Firefox stops playing video after 2-3 seconds

Just to let you know on my Mac with Firefox this played back perfectly. It streamed without a glitch. I am running latest Flash and Firefox, could it possibly be one of your Firefox plug-ins?

Forgot to say: I am on a PC with Windows XP.
Scott, that sounds encouraging.

Others still welcome to test the page and let me know how it worked.

Hello again, just tested on Firefox PC and I get the same issue. Video stops after a few seconds and fails to load after that.

I got the same problem until I deactivated AdBlock Plus in Firefox Addons.

I have the same problem. It will not play sound either. I can skip ahead in the video file and it will play 5 seconds from the point at which I skipped to, but will not play sound, and will stop playing entirely soon after. I first noticed this on my work computer, though it doesn't happen every day, and this is the first day I've noticed it happening on my home computer.

I am not running AdBlock. My addons include Greasemonkey, Stylish, Chatzilla, Fasterfox, Google Notebook, and Google Toolbar, with NoScript deactivated and a couple other site-specific addons.

Well, the bug came back, but now I found this. And Flash movies are now working fine.

http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?locale=en-US&comments_parentId=16131&forumId=1

Got the same problem. Firefox + Windows xp = 2 sec playback. Other browsers and mac have no problem at all. It looks like there is a link with a single video on a page (works) and multiple videos (breaks).

yeah im having the same problem. Firefox + Windows xp = 2 sec playback. it comes and goes though.

I have the same issue with playing flash movies particulary on my joomla website, and it's all started right after I updated Adobe Flash Player from 9.0.47.0 (worked fine) to 9.0.r115 and later to 9.0.124.0 (playing problem for both).

I rolled back my Adobe Flash Player to 9r47 and even earlier, but the problem persisted until I went back to the last iteration of version 8. Instructions and the files necessary to implement this solution can be found here: http://www.yoism.org/?q=node/152#flash

Got the same issue. Above 10 videos on the same page => problem

I have been having the very same problem, but here was my test and results:

Firefox(2.0.0.14)+Mac(OS X) = stall @ 1-2 seconds
Firefox(2.0.0.14)+PC(WinXP Service pack 2) = Works just fine
IE7(7.0.5730.11)+PC(WinXP Service pack 2) = stall @ 1-2 seconds
Navigator(9.0.0.6)+Mac(OS X) = stall @ 1-2 seconds
Safari(3.1.1 (5525.18))+Mac(OS X) = stall @ 1-2 seconds

1 out of 5 browsers should mean a permanent fix to this solution!!

I have Adobe Flash Player version 9.0.124.0 installed & JW Player Version (3.16 (04.04.2008))
For those of us who paid money for this player to use on corporate sites, the only solution to roll back to flash player 8, will not work. You can't ask all visiting paying customers to go to an older version of software. If anyone on this site can come up with a solution, the community would be greatfully in debt.

Thank you sincerely,
Pete

I have the same issue, if the file flv is small is ok , if the file is big and need buffering the player stop . In Explorer it's ok only the bar don't move but the video play

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first of all make sure the browser plugins are up to date in each browser:

adobe flash versiontest: http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_15507
adobe flash uninstall: http://www.adobe.com/go/tn_14157
adobe flash install: http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash

I did the version test and it said I have "MAC 9,0,124,0" installed, which is the most up to date player from Adobe's site.
All my page code is listed in a couple posts above for reference, but I tried using the wizard to see what happened if I tried the file from the "Mediaplayer with an RTMP stream" example. The only thing I needed to change was the "file" (which is the location and folder of the flv files) and the "id" (which is the actual flv itself).

