responsible Changed
From-To: freebsd-bugs->gecko

ports PR.
Comment 5 Jan Beich freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2013-04-11 15:01:21 UTC
Yury <yury@gorodok.net> writes:

>>Description:
> YouTube became useless in latest Firefox last days. It either hangs in
> the video area, or tells me to upgrade Flash (it is the latest one for
> Linux, and from FreeBSD ports).

Given it worked before I think it's Youtube fault. On all major platforms
they have native plugin of either NPAPI and PPAPI flavor. Only niche
platforms still need nspluginwrapper.

After a bit more testing I've tried to summarize the bug in order to get
feedback from other BSD and Linux folks

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=860592

> In Epiphany YouTube still works.

While Firefox uses IPC code based on Chromium it's now quite modified
and out of date with upstream. Epiphany (webkit) and Opera probably use
different implementatios to push plugins out-of-process.

> HTML5 is still too buggy,

Why none are reported? Are you implying 20121010 in UPDATING ?
Perhaps, not being default and to have a known issue wasn't enough
discouragement for users to not enable ARIFF_OSS option.

> and not available for all videos,

Try using fullscreen playlist trick:

  1/ generate a playlist or use an existing one
  2/ enter fullscreen mode
  3/ move within playlist to the flash-only video (those with ads)

or check userscripts.org.

> Also severe audio-video de-sync occurs when it is possible to
> start video in YouTube in Firefox (or lagging in reaction, sound is
> still on several seconds after closing youtube tab).

It's a bug in OSS backend for libsydneyaudio. But the library is going
to be removed with Firefox 22, anyway.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=852401

>>How-To-Repeat:
> Try to watch youtube in firefox with nspluginwrapper-1.4.4 and
> linux-f10-flashplugin-11.2r202.275.

Try to do the same on linux i.e., disable native flash plugin and
use nspluginwrapper.

>>Fix:
> Set dom.ipc.plugins.enabled to false in about:config of Firefox.

nspluginwrapper by itself may not provide enough security:

http://nspluginwrapper.org/why.html
Comment 6 t.sowa 2013-09-28 10:18:25 UTC
I have similar problem with Firefox and youtube. When I start Firefox it
opens correctly only one or two youtube videos then it reports me that I
should have flash or html5 aware browser.

The simply workaround for me is:
- open console (don't close firefox)
- killall npviewer.bin
- refresh the page in firefox (F5)

and I can watch youtube until to next firefox restart.
Comment 7 Carlo Strub freebsd_committer freebsd_triage 2014-09-15 05:08:37 UTC
Is this PR still relevant?
Comment 8 gja822 2014-09-15 05:57:22 UTC
I think it's in the past. Not happening any more.