Firefox 28 no longer seems to play well with Youtube. Is there a fix?
Hey all.
As some of you may know from some older questions, I have two machines. One a Windows XP desktop running Firefox 28, as it was the last version I knew that supported Windows XP, and the other a Windows 10 Laptop that is on the current version of Firefox.
Sadly, my post is about the XP version of Firefox tonight. Please don't judge. The computer still runs, so I haven't seen a reason to get rid of it, and I split my time between the two machines.
I'll get right to the point. Up till tonight, Version 28 on Windows XP had worked perfectly with Youtube— Or at least as near to it as the old machine could get— as it typically played every video more or less with no issues via the HTML5 video player that Youtube supposedly uses. However tonight, I have been getting very hit or miss responses on youtube, as the HTML5 player does not always come up, and when it does not, I get an image of static with text saying that my browser is not recognizing any of the available formats. When I check youtube.com/html5, it is showing that it recognizes some of the formats— apparently only two so far, and HTML5 itself isn't even listed among them, though there is a checked box saying that the HTML5 player is used when possible— so I'm just wondering, what the hell happened here? As I said, Up till basically last night, everything worked more or less fine on Youtube, with there being only a handful of times the issue of a video format not being recognized came up. In fact Firefox 28 is still somehow pulling up the classic version of youtube, rather than the new version, which I have no explanation for.
Did Youtube stop supporting HTML5 in favor of a new video format, or is something else going on here?
If there is a later version of Firefox that still worked for Windows XP ( I think I remember someone suggesting that 43 would work, but half of the extensions no longer seem to exist for it that I use, including classic theme restorer— though I think someone at waterfox said they may have archived that extension, however I have no idea how to access or use archived extensions— but any port in a storm at this stage) that supports whatever Youtube is using, that would be welcome information, despite my attachment to version 28. Hell, if I could make sense out of how to set up multiple profiles for Firefox, I'd run the classic 28 and whatever later version might run with whatever Youtube is doing so I wouldn't have to give up my preferred version on this old machine. Again though, sometimes the HTML5 player works, and sometimes it doesn't. So I dunno what the issue is here and if there's a fix I can find for Firefox 28, as it is the last version I knew worked for the older machine.
Thankfully, this issue doesn't come up on the Windows 10 laptop, so this is not repeating itself there, Thankfully. But is there a way to fix this, or am I just stuck with considering Youtube a partial, if not complete loss on the XP machine? It's one of only three sites I even still use the browser for. The other two being fanfiction.net and wikipedia.org
And if there IS a later version of Firefox that still actually works with XP, does anyone have a basic 'here's how even an idiot can fix it so you can run two versions on the same machine' explanation of how to set that up? I am NOT a technical person, and going into excessive detail does me no favors. I just need simple, point by point instructions that are, in effect such that a three year old could read and understand them if there is a way to have two versions of the program running.
Though this does also make me wonder if I can install the browser in my second internal hard drive rather than the primary C drive and still have it work properly.
Anyway, sorry for the rambling. If anyone could help me address these issues, that would be much appreciated. :)
All Replies (20)
Marc7 said
As some of you may know from some older questions, I have two machines. One a Windows XP desktop running Firefox 28, as it was the last version I knew that supported Windows XP, and the other a Windows 10 Laptop that is on the current version of Firefox. Sadly, my post is about the XP version of Firefox tonight. Please don't judge. The computer still runs, so I haven't seen a reason to get rid of it, and I split my time between the two machines. I'll get right to the point. Up till tonight, Version 28 on Windows XP had worked perfectly with Youtube— Or at least as near to it as the old machine could get— as it typically played every video more or less with no issues via the HTML5 video player that Youtube supposedly uses. However tonight, I have been getting very hit or miss responses on youtube, as the HTML5 player does not always come up, and when it does not, I get an image of static with text saying that my browser is not recognizing any of the available formats. When I check youtube.com/html5, it is showing that it recognizes some of the formats— apparently only two so far, Did Youtube stop supporting HTML5 in favor of a new video format, or is something else going on here?