Go to the wizard page and input these 2 fields with my info and see the difference in how it works:

Non working video file:
"file" - rtmp://69.212.176.158/oflaDemo
"id" - generate_list

Working video file:
"file" - rtmp://69.212.176.158/oflaDemo
"id" - 10_digit

You'll notice that the "non working" video file stops and is stuck in buffering mode and the buffer is only filled about half way of the scrub bar. The video never starts to play on it's own....until you click somewhere in the scrub bar to kick it forward. The "working video" starts to play with no problem at all. They were both encoded with the same Flash profile, same program as every other flv I made that work's and share no difference, except the content. I'm not sure what happened, but I suppose it's not the players fault and had to happen sometime within the recording process of the video. I've re-encoded the "non working" flv several times with different settings and nothing makes it work. I will try to redo the screen capture recording and see if that might help.
Also note that I did try the FLV meta injector to see if that was the case (according to JW's notes on common problems). Please comment back and let me know what you think!

@Pete - probably an encoding glitch - please see reply in the other thread - http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?thread=10338

well, I fixed it...hopefully. If you test the "non working" video with the "id" now at "generate_dnc", it works. Heres what I did:

I have been rendering the files with FCP2 into flv's with the medium profile. In my sequence settings it intermediately render's with a compression setting located in the sequence settings (command + 0). You can choose a compressor under "QuickTime Video Settings" and I picked "none". Then in the "Export>Using QuickTime Conversion" I edited the profile, but added 6 cue points randomly through the video and instead of "event", I picked "navigation". I then saved the file on the desktop, renamed it to tester.flv, uploaded it to my server and changed the XML to read the new FLV name (tester.flv) and gave it another try and everything worked perfectly. The scrub bar showed and it doesn't stop at all.
I'm thinking it could be that I added the cue points for navigation. I have 3 more videos that are messing up that I'm going to try right now and I'll post the findings on that. So if anyone else is having problems...re-render out the FLV and add cue points randomly through the video and see if it helps...post the results here if possible!!

****I also renamed the file, so I'm not sure if it was stuck in the servers cache as a bad file or something...try that too****

IT WORKS!!!!!!

I'm 99.999% sure this is the solution. I stripped all of the steps out except adding cue points randomly. Cue points is the answer!! All the videos now work seamlessly. You can keep the same file name and everything, I just added 5-6 cue points and for the type, change it from "Event" to "Navigation". Make sure there is one at the very beginning(00:00:00) and the very end for sure, but throw a couple randomly in the middle. Please try this and post your results here and let me know if it worked for you....then if applicable...send a check or money or to....lol, just kidding.

I really hope this will fix everyones problem!!
I'm reposting this same msg in the setup forum too

way to go! - cool!

Thanks Pete! My customer really made me nervous with this problem! Now it runs. Check or money well... Contact me over http://was.kostet.info and I'll give you a Link to one of your projects to say thank you. Best Regards

@Dennis

Awesome! I'm glad it worked for you. That was my problem with customers getting annoyed with the videos stopping, but it works now and all is well. I visited your link "http://was.kostet.info" and I can't read that language (German?). It would be great to get a link on your site, but do you have an email I can send it to? Thanks!

@ Pete

Here it is: service@kostet.info. Just send me your link and I'll include it on http://was.kostet.info. Thanks again and: Yes, it`s a young german page.

I agree that the solution to roll back to Flash Version 8 is a poor one (see http://www.yoism.org/?q=node/152#flash), which is why I keep hoping that Adobe or FF will work out the problem.

Regarding the cue points solution:

1. Is it holding up? Lots of solutions have been posted all over the Internet that eventually fail because the problem is intermittent and, as many people have noted, appears to be more common with certain pages (generally with lots of videos) and not others. So, is it holding up?

2. How do you add cue points? I went to the page that Pete linked to elsewhere that explains what cue points are. But it seems like you have to have certain software to add cue points? What software? We have hundreds of videos on our site. Luckily, most of them (in wmv format) haven't been converted to flv's yet. We are awaiting a solution to this problem to do that. Is there a conversion program that gets the cue points right in the first place?

3. Does anyone know if Adobe or FF folks are working on this?

same, problem here.
Created a flv file with ffmpeg.
Works perfect on IE/Windows and Safari/Mac, but not with Firefox/Windows
I tried to add some cue points with flvtool2, but doesn't help.
Besides the stopping, i also have the problem that i have no sound.

