Using YouTube on Firefox

[Inception9269]

Is soooo fking laggy and slow right now.

 

I'm fully aware of the fiasco that went on this past year or whenever, but it's something I never had much of an issue with aside from a little trouble loading every now and then, but today the site as a whole is loading like ass.

 

I know it's not my download speed cause I'm currently getting well over 500mbps with 30ms ping. When it came to the drama surrounding the YT and Firefox issue I could have sworn people said that it's only an issue if YT detects that you're using certain adblockers, though I heard that it doesn't run into that issue if you're using ublock. Regardless of that, I've had YT premium for years now, and also have ublock disabled on YT, but I'm still having videos struggle to load, and when they do play it seems like they only play for a short amount of time before having to buffer. Reloading the video or opening it in a new tab alleviates the problem, but only for a minute or two.

 

Hoping there's some kind of fix that doesn't involve switching to a different browser. I've been using Firefox since 2011, and I absolutely refuse to install Chrome; same goes for Chromium, Brave, and anything else that has anything to do with Google.

[emosun]

well my laptop is 13 years old and firefox is working just fine on youtube for me so it may be related to something else.

25 minutes ago, Inception9269 said:

I absolutely refuse to install Chrome; same goes for Chromium, Brave, and anything else that has anything to do with Google

well not cross checking with other browsers is going to result in some pretty flawed testing methodology

[TempestCatto]

I watched quite a few vids today on YouTube in Firefox on my Windows 10 desktop. I use uBlock Origin and Return YouTube Dislike and haven't experienced any issues.

 

You really do need to install another browser to double/triple check it's not something related to your setup. You likely have Edge or even IE, just pop in one of those and watch some YouTube and see if the issues persist. We can't really help you otherwise. 

[Inception9269]

22 minutes ago, emosun said:

well my laptop is 13 years old and firefox is working just fine on youtube for me so it may be related to something else.

well not cross checking with other browsers is going to result in some pretty flawed testing methodology

 

11 minutes ago, TempestCatto said:

I watched quite a few vids today on YouTube in Firefox on my Windows 10 desktop. I use uBlock Origin and Return YouTube Dislike and haven't experienced any issues.

 

You really do need to install another browser to double/triple check it's not something related to your setup. You likely have Edge or even IE, just pop in one of those and watch some YouTube and see if the issues persist. We can't really help you otherwise. 

Just tried a couple of videos on Edge. Even tried a mixture of videos from multi-million sub/view channels and some from obscure people with hardly any views (to see if perhaps there's some bias going on behind the scenes) and they loaded perfectly fine on Edge.

[emosun]

1 minute ago, Inception9269 said:

they loaded perfectly fine on Edge.

sweet , use edge for youtube then if it works

[Inception9269]

Just now, emosun said:

sweet , use edge for youtube then if it works

Fk that, I ain't using Edge.

[TempestCatto]

1 hour ago, Inception9269 said:

Just tried a couple of videos on Edge. Even tried a mixture of videos from multi-million sub/view channels and some from obscure people with hardly any views (to see if perhaps there's some bias going on behind the scenes) and they loaded perfectly fine on Edge.

That now rules out anything to do with your setup. What extensions are you running in FF? Try doing a classic browser refresh and see if that works. Otherwise I'd reinstall FF and then try it without any extensions, then one by one add them back until you rule out which one it may (or may not) be.

[TheLANguy]

Are you using any other extensions? I have no problem using only Ublock Origin and return dislike on Firefox. However, I did have issues with tampermonkey.

[Inception9269]

56 minutes ago, TheLANguy said:

Are you using any other extensions? I have no problem using only Ublock Origin and return dislike on Firefox. However, I did have issues with tampermonkey.

 

I was using one specifically for Youtube called "Enhancer for Youtube" but I disabled it, and am still getting the same problems.

[Inception9269]

I even tried clearing cache on Firefox, but still videos are so damn choppy, laggy, and won't fully buffer.

[thrasher_565]

well i no with some games they would collect data on accounts and then do a big ban wave posably the account got flag. i have 4 adbocks one i disable for yt but other are all on. from time to time i get problems but its worth it in the end of the day for me atlest.

my other system only has oone blocker and its been fine for the most part. there times were they block a blocker for like a day or too then an update happens and its back.

[TempestCatto]

9 hours ago, Inception9269 said:

I even tried clearing cache on Firefox, but still videos are so damn choppy, laggy, and won't fully buffer.

Disable all your extensions and go from there. Re-enable them one by one until you find the culprit.

[TempestCatto]

@Inception9269 Do you still have this issue? I just started having it as well. I run uBlock and found a thread on Reddit where someone said to disable the Quick Fixes Filter. It has so far worked for me. Just thought I'd share, hope it works.

[Inception9269]

On 6/20/2024 at 8:13 PM, TempestCatto said:

@Inception9269 Do you still have this issue? I just started having it as well. I run uBlock and found a thread on Reddit where someone said to disable the Quick Fixes Filter. It has so far worked for me. Just thought I'd share, hope it works.

Was able to get help from ChatGPT, since nothing anyone here recommended seemed to help. ChatGPT gave me a list of things to try, with these being the ones I tried out which worked for me.

 

3. Disable Hardware Acceleration

Hardware acceleration can sometimes cause issues with video playback.

• Disable Hardware Acceleration: Go to Menu > Settings > General > Performance, uncheck "Use recommended performance settings," and then uncheck "Use hardware acceleration when available."

4. Adjust Firefox Settings

Tweaking some advanced settings in Firefox can improve performance.

• About
   
  Tweaks: Type about:config in the address bar, accept the risk, and change the following settings:
  • media.mediasource.enabled: Ensure this is set to true.
  • media.mediasource.webm.enabled: Set to true if you prefer WebM over MP4.
  • media.webm.enabled: Set to true.

5. Disable Experimental Features

Firefox may have experimental features enabled that could interfere with performance.

• Disable Experimental Features: Type about:config in the address bar and set media.av1.enabled to false.

6. Use the h264ify Extension

This extension forces YouTube to use the H.264 codec instead of VP8/VP9, which can be less performance-intensive.

• h264ify Extension: Install h264ify.

7. Check Network and DNS Settings

Ensure your network connection is stable and try changing DNS settings to see if it improves performance.

• Change DNS Settings: Use a DNS service like Google Public DNS or Cloudflare.
  • Google Public DNS: 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4
  • Cloudflare DNS: 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1 (Note, Cloudflare's is the one I used for this step, since I don't think Google's DNS would assist me in a case where they're the ones responsible for this problem. I also set the IPv6 DNS to theirs as well, 2606:4700:4700::1111 and 2606:4700:4700::1001)

[MartyS]

I've been having the same issue for about a month, videos would start fine but about half the time they would pause while playing, going over to chrome and playing the same video would have no issues.  I'll give the stuff listed above a try to see if those help.  I don't mind using chrome just for YouTube but sometimes I forget and run into the pausing issue.