Sometimes, videos on Youtube/Facebook/others load/buffer but won't play. Tried everything...

[pmoniz]

Hi everybody,

I have this problem for months already. I just don't know what else to do. If I have a game opened on a browser (chrome, mozilla, ...) and 1 video or facebook opened, the videos might crash, freeze or not play if I go from on tab to another. Sometimes I just press pause, watch tv for 5 seconds, when I press "play" is freezes or crashes. I think everything goes OK if I just have one tab opened watching a video, but If I have 2 or 3 tabs opened, this happenes. A lot of times I open a video on youtube, it loads the video and just won't play... I have to press F5 a lot of times until it starts playing and sometimes it just won't and I have to quit the video or close tabs

I tried so many things I even can't remember: disable hardware aceleration, update and/or downgrade drivers, uninstall Flash from the OS and keep the Flash of the browser (Chrome), Change the AMD configuration, searched for virus and malwares, run CCleaner, etc etc etc.

This is so frustrating, it really is... I don't know who else to ask for help, I searched everywhere on the internet and few have this problem and most of them solve it by disabling hardware aceleration. But mine keeps happening this problem. It happens with all browsers, with any type of videos: stream, youtube, facebook, etc.

Any sugestion would be really appreciated. Please help!

My best regards!

ADDICIONAL INFO:

- Windows 8.1

- Intel® Core™ i7-4510U with Intel® Turbo Boost

- AMD Radeon™ R7 M260

- 8GB RAM

[pmoniz]

makes sense! I didnt know I had the 32bit of firefox. However, please notice the symptoms. It does not crash... it just gets stuck... Please watch the gifs I sent some posts above

[jeromiec83223024]

The Firefox hang you're seeing is the long-standing generic hang.  If it's crashing on resume from sleep, it's happening underneath us.  (.i.e. hardware we think is there isn't in the state that we expect it to be in on resume).  It's not surprising, but issues in this class are generally not within our ability to detect/prevent/control.

Either moving to the native NPAPI sandbox in 64-bit Firefox will resolve it, or it will produce a more accurate crash report that will point to where the actual crash is happening.  Right now, we basically just see the classic "Firefox killed us" signature, which masks whatever the underlying issue is.

The file you're looking for is the 32-bit Flash Player broker, which on a 64-bit system, will be under:

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash\

If you can specify the power behavior for the GPU on multiple files, you should make sure that all of these guys are exempt from the power saving behavior:

FlashPlayerPlugin_21_0_0_213.exe

FlashUtil32_21_0_0_213_Plugin.exe

C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\Firefox.exe

With 64-bit Firefox, you're going to want to add the stuff under:

C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash\

FlashUtil64_21_0_0_213_Plugin.exe

C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\Firefox.exe

Also, if the only way that you can control the power behavior is to specify individual files, you're going to have to update those settings every time Flash updates, because the process name changes (this is necessary so that you don't have to restart the browser every upgrade...).  It might be easier to disable the power saving feature across the board, if that's an option.

[pmoniz]

I updated to Firefox 64-Bit and now I have to install Flash. But I am having a problem here, a noob problem. Firefox is demanding to install Flash. However, I was running a video on Internet Explorer (IE 11), right-clicked and it said "about Flash 21.0.0 (...)". What's really going on here? I'm assuming that IE runs windows' installed Flash and Firefox uses Flash as a plugin. Is that right? BUT, I ran Flash Uninstaller and flash is still on my PC. Also, on Windows program uninstaller list, Flash is not there. This is so strange! I'm a little confused right now (and tired lol).

Regarding the individual power behaviour elements, I think I will suspend this for now and focus on testing Firefox 64-bit.I will have to install the plugin I suppose, But I'd like to fully remove Flash from my PC first. IE still running with Flash is confusing me...

[jeromiec83223024]

Each browser has it's own Flash implementation, and they're basically completely different products.

On Windows 8.1 and higher, Flash Player is a built-in component of IE (and on Win10, Edge), and it's the same way for Chrome.  Because Flash in those instances is actually a part of the browser and not a separate piece of software, they exist separately from our installation/uninstallation workflows for other browsers, like Firefox, Opera, Safari, etc.

It's confusing, but that's the way that the browser market has evolved over the last couple years.  On Win7 and below, IE requires a separate installer (and the uninstaller will remove Flash, because it's a separate and distinct product on that platform), but we're a built-in component of Chrome across all platforms.