@Christian,

Can you post your ffmpeg command line so someone can help you?

This is the command line i use to generate the flv file:

ffmpeg.exe -i sound.wav -i video.wmv -vcodec flv -f flv -r 6 -s 160x120 -aspect 4:3 -acodec libmp3lame -ac 2 -ar 44100 -ab 128k demo.flv

I also found out that offline the problem never occurs, sound and video streaming is ok offline!
Only the combination Firefox/Windows/Online is problematic.

ok, i disabled all other flash objects on the site, and now it works perfect, so this doesn't seem to be a problem with encoding.

@Dan Kriegman

Regarding the cue points solution:

1. Is it holding up? Lots of solutions have been posted all over the Internet that eventually fail because the problem is intermittent and, as many people have noted, appears to be more common with certain pages (generally with lots of videos) and not others. So, is it holding up?

The videos were stopping after playing for only 2-3 seconds and it only happened to various videos. I couldn't pin point why it was happening, so I re-rendered them out again and it was still happening. I'm not sure of the other solutions, but the biggest one I heard was to roll back to an older version of the Flash Player, but that isn't feasible for people that have clients who can't be hassled by this.

2. How do you add cue points? I went to the page that Pete linked to elsewhere that explains what cue points are. But it seems like you have to have certain software to add cue points? What software? We have hundreds of videos on our site. Luckily, most of them (in wmv format) haven't been converted to flv's yet. We are awaiting a solution to this problem to do that. Is there a conversion program that gets the cue points right in the first place?

Cue points can be added by many ways. The easiest way is to use Adobe Flash CS3 Video Encoder (comes with Flash CS3) and add the files, then click "Settings". Click the "Cue Points" tab and then click the "+" sign to add a cue point. Move the marker on the time line to another position and click the "+" sign again to add another cue point. In the "Type" column change the type from "Event" to "Navigation" and make sure there is one at the beginning and one at the end and add a few in between (depending on how long the video is). When your done, click "OK" and when your done with all the videos you want cue points in, click "Start Queue". I've done this to all my videos that had problems and now it works on PC/Mac on all browsers that I've tested it on. I hope this helps and if you have any other questions, let me know!

Hey Guys, I got something a bit simplier if you would prefer, but I came up with it based on the information in this forum. Having said that, thanks to all the contributers to this forum, especially Pete.

If you go to Start Menu> Programs>QuickTime>QuickTime Player

and pull up an instance of the player, you can then go to Edit > Preferences > QuickTime Preferences > Streaming

Look at the second box where it says Enable Instant-On and remove the check mark from this box.

Click Apply and then OK.

Restart Firefox (I prefer to go through TaskMan and kill the process so I can save all my open tabs in Firefox, but feel free to do your own thing).

@Dan Rogul

Thanks for the shout-out. I looked over your solution, but I wasn't sure this would work for FLV's. What format are you uploading your videos in?

@Pete - QT doesnt play .flv natively, but needs a third party plugin - that said, it seems that many FF addons are of a quite poor quality and will really mess up the browser, giving all sorts of unexpected behaviour - like interfering with each other...

@Pete,

I think it is similar to what you have said. People are just guessing at what the problem is, so we have to do a wait and see to determine if these solutions help the problem.

Personally I haven't uploaded any videos. I've just tried steaming them to get background on products for work. So although my suggestion probably will have no bearing on your FLVs, I couldn't have come to my solution without looking over your QuickTime configurations. I know I didn't have any problems on this machine until I decided to allow iTunes and its latest version of QuickTime to be installed on it. I don't know if that's the problem, but it seemed like a good place to start looking.

Thanks for your assistance Pete! The way I see it, we are one step closer to a solution.

in the wizard, i can input my file data (player url / movie url) and the demo works flawlessly.. but when pasting the code into my own site, it gives the 2 to 3 second playback and goes into a never ending loading cycle, even though the file has fully buffered. that rules out encoder issues all together, and also rules out flash plug-in incompatibility.. right??

my site was working perfectly up until a few days ago.. it still does under IE, and all of my Mac browsers..
it's FF and Opera under various versions of Windows that are not co-operating..

here's my site.. http://acidplanet.org

I didnt have any problem playing the entire video.
Firefox on XP.
BTW, beautiful video - thanks!

