reset greyed out in about:config

[Jo-Anne]

I wanted to block autoplay for videos and went to about:config. However,
"Reset" is greyed out. Is there anything I can do? (Firefox supposedly
will be creating a Preference to do this, but I haven't seen it yet.)

--
Thank you,
Jo-Anne

[Jo-Anne]

[WaltS48]

On 5/7/19 12:18 PM, Jo-Anne wrote:
> I wanted to block autoplay for videos and went to about:config. However,
> "Reset" is greyed out. Is there anything I can do? (Firefox supposedly
> will be creating a Preference to do this, but I haven't seen it yet.)
>

What version of Firefox and what preference in about:config did you want
to modify? AFAIK you can't stop autoplay of videos, just the sound.

I have 10 with autoplay listed in my about:config.

Little things like that help. :)

--
OS: Linux Mint 19.1 - Cinnamon Desktop
https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/get-involved/

[Jo-Anne]

On 5/7/2019 12:35 PM, WaltS48 wrote:
> On 5/7/19 12:18 PM, Jo-Anne wrote:
>> I wanted to block autoplay for videos and went to about:config.
>> However, "Reset" is greyed out. Is there anything I can do? (Firefox
>> supposedly will be creating a Preference to do this, but I haven't
>> seen it yet.)
>>
>
> What version of Firefox and what preference in about:config did you want
> to modify? AFAIK you can't stop autoplay of videos, just the sound.
>
> I have 10 with autoplay listed in my about:config.
>
> Little things like that help. :)
>

Because of the recent add-on debacle, I updated yesterday to 66.0.4. In
theory, in the 66 releases, Firefox is supposed to offer autoplay
blocking in Preferences (Tools | Options | Privacy and Security), but
mine isn't showing up yet. Today I was offered an update to 66.0.5, so I
did that update as well. (Still no blocking in Preferences.) A suggested
fix is:

In about:config, adjust these settings:

(1) Set media.autoplay.default to 1 to disable video autoplay for all
sites.
[Mine is already set to 1]

(2) Set media.autoplay.allow-muted to false to disable video autoplay
even for muted videos.
[I should be able to right-click on this setting and click on Reset;
however, Reset is greyed out--and in fact is greyed out on ALL settings.]

So...how do I get "Reset" to be functional?

--
Thank you,
Jo-Anne

[WaltS48]

Not showing up yet?

The "Block websites from automatically playing sound" preference is
under the Permissions heading in Options > Privacy & Security.

"media.autoplay.default;1" is the default setting so there is nothing to
Reset. It hasn't been modified and that is why "Reset" is greyed out.

To set "media.autoplay.allow-muted" to "false" right-click and select
"Toggle".

Only modified settings in bold font can be reset.

[Jo-Anne]

Thank you, Walt! I swear Toggle wasn't there before, but it is now--and
I did change the setting to false. I'm hoping that'll work.

Jo-Anne

[Christian Riechers]

On 5/7/19 6:22 PM, Jo-Anne wrote:
> I wanted to block autoplay for videos and went to about:config. However,
> "Reset" is greyed out. Is there anything I can do? (Firefox supposedly
> will be creating a Preference to do this, but I haven't seen it yet.)

I don't understand why people always want to mess with about:config
settings instead of using what's already available in the GUI.
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2019/03/19/todays-firefox-aims-to-reduce-your-online-annoyances/#block-autoplay

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message
<mailman.397.155757061...@lists.mozilla.org>,

Because (a) it's often far from easy to navigate the GUI to _find_ where
what you want to change is, (b) not everything is _accessible_ in the
GUI.

Like you, I prefer to use the GUI where I can: it's usually clearer what
I'm doing. But sometimes what I want to change isn't there, and
sometimes even if it is I can't find it.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

"Who came first? Adam or Eve?" "Adam of course; men always do."
Victoria Wood (via Peter Hesketh)

[Jo-Anne]

Because the GUI blocks only AUDIO autoplay, not VIDEO autoplay. To quote
from the webpage you cited: "There will be instances where there are
some sites, like social media, that automatically mute the sound but
will continue to play the video. In this case, the new Block Autoplay
Feature will not stop the video from playing."

I do not want to automatically watch videos--ever. But since the latest
update, which I was forced to do because of the add-on debacle, videos
have been autoplaying everywhere (I'm not on any social media; the main
offender is news sites). I don't understand why Mozilla is patting
itself on the back for turning off autoplay SOUND but leaving autoplay
VIDEO.

That is why I posed my question. And thanks to some helpful responses
here and elsewhere, I was able to use about:config to turn off most of
the video autoplays.

--
Jo-Anne

[EE]

Jo-Anne wrote:
> I wanted to block autoplay for videos and went to about:config. However,
> "Reset" is greyed out. Is there anything I can do? (Firefox supposedly will be
> creating a Preference to do this, but I haven't seen it yet.)
>

What setting are you looking at? Is "media.autoplay.enabled" still present?
If so, you must have it set to true if reset is greyed out, since that is the
default setting. Set it to false if you want to stop videos from playing as
soon as a page loads.