Firefox 52.9.0 ESR was actually the last version (made EOL on Sept 5th 2018) to still run on the EOL Windows XP and Vista. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/end-support-windows-xp-and-vista
However if your old WinXP system has a older CPU (usually early AMD CPU's as it was not as common till later compared to Intel with say P4 and later) that does not support SSE2 at minimum then Firefox 49.0 and later will not run.
Microsoft does not support WinXP with media feature packs as they do with Vista and later. These pack adds things like codecs that is used for the HTML5 players such as those used by many sites now days like Youtube and Twitch.tv
Youtube has not used the Flash Player Plugin for a couple years now I think for current videos. Youtube and many other sites are using a HTML5 player for video and audio to be more cross platform compared to just using Flash Player Plugin which has more limited device support now in comparison.
With some workarounds you may be able to better use HTML5 players in Firefox/SeaMonkey on WinXP. http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/175591-enable-mp4-h264-aac-html5-video-in-firefox-on-windows-xp-without-flash/
Otherwise another option is to install or dual boot with a light Linux distro such as Lubuntu or Xubuntu or some other light options. If you do make sure you install packages like FFmpeg so you can fully use the HTML5 players.
Modified by James
James said
Marc7 saidAs some of you may know from some older questions, I have two machines. One a Windows XP desktop running Firefox 28, as it was the last version I knew that supported Windows XP, and the other a Windows 10 Laptop that is on the current version of Firefox. Sadly, my post is about the XP version of Firefox tonight. Please don't judge. The computer still runs, so I haven't seen a reason to get rid of it, and I split my time between the two machines. I'll get right to the point. Up till tonight, Version 28 on Windows XP had worked perfectly with Youtube— Or at least as near to it as the old machine could get— as it typically played every video more or less with no issues via the HTML5 video player that Youtube supposedly uses. However tonight, I have been getting very hit or miss responses on youtube, as the HTML5 player does not always come up, and when it does not, I get an image of static with text saying that my browser is not recognizing any of the available formats. When I check youtube.com/html5, it is showing that it recognizes some of the formats— apparently only two so far, Did Youtube stop supporting HTML5 in favor of a new video format, or is something else going on here?Firefox 52.9.0 ESR was actually the last version (made EOL on Sept 5th 2018) to still run on the EOL Windows XP and Vista. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/end-support-windows-xp-and-vista
However if your old WinXP system has a older CPU (usually early AMD CPU's as it was not as common till later compared to Intel with say P4 and later) that does not support SSE2 at minimum then Firefox 49.0 and later will not run.
Microsoft does not support WinXP with media feature packs as they do with Vista and later. These pack adds things like codecs that is used for the HTML5 players such as those used by many sites now days like Youtube and Twitch.tv
Youtube has not used the Flash Player Plugin for a couple years now I think for current videos. Youtube and many other sites are using a HTML5 player for video and audio to be more cross platform compared to just using Flash Player Plugin which has more limited device support now in comparison.
With some workarounds you may be able to better use HTML5 players in Firefox/SeaMonkey on WinXP. http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/175591-enable-mp4-h264-aac-html5-video-in-firefox-on-windows-xp-without-flash/
Otherwise another option is to install or dual boot with a light Linux distro such as Lubuntu or Xubuntu or some other light options. If you do make sure you install packages like FFmpeg so you can fully use the HTML5 players.
I am honestly not sure about the CPU. The only thing I know is that my machine has a Pentium 4 sticker on the front of the tower. I don't know if that means I can use these later versions.
Firefox 28 WAS using the HTML5 player right up til tonight, in fact, with no issues on Youtube. Some videos are still playing properly, and others are not coming up, saying my browser isn't recognizing the available video formats. The two formats it IS apparently recognizing are HTMLVideoElement and something called WebM VP8. There is also a box checked that says Youtube will use the HTML5 player when possible. I can only assume that this means that HTML5 is no longer a video format they use as a regular thing, since HTML5 was originally listed on there as a recognized video format, but is no longer a thing, aside from the checked box that mentions using the HTML5 player when possible. So unless these videos were being played with some other player format in Youtube (aside from Adobe's flash plug in, which I haven't bothered with in over 4 years on this machine once I learned I could use the HTML5 player), then Firefox 28 IS still using the HTML5 player when it can get the videos to play at all.
I am not a tech head, so I dunno what SSE2 is or how to do anything with installations of new OSes or the like. I barely know how to work Windows enough to do what little I use it for.