I'm still having this issue with flash players, even in the brand new FF 3.0, I'm also on windows XP.

Seems to happen to me more often when I have multiple tabs open.

Anyone hear anything more on this from FF or Adobe?

For me it stops at 14 seconds in. And I tried your (Pete's) fix, doesn't work for me. I tested it on a Mac with FF and Safari. Haven't tried Windows with FF/IE yet, but I will soon.

Here's the page:
http://www.noobproductions.com/Intro.html

@NoobleT - i think something is wrong with your video - i have tried a handfull of different players and it stops at 14secs in all browser or standalone program i tried - my guess is that the video only is 14s. and the metadata saying 118s. are wrong...

@andersen
Hmm, that's what I had thought.. It's weird though, when I encode it with Adobe's encoder, it shows it encoding the video in it's entirety. And I downloaded the video again and viewed it in my FLV Player (http://mac.eltima.com/freeflashplayer.html), and it played it all..

Well thanks anyways, I think I might just convert it back to QT or another format..

@NoobleT - well, if you have seen the full video play in any player - then the data got to be there !

yes, converting to another intermediary format first - might just do the trick-

i remember two incindents from this forum, with videos that kept making trouble.
one where the soundtrack was shorter than the video it self, and another that had one frame that wouldnt convert right -
in both cases the the video stopped too early - the trick was to cut out that one bad frame and make the sound full length...

so you could try convert the (intermediary) video in two pieces: the first 14s. and another with the rest -
we know the first part will play - it would be interesting to see the rest playing also - then you could splice them together later -
also note the size of those two parts in comparison to the file you have now...

PROBLEM & SOLUTION HERE:

The problem is is that Flash Player .dll file is in the Wrong Place. All you need to do is copy this file to the correct folder in Firefox and bada-bing, YouTube videos will play normally.

The file you want is either WPSWF32.dll - probably in C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash
or NPSW32.dll - probably in C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed

Copy to:
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins

- Jack, www.forkandbottle.com

I have a Mac and couldn't find that file. I searched for it using spotlight too.

@Jack at F&B that works perfectly for me!

Copied NPSWF32.dll from C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins and now it works.

Thanks!

We have the same issue with two players on the same page. Seems it does not work when both videos are downloading from internet. When one of the videos is in Firefox cache, both play OK. In Flash versions prior 9,0,115 everything works OK.

Also dealing with this issue in FF with the latest Flash plug-in. One easy way to resolve this issue is to set the bufferlength var to the duration of the video.

I am not sure why it works, but it does, and may be a clue to what is going on.

@Pete

Hi Pete!
I am having the same problem as Dennis, because I have ca. 20 videos as .flv in a single page (if I'd put less than 14 it'd work normally).
I've seen the solution you proposed and it seems for me to be the right one, but I have either FCP2 nor the Flash Video Encoder . I have only a simple Flash CS3 version and tried to include the cue points with it, but it was not succesful:
1. If I try to include the cue points while importing the video into flash (where I can select between "event" and "navigation") the import fails and I get only a fragment of the video
2. If I try to include them after importing the videos (in the parameters window), I cannot choose "navigation" anymore, it is automatically shown as "ActionScript" and the problem is still not solved (videos stop playing after 2-3 sec. in Firefox/Windows)

Could you give me a hint, how I can include the cue points successfully not having FCP2/Video Encoder?

@Maria
As of CS3, there is only one version of Flash, Flash CS3 Professional. There is no longer a "Standard" version. If you have the professional version you also have the Flash Video Encoder that comes with it. Follow along with this video I made to add the cue points - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ijda7riVFao

If for some reason you can't find or deleted your encoder, try looking on the CD that came with the product to reinstall it. A final solution would be to Google for instructions on adding cue points via actionscript.
Here is an Adobe article for adding navigation cue points: http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/9.0/main/wwhelp/wwhimpl/common/html/wwhelp.htm?context=LiveDocs_Parts&file=00002949.html

Hope this helps!

