Threads with Youtube videos cause Firefox to grind to a halt

Malevolence · 12 Apr 2016 at 17:57

Anybody having this issue? If I open a thread that contains a number of embedded Youtube videos, Firefox simply grinds to a halt. Can't do anything, not even switch tabs to something else.

Everything is up to date.

Munchies · 12 Apr 2016 at 20:39

I had an issue with flash player constantly crashing, causing firefox to lock up, removing and reinstalling flash player has fixed the issue, pretty sure firefox uses HTML 5 now, but still was causing flash to act up.

HungryHippos · 12 Apr 2016 at 21:08

Malevolence said:
Anybody having this issue? If I open a thread that contains a number of embedded Youtube videos, Firefox simply grinds to a halt. Can't do anything, not even switch tabs to something else.

Everything is up to date.

This is the reason I stopped using Firefox, I may not be into the whole "Google stealing all my datas" thing, but hell at least Chrome works well...

lsg1r · 13 Apr 2016 at 01:20

I don't get it as often with youtube these days, I still get sticky scrolling with threads full of gifs though. Basically it's firefox 'waiting' for the next gif to load rather than just putting in a 'placeholder' and loading in background.

There's likely a addon or about:config tweak that will fix my issue though.

Blackjack Davy · 13 Apr 2016 at 01:32

Can't say I have, no. I am using uBlock and Ghostery though.

Malevolence · 13 Apr 2016 at 05:17

I'm using uBlock and Ghostery too, yet opening any thread with more than a few Youtube videos embedded in it causes the browser to slow to a crawl.

Buffalo2102 · 13 Apr 2016 at 07:48

Can you give us a link to an example page that causes you problems?

Malevolence · 13 Apr 2016 at 17:35

https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18304064&page=31

Rroff · 13 Apr 2016 at 17:38

Using latest firefox here and there is barely half a second loading that page where it slows down a little and takes a moment (less than a second) to swap tabs if I try but that is it no major grinding to a halt.

Only addon of any significance I've got running is noscript (which is largely doing nothing for that page).

It slows down a bit more on my Windows 8 tablet (quad core atom) but nothing too bad.

Malevolence · 13 Apr 2016 at 18:34

Takes about a minute to load it here, and I can't use the browser for anything else while it loads. And this is the latest version of Firefox too.

Buffalo2102 · 13 Apr 2016 at 18:57

I just opened that link in a new tab and it was fully loaded within a couple of seconds. No problem at all.

Firefox 45.01 x64 Debian. Tried it with and without uBlock origin and no noticeable difference.

demonix · 13 Apr 2016 at 18:58

Malevolence said:
https://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18304064&page=31

Do you actually see the 'lego brick' in the address bar notifying that a plugin is active as I did get some slowdown while the page was loading, but all the youtube videos on that page were using HTML5 and not flash?

Malevolence · 13 Apr 2016 at 19:35

Don't see the lego brick on that thread but, like you say, that maybe down to the videos on there using the HTML5 player rather than Flash. It's there on any site that requires Flash though. As of 30s ago all my plug ins are up to date and working.

It's only on forum threads with embedded Youtube videos that this problem arises. The Youtube website works just fine, as doe other video sites.

KIA · 14 Apr 2016 at 17:35

Create a new profile with all plug-ins and extensions disabled.

Malevolence · 14 Apr 2016 at 19:03

That was one of the first things I did. It was the same.

joeyjojo · 14 Apr 2016 at 20:29

It's probably just your CPU. I get the same symptoms on my trusty Core 2 Quad system, but it's fine on my work Ivybridge machine. Same browser, similar configs.

Blame the amount of javascript on the web these days.

jpaul · 14 Apr 2016 at 21:13

no problem loaded in seconds sandy-bridge 2720qm, firefox 40, plus noscript so videos only play (seconds) when selected, also behindtheoverlay add-on.(google nag screen)
Browser hardware acceleration disabled (not sure if that matters)

Update the utube html5 player does not show me any kind of version number
when I select 'about html5 player' in utube context menu .. how do you get to see this ?

lsg1r · 14 Apr 2016 at 22:54

joeyjojo said:
It's probably just your CPU. I get the same symptoms on my trusty Core 2 Quad system, but it's fine on my work Ivybridge machine. Same browser, similar configs.

Blame the amount of javascript on the web these days.

Actually now you mention it I can vaguelly remember my old x2 4200+ slowing down on youtube but it's been a while since I used it.

I just blamed it on the age of the machine not liking things like excessive javascript, the stupid amount of 'tracking cookies' and the huge amount of adverts some sites have (ublock for the win there though)

Malevolence · 15 Apr 2016 at 07:17

The Youtube (and all other video) site is just fine though. I can have an absolute **** load of tabs open with Youtube videos playing in them without a single problem, it's just when the videos are embedded into a forum that the problem starts. It's also only in Firefox too. If I open that thread I posted up there ^^ in Chrome it opens in less than a second without a problem.

Guess I'm going to have to suck it up and get used to using Chrome. It's going to take me bloody ages to get it set-up and configured to my liking. Oh well!

joeyjojo · 15 Apr 2016 at 07:48

Malevolence said:
Guess I'm going to have to suck it up and get used to using Chrome. It's going to take me bloody ages to get it set-up and configured to my liking. Oh well!

Interesting, could be the javascript engine on Chrome (V8) is faster than Firefox's (SpiderMonkey). Opera also uses V8, you could try that too (and avoid selling yourself to Google).