BBC videos wont play

[Robert M Jones]

I'm running 64 bit firefox 49.02 on Windows 7 and in the last day or two
BBC news website videos have stopped working properly - they don't show
moving video, just play the soundtrack with occasional still pictures as
if I had a dial up connection. The whole player is clunky and slow to
respond..

I've uninstalled Flash, run CCleaner, + reinstalled flash for firefox
from the official site - no improvement.

I get a similar problem in iPlayer - audio plays but the video just
shows stills - if I'm lucky - more than one.

The videos play fine in Internet Explorer once I installed Flash for
that browser too.

In Safe Mode Firefox just produces a rotating pink circle on a black
screen for both iPlayer, and BBC News videos then eventually produces a
still picture, no sound.

Anyone got any troubleshooting suggestions please?
Thanks in advance for any bright ideas.

[Paul in Houston, TX]

Does it work when you turn off extensions and popup blockers?

[WaltS48]

Enter about:config in the address bar and Press Enter, dismiss the
warning, enter asyncdraw into the Search box, change
"dom.ipc.plugins.asyncdrawing.enabled" to false.

Close Firefox and restart and try the videos again.

Known bug <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1312242>

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[Robert M Jones]

On 30/10/2016 19:50, WaltS48 wrote:
> On 10/30/2016 03:06 PM, Robert M Jones wrote:
>> I'm running 64 bit firefox 49.02 on Windows 7 and in the last day or
>> two BBC news website videos have stopped working properly - they don't
>> show moving video, just play the soundtrack with occasional still
>> pictures as if I had a dial up connection. The whole player is clunky
>> and slow to respond..
>>
>> I've uninstalled Flash, run CCleaner, + reinstalled flash for firefox
>> from the official site - no improvement.
>>
>> I get a similar problem in iPlayer - audio plays but the video just
>> shows stills - if I'm lucky - more than one.
>>
>> The videos play fine in Internet Explorer once I installed Flash for
>> that browser too.
>>
>> In Safe Mode Firefox just produces a rotating pink circle on a black
>> screen for both iPlayer, and BBC News videos then eventually produces
>> a still picture, no sound.
>>
>> Anyone got any troubleshooting suggestions please?
>> Thanks in advance for any bright ideas.
>
>
> Enter about:config in the address bar and Press Enter, dismiss the
> warning, enter asyncdraw into the Search box, change
> "dom.ipc.plugins.asyncdrawing.enabled" to false.
>
> Close Firefox and restart and try the videos again.
>
> Known bug <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1312242>
>

Wow - that was quick! Brilliant solution - it did the trick, thanks VERY
much! Greatly appreciated! Both BBC news videos and iPlayer now working
normally.

[NFN Smith]

Robert M Jones wrote:
> I'm running 64 bit firefox 49.02 on Windows 7 and in the last day or two
> BBC news website videos have stopped working properly - they don't show
> moving video, just play the soundtrack with occasional still pictures as
> if I had a dial up connection. The whole player is clunky and slow to
> respond..
>

> In Safe Mode Firefox just produces a rotating pink circle on a black
> screen for both iPlayer, and BBC News videos then eventually produces a
> still picture, no sound.

Use the Profile Manager and try a fresh profile. I've found that
sometimes there is odd behavior coming from something within a profile
that doesn't get cleared, even with Safe Mode. I'm surprised the number
of times that I get clean behavior from a new profile. To that end, I
keep a separate profile, where it's almost entirely default settings --
only a small number of personal preference tweaks, and no extensions.
If I'm having problems with a site, I switch to that profile, and nearly
always, the site behaves correctly.

Thus, if you're having problems, it's very rare that it's Firefox (or in
this case), even Flash, but issues in your profile. If you don't have a
lot of commitment to that profile (especially personal preference
settings), it may be easier to start over with a new profile, and
transfer the stuff you care about (primarily your bookmarks, and maybe
your cookies, if you want persistent cookies) to the new profile.

Smith

[WaltS48]

That won't help any with Firefox 49.0.2 which prematurely(?) set
"dom.ipc.plugins.asyncdrawing.enabled" to true and broke Flash on many
sites.