I was having the same problem. I tried everything I could think of. Finally I disabled Java in FF 3 and the problem is now gone.

@Pete

thanks a lot, I'll try again!

@Jack at F&B

Thanks! I copied NPSWF32.dll to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins and the problem is now gone.

Thanks to Dan Rogul's suggestion, my headache is GONE!

my computer will not let me watch a video all the way through it keeps stoping what should i do to stop it from doing this

I have this problem and have tried copying and pasting NPSWF32.dll; upgrading my Flash player; upgrading Firefox; disabling AdBlock; and disabling Java. None worked. I can't try the cue points thing or upgrading the buffer because I'm not a techie and don't know how to do those things. Unless somebody has any more ideas, I am afraid I am going to have to keep doing what I've been doing: using IE instead of Firefox, because there, the videos run fine.

@Jack at F&B that works perfectly for me!

Copied NPSWF32.dll from C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash to C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins and now it works.

I've been dealing with this for months trying to find a fix.

There's also a problem with IPV6 in combination with Firefox or the latest Adobe flash plugins.
On my system it was solved by removing the IPV6 entry in the 'hosts' file. There are 2 entries for localhost. One to 127.0.0.1 and one to ::1. Remove the latter, reboot, and on my system, flash movies play all the way through again.

PROBLEM & SOLUTION HERE:

The problem is is that Flash Player .dll file is in the Wrong Place. All you need to do is copy this file to the correct folder in Firefox and bada-bing, YouTube videos will play normally.

The file you want is either WPSWF32.dll - probably in C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash
or NPSW32.dll - probably in C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed

Copy to:
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins

Thanks for this! I've been having trouble with video files for some time, and this was the solution. Thanks, Jack!

This is just a band-aid approach that masks the real problem.

I only have one file in C:\Program Files\Mozilla\plugins and it's named npnul32.dll and yet, I've never had any trouble playing any kind of Flash media.

The only reason to place a DLL in a program directory/sub-directory is when yu want to use a version that is different than the version in the main DLL directory, which is C:\WINDOWS\system32 and subdirectories.

The real problem is probably a search path configuration mistake in Firefox.

I tried The DLL coping solution and suprisingl it worked... Just to let you know ...
Thanks!

Hmm, seems coincidence that the file copy works for some people. For me it did not.

Maybe I have to reboot my PC, as Firefox now is already somewhere in memory, no idea.

But with copy and restart Firefox at least it was not done.

Seeking for a better solution.

I can give some news :)

On my page I had several FLV-Players (Videos). Now I made the solution, that only a preview picture is displayed, and the player is embedded with JavaScript by clicking on the image. This way the videos play - even if u activate one picture after another.

So the problem is activating multiple players on site-load - at least for me.

Quicktime tweaking (offered by Dan Rogul) worked for me:

"If you go to Start Menu> Programs>QuickTime>QuickTime Player

and pull up an instance of the player, you can then go to Edit > Preferences > QuickTime Preferences > Streaming

Look at the second box where it says Enable Instant-On and remove the check mark from this box.

Click Apply and then OK.

Restart Firefox (I prefer to go through TaskMan and kill the process so I can save all my open tabs in Firefox, but feel free to do your own thing)."

Not only did I disable the instant-on thing, but I also went into the "default player for" (file associations) menu and unclicked everything but quicktime movies (KNOW YOUR PLACE, QT!). So far, this has worked.

