Videos won't stream in Firefox
December 10, 2013 10:45 AM   Subscribe

Videos suddenly won't stream in Firefox (though they will in Chrome). I'm running OS X 10.9. I've reinstalled Firefox and updated it to 26.0, reinstalled Flash Player, cleared the cache, and updated AdBlock. Is there a problem with MIME that I can repair? What else might fix this problem?
posted by partner to Computers & Internet (6 answers total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
À friend just mentioned to me a few minutes ago that Microsoft Silverlight has been updated and that her PC can no longer play Netflix or Amazon videos.
posted by Wordwoman at 10:49 AM on December 10, 2013


Response by poster: @Wordwoman -- I looked at my extensions and add-ons and noticed that Silverlight is inactive, so this is not likely a factor.
posted by partner at 10:51 AM on December 10, 2013


Is it Flash videos? Or HTML5? I wasn't able to ever watch Vine videos until I saw this:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/vine-and-other-html5-videos-wont-play
posted by getawaysticks at 10:51 AM on December 10, 2013


Response by poster: @getawaysticks -- That link refers to Windows, whereas I'm running a Mac on OS X 10.9.
posted by partner at 10:54 AM on December 10, 2013


Try turning on "Open Blockable Items" in Ad Block Plus. I discovered one site where a blocked link was the problem and another one with links that work only if "Open Blockable Items" is activated (even though nothing is being blocked!)
posted by DanSachs at 11:10 AM on December 10, 2013


When was the last time you trashed your profile and started a fresh one? I did this a few months ago and the performance improvement was like night and day. I reinstalled my plugins and Greasemonkey scripts with brand new copies, freshly downloaded. The only thing I moved back into place from the old profile was the bookmarks file (~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/xxxxxxxx.default/places.sqlite).

If you do decide to use the nuclear option, check whether your streaming works correctly before you reinstall the plugins (such as AdBlock Plus), and check again after you install each one.
posted by bcwinters at 11:38 AM on December 10, 2013 [2 favorites]


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