As for those workarounds, that might be an idea, I suppose. Would they work in 28 on XP or just the 52 ESR for XP? ...Or would that even necessarily be required if any of the later versions of Firefox at all will work on my machine, since 28 was already using the HTML5 player, and already had some codecs installed awhile back?
If I need to upgrade to the 52 ESR, I would be more than willing to if it's my only option. You said it's EOL, which I assume simply means you're not supporting it anymore, not that it's no longer usable, correct?
i have a similar problem ,i'm no longer able to even watch videos that i was able to watch some days ago , same error ( my browser not recognizing any of the available formats ) in these days happening more frequently , hope a fix exist
Lanselot
Don't look for a "fix" to come from Mozilla for older versions of Firefox.
As James mentioned Firefox 52.0.9 ESR support ended on Sept 5th; "stick a fork in it, it's dead".
Which version of Firefox are you using? And maybe start your own thread if it is a Firefox 60 ESR or Firefox 62 Release version. This thread has been about an ancient version - Firefox 28 - that only a long unused PC should still have installed.
the-edmeister said
Lanselot Don't look for a "fix" to come from Mozilla for older versions of Firefox. As James mentioned Firefox 52.0.9 ESR support ended on Sept 5th; "stick a fork in it, it's dead". Which version of Firefox are you using? And maybe start your own thread if it is a Firefox 60 ESR or Firefox 62 Release version. This thread has been about an ancient version - Firefox 28 - that only a long unused PC should still have installed.
As I mentioned above in my original post on this thread, I have two machines, one a Windows 10 Laptop running the current version of Firefox and which is not having this issue. The other machine is an old Windows XP device, which up until last night had still been working fine with Youtube on version 28.0 of Firefox on that system, and is thus the source of the issue. Hence why I'm trying to learn if the 52 ESR would work on it and recognize these other video formats that Youtube is using now. I realize it's no longer getting support, but is it still itself usable?
Modified by Marc7
A Pentium 4 which is unknown what it is along with maybe gig of ram at top prob less. It belongs in the recycle bin.
The System Requirements for these versions are the same:
- Firefox 28: P4 + SSE2, XP SP2 (https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/28.0/system-requirements/)
- Firefox 52 ESR: P4 + SSE2, XP SP2 (https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/52.0esr/system-requirements/)
So your staying on Firefox 28 may have been more about the changed appearance in Firefox 29 (curvy tabs ring a bell?) than on any limitations of your system.
BUT!!!
Microsoft never released the Media Foundation components for Windows XP, so Firefox cannot decode H.264 video on Windows XP. YouTube often transcodes video to WebM, which Firefox can play without those external components, but there can be a delay between upload and transcoding, and live events may not be transcoded until hours later, so XP will always have some limitations compared with later versions of Windows.
jscher2000 said
The System Requirements for these versions are the same:
- Firefox 28: P4 + SSE2, XP SP2 (https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/28.0/system-requirements/)
So your staying on Firefox 28 may have been more about the changed appearance in Firefox 29 (curvy tabs ring a bell?) than on any limitations of your system. BUT!!! Microsoft never released the Media Foundation components for Windows XP, so Firefox cannot decode H.264 video on Windows XP. YouTube often transcodes video to WebM, which Firefox can play without those external components, but there can be a delay between upload and transcoding, and live events may not be transcoded until hours later, so XP will always have some limitations compared with later versions of Windows.
- Firefox 52 ESR: P4 + SSE2, XP SP2 (https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/52.0esr/system-requirements/)
Yeah, that had been my earlier issue back in the day. I got used to it after the update to Firefox 50-something or other on my Windows 10 machine meant the loss of the Classic Theme Restorer, so that's no longer a big issue. I may not like the look, but I can at least put up with it.
As for the issue of the player, I'm on the Windows 10 laptop right now, but I was able to get into the youtube.com/html5 page and screen cap it to upload here. I have circled the formats that over on the XP machine that it's saying Firefox 28 is no longer recognizing. Assuming it ever did. Windows 10 is having no issues with that, thankfully. However this has become an issue where even older videos I have bookmarked are not coming up, while anything I click on from the front page or a search has a 50-50 shot of coming up properly, which was not the issue even as far back as Sunday night. So I have no idea what happened.