Hey guys...i think this might work, it may sound stupid but it work for me.
Ok this what u do. Open up firefox go to youtube and play a video for like 10sec and pause it. next open up a different tap and use that one as your primary browser...u can open up more taps if u like, dont forget to leave the youtube tap open. and from there everything should play straight. U have to do this every time u open up firefox. Ok guys....hope this work for yall

hiiiiii
herec am uploaded my video by using iframe tags,ajax modalpopup extender.
when am closing the close button which is the cancel control id of that modalpopup extender , ,just my modalpopup was closed but that video is playing at the background so due to dat am unable to see video but am getting the audio of dat video till i have to open another video link.
so please tell me how to i close that video completely with including of sound of that video by clicking the close button of that modalpopup extender

hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii

@anamika - you just need to sendEvent("STOP") the player when the close button is clicked...

for example code please see the - http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=Javascript_API_Examples
and find examples such as - http://home5.inet.tele.dk/nyboe/flash/mediaplayer4/JW_API_xmpl_5-1-0-0.html
as well as - http://home5.inet.tele.dk/nyboe/flash/mediaplayer4/JW_API_xmpl_7-2-2-0.html

please note that the above examples all use the swfobject v.2.1. - http://code.google.com/p/swfobject/

I had the same problem some weeks ago and I solved by copying the NPSW32.dll into the plugins directory of Mozilla.

After some weeks, though, I'm having the same problem. Between, I started an installation of QuickTime, I guess it messed something around.

Today I solved again by deleting the same file, NPSW32.dll, from the plugins directory, since a npnul32.dll is present. Maybe it's a matter of compatibility between these two dlls?

I have this all the time.
What I did was I deleted all the filter subscriptions for AdBlockPlus..
and re added Easy List and it fixed it.

I have this happen all the time as well...if i close the browser, (which triggers a clearing my browser cache/personal information), and reopen, i can play all videos afterwards with no trouble.

I seemed to found the answer on a different site. I only was getting the problem right after I downloaded firefox 3.. there's a bug in it. Download Flash 10, and it's fixed. Hope that helps!

it seems I have the same problem as the OP, but the situation is slightly different. Been looking for this .dll on my Ubuntu 8.10 machine as well but couldn't find the file, so went to /var/www to check all relevant dirs in my localhost. Everything correct. FF3.5 + flash 10 r15. Any1?

I found that my satellite high speed internet keeps track of my broadband usage. Under the "Fair Access Plan" aka FAP, they throttle you way back after an undisclosed amount of broad band time you have used. Throttle remains stuck for around 24 hours, then you can get back to high speed. I do not know if cable and DSL providers have the same policy but I suspect they do. Call them and ask. They can and should tell you if you have been "flagged".

reinstall java

I got this problem with IE and I found a solution on this thread:

http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/forum/Bug-Reports/15822/Player-stops-halfway-through-video-

you can have more infos on mod_deflate here:

http://www.longtailvideo.com/support/forum/Setup-Problems/5237/streamObject-bytesTotal-returning-1-in-safari-ie

I hope that helps.

PROBLEM & SOLUTION HERE:

The problem is is that Flash Player .dll file is in the Wrong Place. All you need to do is copy this file to the correct folder in Firefox and bada-bing, YouTube videos will play normally.

The file you want is either WPSWF32.dll - probably in C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash
or NPSW32.dll - probably in C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed

Copy to:
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins

thanks, easy fix,

PROBLEM & SOLUTION HERE:

The problem is is that Flash Player .dll file is in the Wrong Place. All you need to do is copy this file to the correct folder in Firefox and bada-bing, YouTube videos will play normally.

The file you want is either WPSWF32.dll - probably in C:\Windows\System32\Macromed\Flash
or NPSW32.dll - probably in C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed

Copy to:
C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\plugins

thanks

thanks so much that helped!!

I have had the same problem and it's been a headache. I tried copying the NPSW32.dll to FF plugins but it didn't help.

The solution for me is the post from Monkeypox. I disabled JAVA in Firefox and the videos play all the way without stopping. Hallelujah!

Thank you Monkeypox!

This is a blog dedicated to this problem :
http://www.youtubestopsafter2seconds.com/

found this helps

go to c:\windows\system32\macromed\flash\ and theres a file called flashutil.... Run that it should fix everything.