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A
Anonymous
June 26, 2010
Question

Hulu playback terrible.

  • June 26, 2010
  • 5 replies
  • 6597 views

After the latest update the other day, Hulu plays horribly on my pc (1-2fps if at all, audio seems near normal). I am running IE7 and Windows 7 x64. I tried to install Firefox, same results. I also updated my nvidia drivers to latest beta on thier site, uninstalled flash using the uninstaller, reinstalled flash. Uninstalled an old program I have called Rivatuner which caused this problem for me one other time due to some protected memory i/o ports. I fix computers for a living and cannot fix the playback on Hulu.com. The video plays so terribly, its unwatchable. Task Manager says IE7 is using  1.2gb ram and 25% of my quad core Phenom 2.2ghz, so probable 1 core. The videos take 30+ seconds to load and the ads are even choppy. Turning off hardware acceleration doesn't help. I uninstalled firefox. I have not installed anything on the pc this week to make it change from Monday when I was watching ABC shows on Hulu. Please help me or tell me how I can downgrade Flash to last version that was fine.

    This topic has been closed for replies.

    5 replies

    T
    tntuof
    Participant
    July 2, 2010

    This helped for me: https://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?locale=en-US&comments_parentId=714080&forumId=1

    "Make sure that you allow the plugin-container process access to  internet.

    You can set the prefs dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.* to false on the  about:config page to disable the plugin-container process to see if that  helps.
    dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npctrl.dll (Silverlight)
    dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npqtplugin.dll (QuickTime)
    dom.ipc.plugins.enabled.npswf32.dll (Flash)

    To open the about:config page, type about:config in the  location (address) bar and press the Enter key, just like  you type the url of a website to open a website.
    If you see a warning then you can confirm that you want to access  that page."

    A
    Anonymous
    July 2, 2010

    Hi, This is just my opinion but I think gangwulf up thread has the best solution for Hulu. This is what I was reading on the Hulu discussion board the other day. The Firefox update to 3.6.6 was to extend the timeout before Flash Player "crashed". The vs 3.6.4 was designed by Mozilla Firefox to crash Flash Player and not the entire Firefox browser by shutting it down instead of the browser. But they had so many complaints, they increased the timeout before this would happen, in order to allow the slower videos/games more time to load.

    If you use the about:config to extend the timeout, you may as well update to the 3.6.6, which Mozilla Firefox already designed it to do.

    Anyway, I'd use the Hulu Desktop Player as gangwulf said.

    eidnolb

    C
    coloradoarny
    Participant
    June 27, 2010

    Have same problem with Hulu

    A
    Anonymous
    June 26, 2010

    I couldn't get Hulu to play at all.   Firefox 3.6.4 for Windows kept saying the plugin crashed.  I tried Apple Safari for Windows and Hulu loaded (took about 30 seconds), but loading Hulu made Safari.exe memory usage jump to 1 GB, (yes GB).  That's rediculous.  The same thing happened with Internet Explorer 8.0.  This wasn't even a HD video.  It was SD.

    There's no way it should require 1 GB of memory to play a Hulu video.  It didn't used to with Flash 9.

    A
    Anonymous
    June 26, 2010

    Hi, Morac, did you read my first post on this thread? That should be done. If I had time I could link to the bug report and other info on that, but don't. Also several users are reporting that the latest Firefox  update is conflicting with the Flash Player 10.1 and they went back to an earlier version and are not having problems.

    Just food for thot.

    eidnolb

    A
    Anonymous
    June 26, 2010

    I've been running the beta version of Firefox 3.6.4 for over a month and never had issues until upgrading to Flash 10.1.  I reverted back to Flash 10r45, but Hulu still causes Firefox 3.6.4 to kill the plugin.  According to the Mozilla people, the Flash plugin isn't responding to Firefox so Firefox thinks it has hung and kills it.

    It's not just Firefox though, other browsers like Internet Explorer 8 or Safari 5 are having issues with Flash 10.1.   Trying to play a Hulu video in those browsers causes the browsers to use over 1 GB of memory and slow to a crawl.   When I reverted back to Flash 10r45, it only used 260 MB to play Hulu videos.  So Flash 10.1 is using over 4 times as much memory when playing Hulu videos.

    YouTube and other video sites are fine.  So I don't know if this is a Hulu problem or a Flash problem.  I'd say the later though.

    A
    Anonymous
    June 26, 2010

    Hi, I don't know if I would have updated the nvidia driver to a beta, considering all of the problems that are going on with 10.1. But having said that, it is also recommended to update both the graphic and video drivers to the latest versions.

    Then in addition, turning off the hardware acceleration. It is always those 3 things to do.

    Since you have Uninstalled and Installed it may be a good idea to see what Flash Player files are actually Installed now.

    Go to C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash  Open Flash and post back all files listed. Any NPSWF files will need a right click and then click on properties to obtain the version numbers.

    Then using IE, find in All add ons the Shockwave Flash Object and make sure it is Enabled and is 10.1.53.64 version or says Flash10h.ocx.

    If you still have Firefox installed, find the plug-in SWF vs 10.1.53.64 and make sure it is Enabled.

    This way we have a correct Flash Player installation from which to proceed.

    Thanks,

    eidnolb

    G
    gangwulf
    Participant
    June 26, 2010

    I had the same problem with Hulu. I downloaded the Hulu desktop player, and I am having no more problems. The things I tried first:

    Uninstall and reinstall flash (with the correct installers).

    Uninstall and reinstall firefox.

    System restore to before the update that caused the problem.

    None of these things worked.

    The hulu player is fairly intuitive and easy to use. It doesn't take long to download. I hope this solves your problem. If you are like me, you have no cable, and Hulu has been great for you. I did e-mail Hulu about the issue.

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