What gives Firefox?

June 2, 2008 6:26 PM

Firefox fails me. I can't figure out why I can hear audio on YouTube, but not see the videos. I just get a big white, empty space where the video should be. What gives? It looks like Flash is installed. Do I need something else?
posted by als129 to computers & internet (11 answers total)

Do you have extensions installed? This happened to me when I was using AdBlock.
posted by loiseau at 6:36 PM on June 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

When I'm viewing embedded youtube videos in Firefox, I have to scroll down until the top of the video is at the very top of the browser window. If it's any lower, I only see the white, empty space you mention.

I've never tried to figure out why because it's just easier to scroll. But as far as minor annoyances go, it's pretty annoying, so I'll be glad to hear what others have to say.
posted by bibliowench at 6:40 PM on June 2, 2008

Um, woah. I just disabled AdBlock and now YouTube videos work. Ask MeFi is effing incredible. Thanks loiseau!
posted by als129 at 6:40 PM on June 2, 2008

Do you have an ATI video card, by chance?
If so, buried somewhere in the Display control panel, (at least on XP - I can't find the setting on Vista), is a setting for which monitor is your primary display for the purposes of playing video. I wish I could provide you more details, but I don't have the machine that I used to have this issue on accessible to me anymore. It's a really annoyingly non-obvious setting, too. Right click on your desktop, Properties, Settings tab, Advanced, and select the "Displays" tab, assuming you have one. In the only screenshot I could find, you click the bullseye next to your primary display to tell the video driver that that's where you want to play video, but I remember it being very non-obvious in other versions of the driver as well.
If you don't have an ATI video card, well, ignore me.
posted by jferg at 6:48 PM on June 2, 2008

Ah,well, nevermind, then. :-> Gotta learn to preview.
posted by jferg at 6:48 PM on June 2, 2008

I had a similar YT video problem today on FF with NoScript installed. I closed my browser, restarted, got a notification of a NoScript update, and once it was done, all was well.

Check any other add-ons, but if all you have is AdBlock, drop them a line to see if this is a general problem. You shouldn't have to get rid of a useful add-on unless you have no other choice.
posted by maudlin at 6:50 PM on June 2, 2008

I have used Firefox with AdBlock enabled on computers running OS X, Windows XP, Windows Vista, and four distributions of Linux over about the last four years and have never had the problem you describe.

I'm glad the problem is solved -- but I doubt that the culprit was AdBlock, which is an absolutely fantastic extension!
posted by gum at 8:32 PM on June 2, 2008

This is a common issue with AdBlock and flash. Not just limited to youtube, though it's intermittent. No need to disabled AB entirely; just whitelist that video's URL, by clicking the AdBlock tab, (optionally) replacing some parts of the URL in question with asterisks, and prefacing the whole shebang with "@@".
posted by spaceman_spiff at 8:52 PM on June 2, 2008

When I'm viewing embedded youtube videos in Firefox, I have to scroll down until the top of the video is at the very top of the browser window. If it's any lower, I only see the white, empty space you mention.

I get this issue when using the Street View function on Google Maps, in Firefox/Mac. If I scroll just enough to where the tiny text at the top of the Street View pane moves off-screen, the image appears. And, while I have AdBlock, it is not enabled for anything on the page.

I don't get this issue with YouTube, though. However, on other, random embedded flash-based video sites, I get a situation where the video loads, but none of the controls are visible unless you mouse over them...blank white areas, then you mouse over where the audio control should be and then it becomes visible. Weird.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:49 AM on June 3, 2008

I definitely have this issue with AdBlockPlus and YouTube. Like bibliowench, I've just gotten used to scooching the page up until the window hits the top, but it's always irritating.
posted by bink at 9:03 AM on June 3, 2008

This sounds like it but they don't seem to have an answer.
posted by bink at 9:06 AM on June 3, 2008