Some sites require media autoplay to be enabled to play their videos at all,
which is why I have an extension that allows me to toggle the setting with a
click of a button. Whether such an extension is available for Firefox, I have
no idea, because I am using SeaMonkey and Pale Moon.

[Jo-Anne]

I finally managed to get things working mostly right--but what caused
videos to start autoplaying was updating to the latest Firefox release,
which I did only because of the add-on debacle. Interestingly, while the
add-ons weren't working, I went back to Pale Moon and discovered that I
like it better for some things and so will continue using it as much as
I can...

--
Jo-Anne

[»Q«]

In <news:mailman.406.155759564...@lists.mozilla.org>,

Jo-Anne <Jo-...@nowhere.com> wrote:

> I do not want to automatically watch videos--ever. But since the
> latest update, which I was forced to do because of the add-on
> debacle, videos have been autoplaying everywhere (I'm not on any
> social media; the main offender is news sites). I don't understand
> why Mozilla is patting itself on the back for turning off autoplay
> SOUND but leaving autoplay VIDEO.
>
> That is why I posed my question. And thanks to some helpful responses
> here and elsewhere, I was able to use about:config to turn off most
> of the video autoplays.

Could you link to a site (or sites, even better) where videos still
autoplay despite the steps you've taken? If there's a way to block
autoplay completely in Fx 66, Mozilla haven't bothered to document it
anywhere I can find, so I'd like to try to find a way.

[Jo-Anne]

I haven't seen any video autoplays in the last couple days--but I'll
report back if any more show up. Still, it took several changes to get
this far, including the add-on "Disable HTML5 Autoplay." I wish Mozilla
would deal with this issue directly. I used to be able to stop videos by
disabling Shockwave Flash, but that didn't do a thing in the latest
releases.

--
Jo-Anne

[Jo-Anne]

On 5/12/2019 8:21 AM, »Q« wrote:

Today (first time in a couple weeks) I noticed a video playing on a
Yahoo News webpage; I clicked on the link for the full story, just to
see if the video still was playing--and it was. The first video in "This
New Theory..." doesn't play, but the second does. The rest don't. I have
no idea why this one is playing. See

https://frontier.yahoo.com/lifestyle/theory-says-bran-played-much-140500641.html

--
Jo-Anne

[WaltS48]

The video plays, looking at Tools > Page Info > Permissions the sound is
blocked, so Firefox is operating as expected.

What is the problem?

--
OS: Ubuntu Linux 18.04LTS - Gnome Desktop
https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/get-involved/

[Jo-Anne]

The problem is that I do not want videos to autoplay, and I have taken
several steps to stop autoplay, including an add-on and some changes in
about:config. They seem to work for the most part, but every now and
then a video autoplay sneaks through. My post was in response to "Q,"
who asked for examples of websites where a video is still playing
despite my efforts to stop autoplay.

However, now that you've asked, I would add that the more important
problem is that Firefox doesn't let the user decide, in Permissions,
whether to allow autoplay of videos. It's great that the default there
is to not allow audio autoplay. Why not also stop video autoplay.

--
Jo-Anne

[»Q«]

In <news:mailman.4.1558406892...@lists.mozilla.org>,

Is this the thing that's autoplaying for you?

<https://s.yimg.com/ny/api/res/1.2/WV2iV5x.iVcDgR2p1sKnLA--~A/YXBwaWQ9aGlnaGxhbmRlcjtzbT0xO3c9ODAw/https://media.zenfs.com/en/good_housekeeping_561/86422d0c6e21b8c3e18bca573414cc0f>

That's a gif, and if that's what you want to stop, see
<https://techlogon.com/firefox-20-will-remove-esc-key-ability-to-stop-animated-gifs-playing/>.

I don't get anything (except that gif) autoplaying when I load the
page, but if I click on other stories in the page's right-hand sidebar,
videos autoplay when the new story loads. Then if I use the back
button to get back to the GoT article, the top video autoplays. I'll
see what I can do when I get some time to fiddle with things, but I
doubt I can make them stop.

[WaltS48]

This user decides by using right-click in the video and it stops. I
could also click the pause button.

The video doesn't autoplay if I disable JavaScript with my script blocker.

<https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/njs/>

[EnDeeGee]

In about:config if you set "image.animation_mode" to "none" it will stop
the "gif animation".

The "Default setting" is "normal"

[»Q«]

In <news:mailman.14.1558444737...@lists.mozilla.org>,

Setting media.autoplay.enabled.user-gestures-needed to false stops
autoplay at yahoo.com for me. According to some bugs in bugzilla,
though, setting it to false will interfere with custom media controls
on sites which use them, sometimes making it impossible to play the
media at all.

[Jo-Anne]

Thank you VERY much EnDeeGee! That worked; I'm thrilled.

--
Jo-Anne

[EnDeeGee]

You're very welcome.