See
<https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.support.firefox/VAQLARisJPI/Arg7dp7DBQAJ>

[NFN Smith]

WaltS48 wrote:
> That won't help any with Firefox 49.0.2 which prematurely(?) set
> "dom.ipc.plugins.asyncdrawing.enabled" to true and broke Flash on many
> sites.
>
> See
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.support.firefox/VAQLARisJPI/Arg7dp7DBQAJ>
>
>
> Known bug <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1312242>

Aha. I've had problems with Flash 23.x crashing on both Firefox 49.0
and Seamonkey 2.40. I used that as an opportunity to see if I could live
without Flash, and haven't tried again, since Adobe's most recent
updates last week, and the release of Firefox 49.0.2.

Smith

[Robert M Jones]

As stated above, changing "dom.ipc.plugins.asyncdrawing.enabled" to
false has fixed the problem for now.

[WaltS48]

Mozilla is supposed to be rolling out a hotfix for the problem, which
returns that pref to false if set to true. I haven't seen it in my
Windows 49.0.2.

[WaltS48]

On 10/31/2016 02:16 PM, Robert M Jones wrote:

Oops! Just found out Win32 users will get the hotfix, and Win64 users
have to wait for Firefox 50 to be released next month.

The things you learn lurking on IRC, and reading scrollback occasionally. 🤓

[Disaster Master]

On 10/31/2016 2:54 PM, WaltS48 <thali...@REMOVEaim.com> wrote:

Oops! Just found out Win32 users will get the hotfix, and Win64 users 
have to wait for Firefox 50 to be released next month.

Presumably you mean Firefox-32bit users and/or Firefox-64bit users?

Meaning, I'm using Windows 7 64bit, but running Firefox 32 but.

[WaltS48]

They can be cryptic at times. :-(

I think they meant Firefox 32-bit will get the hotfix, Firefox 64-bit
users will have to wait until version 50.

You decide.

> 2:46:14 PM - RyanVM: win64 need to wait for 50 because there were code
> changes needed beyond just the pref flip

[PietB]

WaltS48 wrote:
> Robert M Jones wrote:

>> As stated above, changing "dom.ipc.plugins.asyncdrawing.enabled" to
>> false has fixed the problem for now.
>
>
> Mozilla is supposed to be rolling out a hotfix for the problem, which
> returns that pref to false if set to true. I haven't seen it in my
> Windows 49.0.2.

Windows 49.0.2? ;-)

Interesting that in my FF 49.0.1 the variable is set to false,
but it's not in bold, so I have to assume it's the default.

-p

[WaltS48]

On 10/31/2016 05:10 PM, PietB wrote:
> WaltS48 wrote:
>> Robert M Jones wrote:
>>> As stated above, changing "dom.ipc.plugins.asyncdrawing.enabled" to
>>> false has fixed the problem for now.
>>
>> Mozilla is supposed to be rolling out a hotfix for the problem, which
>> returns that pref to false if set to true. I haven't seen it in my
>> Windows 49.0.2.
> Windows 49.0.2? ;-)

Yep, I have Firefox version 49.0.2 on my Windows notebook. It's the
32-bit version as opposed to the 64-bit version on my Linux desktop.

>
> Interesting that in my FF 49.0.1 the variable is set to false,
> but it's not in bold, so I have to assume it's the default.
>
> -p
>

It is the default on 49.0.1. Changed to true with the release of 49.0.2.

> Asynchronous rendering of the Flash plugins is now enabled by default.
> This should improve performance and reduce crashes for sites that use
> the Flash plugin.
REF: <https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/49.0.2/releasenotes/>

Sure did improve performance. 😈

[Martin Edwards]

On 10/31/2016 7:11 PM, WaltS48 wrote:
> On 10/31/2016 02:57 PM, Disaster Master wrote:
>> On 10/31/2016 2:54 PM, WaltS48 <thali...@REMOVEaim.com> wrote:
>>> Oops! Just found out Win32 users will get the hotfix, and Win64 users
>>> have to wait for Firefox 50 to be released next month.
>>
>> Presumably you mean Firefox-32bit users and/or Firefox-64bit users?
>>
>> Meaning, I'm using Windows 7 64bit, but running Firefox 32 but.
>
>
> They can be cryptic at times. :-(
>
> I think they meant Firefox 32-bit will get the hotfix, Firefox 64-bit
> users will have to wait until version 50.
>
> You decide.
>
>> 2:46:14 PM - RyanVM: win64 need to wait for 50 because there were code
>> changes needed beyond just the pref flip
>

The whole thread is cryptic to me, not being very technically clued up.
I tried playin an iPlayer programme. It did play, but was so jerky that
I gave up.

--
Myth, after all, is what we believe naturally. History is what we must
painfully learn and struggle to remember. -Albert Goldman