Search Support

Avoid support scams. We will never ask you to call or text a phone number or share personal information. Please report suspicious activity using the “Report Abuse” option.

Learn More

Firefox will not play videos. Sorry, the video you are trying to see cannot be found. Error 5

  • 3 cavab
  • 1 has this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by Scott

more options

esp on Fox news, when trying to see videos, I get this error message. Generally, it says " Sorry the video you are trying to play, cannot be found. ERROR 5". I run Win XP SP 3 . Google Chrome will play the video, but I have been a Firefox user for all most 20 years. I use Firefox ESR 52.8.1 [32-bit] and it says it is up to date. Thanks for help...GGlynnD

esp on Fox news, when trying to see videos, I get this error message. Generally, it says " Sorry the video you are trying to play, cannot be found. ERROR 5". I run Win XP SP 3 . Google Chrome will play the video, but I have been a Firefox user for all most 20 years. I use Firefox ESR 52.8.1 [32-bit] and it says it is up to date. Thanks for help...GGlynnD

Chosen solution

If the videos is using a HTML5 player and not using the Flash Player Plugin then that can help explain why you cannot view some videos.

WinXP does not come with media feature packs that Microsoft provides to Windows Vista and Later. The packs have codecs needed in order for web browser like Firefox and SeaMonkey to fully using HTML5 players for video and sound.

This is for Windows Vista and later users but explains what I mean about the packs. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-video-audio-problems-firefox-windows

You can see the limit of what you support at https://www.youtube.com/html5/ as you likely have two or three red check marks

Chrome may seem to work but that is because they kind of cheat by coming with own codecs. Also Chrome, Chromium, and Opera dropped support of WinXP/Vista back in April 2016 so the last versions that worked are old and vulnerable on WinXP now.

With some work you may be able to support HTML5 players better in Firefox 52 ESR on WinXP. https://msfn.org/board/topic/175591-enable-mp4-h264-aac-html5-video-in-firefox-on-windows-xp-without-flash/


btw the browser we know as Firefox (third name) started as of Phoenix 0.1 in Sept 2002 so not quite 20 years yet.

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (3)

more options

Seçilmiş Həll

If the videos is using a HTML5 player and not using the Flash Player Plugin then that can help explain why you cannot view some videos.

WinXP does not come with media feature packs that Microsoft provides to Windows Vista and Later. The packs have codecs needed in order for web browser like Firefox and SeaMonkey to fully using HTML5 players for video and sound.

This is for Windows Vista and later users but explains what I mean about the packs. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/fix-video-audio-problems-firefox-windows

You can see the limit of what you support at https://www.youtube.com/html5/ as you likely have two or three red check marks

Chrome may seem to work but that is because they kind of cheat by coming with own codecs. Also Chrome, Chromium, and Opera dropped support of WinXP/Vista back in April 2016 so the last versions that worked are old and vulnerable on WinXP now.

With some work you may be able to support HTML5 players better in Firefox 52 ESR on WinXP. https://msfn.org/board/topic/175591-enable-mp4-h264-aac-html5-video-in-firefox-on-windows-xp-without-flash/


btw the browser we know as Firefox (third name) started as of Phoenix 0.1 in Sept 2002 so not quite 20 years yet.

Modified by James

more options

Thanks, James, I did all the things you said to do. Downloaded Zipped Primetime put it in sub-folders. Went to FF about:config, did the things you told me about. It did not work because I had put semicolons in the Preference Names on 2 of the strings, I took those out and now, it works. Problem solved. It was difficult, but, I finally found how to do things in about:config. Thanks again.....GGlynnD

more options

GGlynnD said

Problem solved.

Since making the changes do you find your browser more prone to freezing when a page has content that causes Adobe Primetime CDM to run? I have noticed more freeze issues.