Embedded YouTube videos won't play in Firefox

[Zeikcied]

Ever since the April 1st redesign of YouTube, I haven't been able to view any embedded YouTube videos. It happened in Kubuntu 9.10 and Firefox 3.5, and it's still happening in 10.04 and Firefox 3.6. At first I thought it was a common thing, so I didn't think much of it, but I've not seen anyone complain.

I tried purging and reinstalling the flashplugin-installer package, and that hasn't helped. Just for the sake of trying, I installed Opera, and it plays embedded videos just fine. So it's not Flash.

I tried disabling every Firefox add-on I have, and that hasn't helped. These problems seemed to coincide with the YouTube redesign, and yet I have absolutely no clue what's going on. I can play the videos just fine on YouTube.

The error message I get on the embedded videos is: "An error occurred, please try again later." If I click the "Watch on YouTube" button, it loads perfectly fine on the YouTube site. This happens on any site with an embedded video, and it's only YouTube videos.

[kyonides]

Re: Embedded YouTube videos won't play in Firefox

That's weird, I could play videos on youtube and the embedded ones as well. Could it be a problem with Java?

[bamyasi]

Re: Embedded YouTube videos won't play in Firefox

I should find time to file a proper bug report on this after all...

In Firefox, go to Edit->Preferences->Advanced tab. Under Offline Storage click Clear Now button to purge cache. YouTube videos will play for a while after that, but will soon stop playing again. You will need to clear Firefox cache every time this happens. Pretty annoying I would say.

[Zeikcied]

Re: Embedded YouTube videos won't play in Firefox

I cleared the cache and that didn't work. I have the cache set to 1MB, but that's been my setting since I first installed Kubuntu back in 2006.

I can play videos on YouTube itself. Just not the embedded vids. They all give me that odd error. And it only happens in Firefox, not Opera. And it suddenly started back at the start of April.

[kyonides]

Re: Embedded YouTube videos won't play in Firefox

Sometimes old cookies might prevent you from performing common tasks, so you might also try deleting all youtube and ytimg cookies you find and check whether or not the next time you try to open or play an embedded video it'll work as expected. That's what I did to solve another weird issue regarding not being able to connect to my gmail box for days.

[spode]

Re: Embedded YouTube videos won't play in Firefox

Have you tried deleting any Flash cookies - these are different to normal cookies? You can use the BetterPrivacy Add-on from the mozilla website to automate this process for you:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6623/

[Zeikcied]

Re: Embedded YouTube videos won't play in Firefox

Deleted all YouTube and ytimg Flash cookies and all YouTube normal cookies (there were no ytimg cookies).

Still can't play embedded videos. Still says "An error occurred, please try again later."

[bamyasi]

Re: Embedded YouTube videos won't play in Firefox

Try this command from console window and post output here:

$ sudo cat /proc/asound/cards

Also check that you are included in group "audio", e.g.:

$ id
...,29(audio),...

[Zeikcied]

Re: Embedded YouTube videos won't play in Firefox

Try this command from console window and post output here:

$ sudo cat /proc/asound/cards

Also check that you are included in group "audio", e.g.:

$ id
...,29(audio),...

 0 [IXP      ]: ATIIXP - ATI IXP
           ATI IXP rev 80 with ALC658D at 0xfe02a000, irq 17

Also, I'm not in the "audio" group. But I don't think that would have any effect. I can play the videos on YouTube itself.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Embedded YouTube videos won't play in Firefox

As a radical alternative, you could try installing minitube (it's in the repos) which streams directly from youtube.

[Zeikcied]

Re: Embedded YouTube videos won't play in Firefox

As a radical alternative, you could try installing minitube (it's in the repos) which streams directly from youtube.

Or I could just click the "Watch on YouTube" link...

It's a small inconvenience, but I know it shouldn't be happening. It works fine in Opera, but not Firefox. It used to work in Firefox until around the start of April. Then something, somehow, broke. The only thing I can associate with it is the YouTube redesign, as that's when I first noticed any problems with the embedded videos, but I know that can't be the problem. Or at least I don't see how it could.

The videos play fine on the YouTube site itself, but not in the embedded players when using Firefox.

[The Liquidator]

Re: Embedded YouTube videos won't play in Firefox

Ah, are you talking about a firefox extension? Which one is it?

[Zeikcied]

Re: Embedded YouTube videos won't play in Firefox

Ah, are you talking about a firefox extension? Which one is it?

No. On the embedded players, if you hover over the YouTube logo in the bottom right corner it says "Watch on YouTube." If I can't see the logo, I can click on the video title and get the same effect. It's not an add-on, but a function/feature of the embedded players.

[Zeikcied]

Re: Embedded YouTube videos won't play in Firefox

I found out what the problem was.

I guess YouTube started requiring third party cookies for the embedded videos, and I've had them disabled. Enabling third party cookies fixed the error.

[kyonides]

Re: Embedded YouTube videos won't play in Firefox

Good for you but I really thought you said you disabled ALL add-ons... That's why no one would ever suggest something like that.