Join the AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the Firefox leadership team to celebrate Firefox 20th anniversary and discuss Firefox’s future on Mozilla Connect. Mark your calendar on Thursday, November 14, 18:00 - 20:00 UTC!

This site will have limited functionality while we undergo maintenance to improve your experience. If an article doesn't solve your issue and you want to ask a question, we have our support community waiting to help you at @FirefoxSupport on Twitter and/r/firefox on Reddit.

Avatar for Username

Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

This thread was archived. Please ask a new question if you need help.

HTML5 video problems on Linux: Youtube - An error occurred / Test Site - Segfault crash

  • 2 replies
  • 1 has this problem
  • 5 views
  • Last reply by Jason_25

Jason_25
Jason_25
more options

I am trying to figure out why I am seeing "an error occurred" when trying to play back HTML5 video from Youtube and a segmentation fault crash when loading the HTML5 test videos at http://www.quirksmode.org/html5/tests/video.html .

I only see "segmentation fault" in the terminal with no other clues to go on. I have followed Google's steps for the Youtube error. I am not using any addons. I also have tried two different computers with the same problem.

How can I continue troubleshooting?

I am trying to figure out why I am seeing "an error occurred" when trying to play back HTML5 video from Youtube and a segmentation fault crash when loading the HTML5 test videos at http://www.quirksmode.org/html5/tests/video.html . I only see "segmentation fault" in the terminal with no other clues to go on. I have followed Google's steps for the Youtube error. I am not using any addons. I also have tried two different computers with the same problem. How can I continue troubleshooting?

All Replies (2)

James
James
  • Top 25 Contributor
  • Moderator
more options

You can check at https://www.youtube.com/html5 to see if your Linux system install fully support html5. I get seven blue check marks.

I believe one does not need Gstreamer packages anymore in the last few Releases of Firefox however you still need ffmpeg.

However since you appear to be using a old Firefox 38.8.0 version (third-party) you likely do need Gstreamer packages on your Linux distro to play HTML5 video.

Modified by James

Jason_25
Jason_25 Question owner
more options

Thanks for the quick reply. I only get 2 of 6? check marks. H.264 support crucially is missing.

As far as I know gstreamer is installed because I had to install many gstreamer packages to enable HTML5 playback on qupzilla which ended up being too slow. Just so you know even with a new install without these packages the result is the same.

So currently I am still at a loss.

edit: I believe H.264 support was going down the wrong path. Apparently with the HTMLVideoElement and WebM VP8 it should be working.

edit: I am using Debian Linux and have tried Iceweasel 38.8.0 and Firefox-ESR 45.3.0 with the same result.

Modified by Jason_25