Firefox 63 flickers aggressively and freezes when streaming video, (HBO, Netflix etc), why?
The following sites all have video playback issues for me: HBO Go, Netflix, Showtime Anytime, Hulu, Xfinity. - HBO freezes every for several seconds every 15 seconds or so. When it does this it repeats audio from the moment where it began freezing to where it stops freezing. Rinse and repeat. - Netflix, Showtime, and Hulu flicker aggressively. The behavior is persistent and unwatchable. - Xfinity is laggy, as if it's playing only every second frame.
macOS 10.13.6, Firefox 63.
I have done the following troubleshooting:
Start in Safe Mode. Check Adobe for Flash for updates. Changed Flash's settings / disabled hardware acceleration Tried turning on and off Automatic Graphics Switching in macOS system preferences.
None of the above have any impact, no matter what I do I cannot watch any TV in Firefox. I have experienced this in 10.11 and 10.12 with earlier versions of Firefox as well, for the past few years I cannot watch any streaming media in Firefox, forcing me back to Chrome every time... (This includes two MacBooks, the current one being brand new.)
Disappointing to say the very least as FF does run super fast, but since it's useless for watching TV/movies in my browser I just stick with Chrome...
All Replies (6)
Youtube is now doing this as well... Real shame :/
Does it has effect if you make the player area smaller?
What are the screen dimension (retina display?) ?
I'm having the same problems, too! With some sites, like Netflix, it's worse if it's not fullscreen. Some other sites, going fullscreen ends up with no video, only the audio working! This has been going on since 63, and with each update, I assume this bug has been corrected, but it's still happening.
cor-el said
Does it has effect if you make the player area smaller? What are the screen dimension (retina display?) ?
No. Still happening in FFox 64 as well... Many frames drop, (sometimes even entire shots in a scene.) Audio still repeating itself.
Screen dimensions are 2880 x 1800, 2018 MacBook so yes it is Retina (as far as I know...)
And sorry, the first part may have been unclear... Small player does not help the issue. The problem is slightly worse in full screen, but video is still unwatchable in small screen.
Entire audio sections repeat themselves, (each chunk being several seconds, as if there's a 3 second echo), while entire chunks of video either freeze, skip back with the audio, or skip ahead, (to catch up with where I'm assuming playback is actually supposed to be.)
Again, FFox is light. I see the potential for it to be an excellent default browser, but this feature kind of kills off possibility of that being an option...
Seems to be fixed in version 65. Watched 2 hours of video last night on NF and Hulu, no issues.
Very glad to see this working now, looking forward to moving my chrome tabs over to FF...