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

Why does Firefox insist on pausing videos when they're not the active window?

more options

Okay, so say I have a Twitch/YouTube/DailyMotion/whatevervideosite up on one display in a Firefox window, and I'm doing some regular browsing in another window on a second display. When I do anything in that second window, any and all video playback will stop, although the audio will continue. As soon as I move my mouse cursor over to the window with the video, the video jumps back to life, skips itself to catch up to the audio, and continues on until I choose to do something in the first window again. Essentially, if I now want to watch a stream or uploaded video, I cannot do anything else with my browser until the video is done. This wasn't happening until 55.0.3, and it seems that even a rollback isn't fixing it (so its buggered something in my registry as well presumably). Any help would be appreciated, because as it stands, I can say goodbye to my off-hours hobby of streaming.

Okay, so say I have a Twitch/YouTube/DailyMotion/whatevervideosite up on one display in a Firefox window, and I'm doing some regular browsing in another window on a second display. When I do anything in that second window, any and all video playback will stop, although the audio will continue. As soon as I move my mouse cursor over to the window with the video, the video jumps back to life, skips itself to catch up to the audio, and continues on until I choose to do something in the first window again. Essentially, if I now want to watch a stream or uploaded video, I cannot do anything else with my browser until the video is done. This wasn't happening until 55.0.3, and it seems that even a rollback isn't fixing it (so its buggered something in my registry as well presumably). Any help would be appreciated, because as it stands, I can say goodbye to my off-hours hobby of streaming.

All Replies (1)

more options

Does this problem affect all video sites or only certain ones? Does it affect any other browsers you use with the same sites?

I can't replicate this problem on a single monitor (by playing a YouTube video in a separate inactive window next to my active window). Maybe this a multi-monitor issue?? (Also, my add-ons disable multiprocess, so that might be a factor.)