The really nice part about the bundling is that you don't have to worry about updating Flash.  Either Windows Update or Chrome's auto-updater makes sure that you're always running the latest version of Flash, and the herd immunity that consistent updating confers makes it harder for the bad guys to make money on users that never patch.

[pmoniz]

Ok, latest news...

After I install Firefox 64-Bit things looked better... I managed to run over 10 videos at the same time in Youtube (HTML5). Everything seemed fine. Then, One game/app or another requested Flash on my browser so I had to install it. I couldn't say everything was fine before I test it for a couple days. So, it seems the issues still exist.

Nothing crashed on this Firefox, however, I have to point 2 issues when I have, like before, 1 or 2 games/apps opened in another tabs and 1 or 2 youtube videos:

(1) Videos don't crash, but might not be synced with sound. So, sometimes videos start OK but without sound. I have to click on the video progress bar some times to sync both. These "some times" get bigger as the browser gets more loaded with tabs, videos or games/apps.

(2) Firefox now seems to be much heavier as it is really slow scrolling, changing tabs, clicking on links and even typing...

So, regarding problem Nº (2), it seems like a pure Firefox arquitecture problem. Not really much to say about it. But problem Nº (1) is really reason to be concerned... This means that we are at the beggining again... The issues are still intact.

So, what really happened here? Was it because I installed Flash??

But this also made me think one thing... Please watch how the problems vary from browser to browser:

- IE 11: Videos never get stuck or crash, but sound disappears after a couple of opened tabs. Page needs to be refreshed to regain sound

- Firefox: Videos never get stuck or crash, but sound disappears after a couple of opened tabs with videos/games/apps. The video progress bar must be pressed a couple times to sync with sound

Chrome: Videos do get stuck after a couple of opened tabs with videos/games/apps. Videos get stuck at 0:00 or fail to resume after changing tabs. Also, it may happen that videos do run without stuck, but only audio comes up

So... Could this be something to do with a conflict between audio and video??

[pmoniz]

Jeromie, I found a report, it mentions Flash:

[@ F1398665248_____________________________] - Firefox 45.0.2 Crash Report - Report ID: ceaedca5-815...

[Carm01]

That looks Like Google Chrome not Firefox you are using?

I have seen that before it occasionally happens, but not for long, nevertheless try out the 64 bit version of Firefox and Chrome as well I use both.

You can try deleting some super/flash cookies and flash player settings as well, I do it as part of an automated process when I update flash.

They are located here:

c:\users\%username%\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\PepperFlash

c:\users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Adobe\Flash Player'

c:\users\%username%\AppData\Roaming\Macromedia\Flash Player

also try deleting some of your prefetch data related to flash and the browser esp Firefox

C:\Windows\Prefetch\flashpl*.pf

C:\Windows\Prefetch\PLUGIN-CONTAINER*.pf

C:\Windows\Prefetch\FLASHPLAYERUPDATESERVICE*.pf

C:\Windows\Prefetch\firefox*.pf

Make sure your browsers are closed as well before you do this

[pmoniz]

I used all browsers already... IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, etc... None worked ok

Do you know where I can see if my Firefox is 32 or 64?

[Carm01]

There is a HUGE difference between 32 bit and 64 bit architecture

You submitted a crash report and is is listed on there under: Build Architecture  x86

Also you can type in a address bar: about:support

IF it does not say something like Win64 in the user agent field then you are 32 bit:

User Agent     Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:46.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/46.0

Also by default Mozilla pushes the 32 bit, you have to dig for the 64 bit. The same applies to Chrome, if you did not hunt for it you ended up with 32 bit.

Here is an article related to how 64 bit is better than 32 bit

You Should Upgrade to 64-bit Chrome. It’s More Secure, Stable, and Speedy

How to Tell If You Have the 32-bit or 64-Bit Version of Google Chrome

There are no different features per say, but performance, security and stability are what I am after most of all

[pmoniz]

aaawww, I thought that we were reaching somewhere close!!! But that was still not it! I tought that the problem was indeed the 32 bits... but that is not the case apparently. My chrome is already 64 bit...

https://i.gyazo.com/e4107cfa3f856dd9ee3e54d71cb79b9d.png

(it is Beta because I tried the Beta to see if the problems would fade. Did not happen)

Regarding Firefox, on the user agent, I have this:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/45.0

Since it states WOW64, am I right to assume that it is the 32 bit I have installed? Nevertheless, I just downloaded a 64 bit Firefox. I am going to install it and push for it to see how it behaves. But logic says that if Chrome is a mess even being 64 bit, then it is expected that Firefox will develop the same issues with 64 bit

[pmoniz]

Hey!

