Google disrupted YouTube video playback on Firefox, again - gHacks Tech News ( www.ghacks.net )

Some Firefox users noticed playback issues on YouTube for several months. These affected high resolution videos only, from 1080p and up. To make matters worse, no clear pattern could be identified.

Some videos played fine, others would stop abruptly when they ran out of buffer.

wick ,

Affected users might have blamed Firefox for the issue. Some may even have switched to a Chromium-based browser, as these worked without any issue.

I've been having issues with YouTube on Firefox for ages, not these issues, different ones. I haven't bothered to test if it's only Firefox that has the problem because I'm not using Firefox for a seamless experience, I'm using because why the fuck would I use anything else on Linux? I won't put google or ms into a Linux environment, even if I don't really care about privacy or whatever, it just feels like mixing oil and water.

Might use another browser like brave or whatever foss solutions are out there, but I'd be surprised if anything like that is better than Firefox.

InternetUser2012 ,

When I have issues, I use user agent switcher and go windows with chrome and the problems magically disappear. Google is such shit.

MonkderDritte ,

No such problems with yt-dlp + mpv. And still no injected ads.

FuryMaker ,

If it doesn't load quickly or properly, I just don't watch it, which ultimately hurts Google.

shadowwwind ,
@shadowwwind@fosstodon.org avatar

@FuryMaker @cloudless do you use an adblocker?

Blackmist ,

Badly muxed VP9 stream? Is that where they tried to stuff ads into it?

pbsds ,
@pbsds@lemmy.ml avatar

The youtube ui is so slow I don't use it, even back when I was using chrome. Thanks invidious!

tostos ,

this is frustating i had to use open with potplayer extension most of times.

Doof ,

I happens to me but all i thought was that YouTube was bad not Firefox.

Blackmist ,

It is.

"This problem is triggered by bad muxed VP9 bytestream served by Youtube, so it's not a regression on our side, this issue can also be reproduced on old versions Firefox".

Furbag ,

I have issues with YouTube playback specifically on my work laptop. At home it's fine. It just started one day where videos sometimes fail to auto play and requires multiple refreshes. Even once they get going they often stall out and the progress bar goes all the way back to the beginning so I've gotten in the habit of taking notes of the time before I hit refresh and hope it comes back before I completely lose all interest.

I'd use Piped instead, but it has literally never once worked for me. Videos never load.

Matriks404 ,

I have had the same issue for at least a month now. I use YouTube Premium, the fuck am I paying for?

SGG ,

For your experience to only be degraded a little.

For an slightly better but still degraded experience they want you on Google Chrome. But remember please use 360p or lower so their poor servers don't have to work so hard, they even help you do this by default on mobile!

Etterra ,

You're posting for your inability to download ublock.

Matriks404 ,

I already have an uBlock dude, it's just I like to support content creators on YouTube by having Premium.

winkerjadams ,

Support them directly instead of whatever peanuts google decides to graciously give them.

Matriks404 ,

That's a lot of effort, given how many people I am subscribed to. And I wouldn't say that it' "peanuts", after all they redistribute 55% of YouTube Premium earnings, that's a lot more than what other similar subscriptions give.

Brickardo ,

Would you support that kind of business model if you were at the other end, knowing full well you could be earning more? Then again, this is an age-old question...

psud ,

I also pay for YouTube, and I keep chrome around for watching it, and for the Google apps

InternetUser2012 ,

You're paying them to sell your data and to better advertise to you.

FlashMobOfOne ,
@FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world avatar

They work fine on Brave Browser.

Takumidesh ,

Of course, Brave is built by Google.

FlashMobOfOne ,
@FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world avatar

Here we go with the circle jerk of trolls.

No, it isn't.

Reddfugee42 ,

Brave is built on Chromium which is maintained by Google. Under that context, what they said is true and also makes perfect sense

largess ,
@largess@mastodon.au avatar

@FlashMobOfOne
Sort of, Chromium is maintained by Google, Brave and its users just sit atop the Goggle shitpile and help enable it to contine.

@Takumidesh

Delusional ,

My videos play fine but my side bar is completely gone. No recommended videos, no similar videos, no playlist. Works fine on my other PC.

Blackmist ,

It's underneath on mine, with the contents in the sidebar. Looks shite.

orhtej2 ,

I solved a lot of performance issues I had with yt playback by disabling Ambient Mode (it's hidden under cog menu in the player). No clue why, but it was causing massve CPU usage.

TBi ,

Yeah. I hate ambient mode. Kills battery life on all systems.

Sabata11792 ,
@Sabata11792@ani.social avatar

It's also really ugly and distracting.

TheOakTree ,

I'm not sure why, but ambient mode also introduces a lot of color banding for me. I find it odd because it doesn't occur in similar dark-gradient scenes while gaming, just YouTube.

tibi ,

My guess is that it's supposed to look good if you have HDR enabled (which gives you 10 bits per color channel, although even with HDR, the desktop UI still renders in 8 bits per channel).

But still, it looks terrible for most people, and is a complete waste of resources. Because of the horrible banding, I initially thought something was wrong with my monitor. I don't understand why they added this feature.

parpol ,

Invidious on PC,

Grayjay on Android.

You're welcome.

Adanisi ,
@Adanisi@lemmy.zip avatar

NewPipe on Android.

Fuck GrayJay, their marketing lies, and their nasty license.

x4740N ,
@x4740N@lemm.ee avatar

Isn't the greyjay developer team funded by Louis Rossman

parpol ,

What's wrong with Louis Rossman? His right-to-repair push is great.

Imperor ,
@Imperor@lemmy.world avatar

No. Louis works for greyjay. There is some billionaire behind it all.

x4740N ,
@x4740N@lemm.ee avatar

You know the billionares name, it would be a good idea to see who the people are behind the funding

parpol ,

What lies? And what's wrong with the license? It is to prevent other companies from taking their source code to make applications that aren't free.

michael_palmer ,

I use Librewolf with Ublock and sponsorblock. Sometimes youtube video stops loading or keeps seeking 5-10 seconds forward. However, reloading the page helps. I don't have such problems when watching Youtube with mpv.

SlopppyEngineer ,

I resorted to having Chrome for work things, Opera for Youtube and Firefox for the good stuff. Divide and conquer, I guess.

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