Is there a safe way to get the media foundation component stuff without going through Microsoft to get them, or no? And if no, then would that mean that even later versions of Firefox would have the same issue that 28 is currently having?
Modified by Marc7
Media Foundation is a Microsoft product and there isn't a third party version.
Some XP users found a workaround for decoding H.264/MP4 video involving an Adobe plugin that used to be retrieved into Firefox for decoding DRM content. Possibly you have it, I have no idea.
Some threads on that when you have a free 30 minutes:
- Original workaround source: https://msfn.org/board/topic/175591-enable-mp4-h264-aac-html5-video-in-firefox-on-windows-xp-without-flash/
- Very long thread on implementation issues (might update the other post): https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1181875
jscher2000 said
Media Foundation is a Microsoft product and there isn't a third party version. Some XP users found a workaround for decoding H.264/MP4 video involving an Adobe plugin that used to be retrieved into Firefox for decoding DRM content. Possibly you have it, I have no idea. Some threads on that when you have a free 30 minutes:
- Original workaround source: https://msfn.org/board/topic/175591-enable-mp4-h264-aac-html5-video-in-firefox-on-windows-xp-without-flash/
- Very long thread on implementation issues (might update the other post): https://support.mozilla.org/questions/1181875
Huh. I'll look those up. These workarounds are only for 49 and up, or do they work for the earlier versions like my old 28? Cause if it'll work on 28, that would be fine. If i need to update, I can look into that too. :)
The Primetime workaround is far too much work for me to have ever tested!
jscher2000 said
The System Requirements for these versions are the same:
- Firefox 28: P4 + SSE2, XP SP2 (https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/28.0/system-requirements/)
- Firefox 52 ESR: P4 + SSE2, XP SP2 (https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/52.0esr/system-requirements/)
The SSE2 has been a Recommended since Firefox 4.0
The Firefox 49.0 page shows "Pentium 4 or newer processor that supports SSE2" under Requirement.
https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/48.0/releasenotes/ After version 48, SSE2 CPU extensions are going to be required on Windows
https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/49.0/releasenotes/ Ended Firefox for Windows support for SSE processors
That is why I said Firefox 49.0 and later requires a CPU that supports SSE2 (on Windows). For Linux it was Firefox 53.0 and later.
All Pentium 4 CPU's support at least SSE2 as per https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_Pentium_4_microprocessors
Marc7 said
Huh. I'll look those up. These workarounds are only for 49 and up, or do they work for the earlier versions like my old 28? Cause if it'll work on 28, that would be fine. If i need to update, I can look into that too. :)
Firefox 28.0 is rather old now as it was Released March 18, 2014. Not to mention potentially vulnerable to a number of critical security concerns found and fixed since.
It is likely missing a lot of changes and improvements that are in Firefox versions since in using HTML5 players.
James said
Marc7 saidHuh. I'll look those up. These workarounds are only for 49 and up, or do they work for the earlier versions like my old 28? Cause if it'll work on 28, that would be fine. If i need to update, I can look into that too. :)Firefox 28.0 is rather old now as it was Released March 18, 2014. Not to mention potentially vulnerable to a number of critical security concerns found and fixed since.
It is likely missing a lot of changes and improvements that are in Firefox versions since in using HTML5 players.
So then a simple update to a later version of Firefox that still works on XP could bring Youtube back up to functionality then without having to look for convoluted and possibly risky workarounds, is what you're suggesting?
jscher2000 said
The System Requirements for these versions are the same:
- Firefox 28: P4 + SSE2, XP SP2 (https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/28.0/system-requirements/)
So your staying on Firefox 28 may have been more about the changed appearance in Firefox 29 (curvy tabs ring a bell?) than on any limitations of your system. BUT!!! Microsoft never released the Media Foundation components for Windows XP, so Firefox cannot decode H.264 video on Windows XP. YouTube often transcodes video to WebM, which Firefox can play without those external components, but there can be a delay between upload and transcoding, and live events may not be transcoded until hours later, so XP will always have some limitations compared with later versions of Windows.