So, I guess the 64 bit version is running now:

Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; Win64; x64; rv:45.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/45.0

I just ran 10 youtube videos at the same time, they all went fine! Could this be a light? One of them crashed at the beggining, but still 9 videos running without any stuck at 0:00 is strange!

Well, this is as far as I could test for now (it's 6h25 am here!) I tried to open 2 tabs with games, but they ask to install flash. This leaves a question: it appears to be running stable now, could it be that after I install Flash, things will get unstable?

[pmoniz]

Please, view my last responde to Jeromie

[jeromiec83223024]

Not sure.  You can eliminate Flash as the possible cause for your Firefox woes by uninstalling it.  I'm pretty sure that you'll see the same problem. Audio/Video sync is hard, and if the CPU isn't able to able to reliably decode the stream fast enough because too many things are consuming CPU cycles, it's not surprising that things don't stay synchronized.  Doing video well is really hard, even "in HTML".

If you want good performance, particularly if you're not on high-end hardware, then minimize the amount of stuff you're doing concurrently.  You can't really watch two movies and play three games.  The browser might let you try, but there's a reasonable upper limit to what's going to work well.   If watching a single video or playing a single game works fine, then add another thing.  I guarantee you'll be able to find the point that it falls apart.  At that point, you have to decide whether you can live within that boundary, or whether or not you want to throw money at the problem.

IE11 in particular will pause tabs that aren't visible, so you may see less consequences when running with a lot of background tabs, as they shouldn't eat a ton of cycles.  They're also not doing anything, so if you expected something to happen while they're off-screen, that's not going to happen. 

Firefox doesn't do this kind of plugin pausing, so just opening a bunch of stuff means that all of the content, both JavaScript and Flash are just running in the background the whole time.

[pmoniz]

Jeromie,

I understand the theory on what you're saying. It makes sense. But today, a common internet user has a couple opened tabs normally, for example:

- Facebook

- E-Mails

- Youtube

- Facebook Game

Sometimes I find myself alternating between a game and a video on youtube, for example. If I only have 2/3 opened tabs... It makes my i7 8GB RAM PC useless... And please note that my last PC was a Samsung RC530 with slightly less specs and it used to run A LOT of tabs when needed! (I remember having more than 30 tabs when researching for my masters degree and it did not even get slow... I really miss that PC...)

So what I mean? This PC has specs for so, so, so much more than 4/5 opened tabs... And know that I do not run much processes on my Win 8.1... Ah, and my mom's PC is less than half the power of mine and runs much better on browsers, without any doubt.

I'm really sad with this PC because even within the warranty period, I don't imagine them solving this problem....

[jeromiec83223024]

Yeah, I totally understand.  I had about 20 tabs open across a couple Chrome windows when I was writing that. 

Videos and games in particular are resource intensive.  Webmail and static informational pages without a million ads on them are usually pretty reasonable.  If you're eligible for a Win10 upgrade, that might be worth your time.

[pmoniz]

Yes, I am eligible to Win10. So I guess that is the last resource then I am tired with this, If only I could know where the issue comes from (hardware, flash, sound, AMD, etc...) it would be much easier. I don't even know this.... It makes me want to give up and sell this PC....

Thank you for all the attention and perseverance you demonstrated. For curiosity matters, if I have any news, I will update...

Best regards!

[jeromiec83223024]

It feels like hardware to me.  Windows 8.x is kind of a dud release, so I don't think much energy is really getting spent there in terms of new windows 8 specific drivers, etc.  Windows 10 is much nicer, and any active driver development is probably happening there as the priority. 

I'm not sure if I asked, but you might take a look at any power savings options defined under the control panel's power menu, and if there are fancy utilities that came from the OEM for either the computer itself (Lenovo as an example ships a whole alternate control panel), or the GPU (like an nVidia control panel thing).  Set everything to maximum performance and see if you see a difference in behavior.  It might just be that the computer is throttling itself way down to maximize battery life.  Sometimes plugging it in will set everything to maximum performance automatically.

Anyway, if you see a big performance difference after setting everything to maximum performance, then you know you can tune it to a spot that you find acceptable.  There's a big trade-off between performance and battery life, and battery consumption is a big area of focus.