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.

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

When viewing full screen video in netflix watch instantly, the picture freezes while the audio continues streaming

  • 16 replies
  • 610 have this problem
  • 34 views
  • Last reply by dneedles

more options

When watching full screen video in firefox the picture freezes and the audio continues streaming. I had at first thought this was limited to netflix but now see the same problem when viewing flash video sites. Once the picture freezes the computer has to be rebooted. This only happens in firefox. Explorer streams perfectly in fullscreen. The problem began after updating to firefox 3.6 as I had no problems prior to that.

Operating system

Windows XP

When watching full screen video in firefox the picture freezes and the audio continues streaming. I had at first thought this was limited to netflix but now see the same problem when viewing flash video sites. Once the picture freezes the computer has to be rebooted. This only happens in firefox. Explorer streams perfectly in fullscreen. The problem began after updating to firefox 3.6 as I had no problems prior to that. == Operating system == Windows XP

All Replies (16)

more options

Same problem. Never thought I would use Internet Explorer again but this is intolerable on a computer that I'm trying to use as a media center. This happens after about 30 minutes of streaming, but not every time. Like the original poster, I have to force reboot to escape the problem. Mouse/keyboard seem to respond but only with extremely long delays and with only limited effect. This may be some kind of memory leak. The one time I was able to get into the task manager while experiencing this problem I noticed that FF was at 300+ MB of RAM.

WinXP SP3, Firefox 3.6.6.

more options

Identical problem; using Mozilla Firefox 3.6.6

more options

Same problem, running 3.6.6 on Mac OS X 10.6.4. Tab turns completely black, audio runs still. Have to refresh page to get video back.

more options

I have the same problem when viewing a movie in netflix full screen or windowed I think, video freezes, CPU shoots up to 100%. I have to hit escape then hit ctr-alt-Del about 10 times to finally get task manager to interrupt Firefox, take about 3 minutes to restore control. After this happens movie continues to play fine. I noticed this started happening with the plug-in-container was added to Firefox. Identical to above posters. If I can catch a screen-shot of task-manager while problem is happening, I'll post a screen-shot. Any solution would be great.. Thanks,

more options

Oh yah, I'm on windows xp, I think service pack 3.

more options

For some reason the plugin container is causing some wierd stuff. I didn't know you could have more than one instance of task manager open. while this bug occurred, I had 15 task managers open. So somehow this plugin container is doing soemthing funky with the windows system. I'm the same poster as the last 2 post

Hope this helps the troubleshooting.

Windows xp sp3, ati video card, amd dual core

more options

Yep. Same symptoms after updating to FF3.6.8 on XPSP3.

Anybody have a fix?

more options

Same problem, Intel Mac with Firefox 3.6.6, but safari works fine...

more options

I also have this problem, with Netflix only. May be a Silverlight issue? Full screen flickers on then off, then no video. Sound keeps playing. OSX 10.6.4, FF 3.6.12, Silverlight 4.0.50917.0

more options

I Have the same problem, Netflix asd fancast - (comcast hulu)

Netflix - picture goes black, sound continues for a moment then stops.

Fancast - picture freezes then catches up to sound.

I believe it is a silver light problem, because it happened again on IE 8.

more options

Exactamundo same problem. Netflix streaming on comcast crashing firefox and chrome, usually about 15 min in. 20Mbps cable modem so not that, just hooking up computer (XP) to tv. Tried IE 7 - problem solved. (It'll be the only thing I ever use IE for, but still...least I can watch a movie now!)

more options
more options

I have the same god damned problem...it's so freaking annoying. I had to switch back to safari and google chrome...I hate both, but at this point its better than firefox. Please fix this!

more options

Well, it's official. Lots of folks have this problem. Is there an answer? Is there a FF mediator there?

more options
more options

I seemed to have corrected the problem in my case. I am on Lenovo G560 4GB RAM, I5, Windows 7 Home Edition 64bit running 10.0.2 of Firefox.

1) I turned off several plugins and one extension. 2) I noted that plugin-container.exe was eating up a lot of RAM and googled on that along with firefox and screen freezes to get more hits 3) Finally I updated Adobe and Silverlight both of which were a full rev back:

  http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer
 http://www.microsoft.com/getsilverlight/Get-Started/Install/Default.aspx1

In my case this has appeared to do the trick.