- Firefox 52 ESR: P4 + SSE2, XP SP2 (https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/52.0esr/system-requirements/)
See, that kinda makes sense since at least some version of WebM has been recognized by 28. VP8, I believe. And yeah, some videos are showing up properly, but it's a fifty fifty shot, even on older stuff I have bookmarked from there, which is why I was confused. Newer stuff I could see having the issue of not being recognized right away, but how could that be happening with older videos I've since bookmarked?
Marc7 said
Newer stuff I could see having the issue of not being recognized right away, but how could that be happening with older videos I've since bookmarked?
I dunno. Some other reason.
jscher2000 said
Marc7 saidNewer stuff I could see having the issue of not being recognized right away, but how could that be happening with older videos I've since bookmarked?I dunno. Some other reason.
I guess that makes some sense. So would updating to the 52 ESR actually make it more likely that I could watch videos more often without that screen coming up, or would it still just be having the same issues as 28? If the h.264 stuff is the only stuff it wouldn't be able to recognize and it would just be a matter of waiting on it to switch to the WebM VP8 style, that would be worth making the jump. But from what I can tell, Firefox 28 already recognizes WebM VP8. What seems to be the issue is the Media Source extensions, which seem to be tied somehow to the h.264 and WebM VP9, in addition to just the flat out h.264 type itself. I've seen what you're talking about before with youtube at times where it would say the browser wasn't recognizing the available formats, but later was playable in 28. If that's what we're talking about in 52, I can live with that. But if 52 would still not recognize these same formats on XP, isn't it possible I would just get the same result as 28?
Hmm. I may have to see if a friend of mine can test this in a virtual box, if he's willing, to give me an idea of whether or not it would work. Cause right now, I can't do the workaround listed since a) not a tech guy and b) when I went to go look up the backup links for that workaround, my antivirus listed the site as suspicious when I did a google search on it.
Hell, if I knew how to run a virtual machine myself I'd test it, but as I don't I hope he'll be willing to. Incidentally, I'm adding the screenshot of what I get on 28 on my XP machine on their HTML5 player page. This matches more or less what I mentioned before, but I wasn't sure if I had circled the right stuff before.
Incidentally, If Microsoft never released the Media foundation stuff on XP, how was my HTML5 player working on Youtube prior to this? Thinking about the whole thing made me extremely curious.
Firefox can play open formats without Media Foundation; it cannot play patented formats without outside assistance.
Check whether Media Source Extensions is disabled by a modified setting on your Firefox:
(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful or accepting the risk.
(2) In the search box above the list, type or paste medias and pause while the list is filtered
(3) If the media.mediasource.enabled preference is bolded and "modified" or "user set" to false, double-click it to restore the default value of true
However, that won't make any difference to the H.264 problem. Nor would Firefox 52.
jscher2000 said
Firefox can play open formats without Media Foundation; it cannot play patented formats without outside assistance. Check whether Media Source Extensions is disabled by a modified setting on your Firefox: (1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter/Return. Click the button promising to be careful or accepting the risk. (2) In the search box above the list, type or paste medias and pause while the list is filtered (3) If the media.mediasource.enabled preference is bolded and "modified" or "user set" to false, double-click it to restore the default value of true However, that won't make any difference to the H.264 problem. Nor would Firefox 52.
Well, it definitely did something, as now there's only two things listed as unrecognized, and both deal with the h.264 format, and I don't mind that, as I think that's what it used to look like from what I remember back when I first set up the html5 player. I can wait for videos to switch to the open format via the...what did you call it? Transcoding? I've dealt with that in the past anyway. I've tested it tonight, and so far it seems to have returned to normal. ...Which makes me wonder what changed that setting in the first place as I've never done that whole about:config thing before. I didn't even know it was a thing you could do, up till now. I'm gonna give it a day or two to make sure it doesn't revert back to not recognizing those formats, but the prognosis looks good for the moment. Thank you for the suggestion. Here's hoping this works long term. :)
I'll include the screengrab of what I now see on the youtube.com/html5 page. This looks very much like what I saw back in the day when I first set up the html5 player, so that should theoretically mean everything is back to normal, I believe. I'll check back in here in a few days if everything stays the way it should and let everyone know if I'm back to full use of Youtube again, or at least as full as I ever had anyway. :) Wish me luck!
