Do you know which of your media players is being used?

By the way, there are updates to Firefox (19.0.2) and the Flash player available.

I didn't know a player was being used. I thought it was rendered through the browser.

Is Flash a media player?

I don't use Pandora. Firefox can natively play some kinds of audio and video streams, but most formats are played using a plugin such as Flash, QuickTime, or something else. Right-clicking the player often displays a menu you can use to determine which player it is.

(Flash is more than a media player, but it is most famous for its use as a media player.)

Thank you. I altered my "session:restore" settings for Flash in the hope this resolves the problem. I will advise.

Expanding from 15000 to 60000 on the 'save' rate did NOT resolve the problem Pandora still 'stutters' about every 20 seconds or so.

Can you explain a little more about how to check your media player while using Pandora? I'm not sure which one Firefox is using.

Hi hobieva, my suggestion was to right-click the player -- if it's visible -- and see what kind of menu options appear. Often that will identify the plugin or whether it's a "native" (built-in HTML5 audio) player.

So, if there is no player visible, is there any other way of telling which player is being used, and can you select which player you would like Pandora to use?

I visited Pandora and it let me play a song without registering. It used the Flash player. (I don't have any other media players that would try to substitute themselves.)

One of my extensions blocked the ads on that page. Do you see ads? If they refresh themselves, I wonder whether that could be momentarily affecting the audio stream.

A standard diagnostic to bypass interference by extensions (and some custom settings) is to try Firefox's Safe Mode.

First, I recommend backing up your Firefox settings in case something goes wrong. See Back up and restore information in Firefox profiles. (You can copy your entire Firefox profile folder somewhere outside of the Mozilla folder.)

Next, restart Firefox in Firefox's Safe Mode (Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode) using

Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled

In the dialog, click "Start in Safe Mode."

If the streaming works correctly, this points to one of your extensions or custom settings as the problem. Any change?

No change. The ads don't seem to affect it. It only happens when I try to scroll down in any of the tabs that I'm using. I think I did a flash player update right before this problem started.

It only happens when I try to scroll down in any of the tabs that I'm using.

For visual problems caused by scrolling, we've recommended the following in the past. Not sure whether they are relevant to scrolling a different tab (i.e., not the Pandora tab), but give them a try?

You usually need to restart Firefox in order for these changes to take effect, so save all work first (e.g., mail you are composing, online documents you're editing, etc.).

orange Firefox button (or Tools menu) > Options > Advanced

On the "General" mini-tab, Browsing section, uncheck the first 3 boxes:

• Use autoscrolling
• Use smooth scrolling
• Use hardware acceleration when available

Another step that sometimes helps is to turn off the Flash player's hardware acceleration setting using the steps in this article: http://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/video-playback-issues.html#main_Solve_video_playback_issues

Any luck?

Thanks, but that didn't make any difference. Like I said, it's been working fine for the last seven years and all of a sudden it doesn't.

Is the tab you are scrolling down loading large media (e.g., sites that load content on demand when you scroll down to it)? I wonder whether there was a change in prioritization, i.e., updating the foreground tab taking precedence over the background tabs.

You mentioned a Flash update. At this point, do you have the current Flash, 11.6.602.180 ?

It happens when I scroll down on the pandora tab or any other tab in the browser. It also does this when I use the left or right arrow bars in Firefox to move between tabs. I do have the current Flash update.

Hi. I have done all of the things Mozilla recommends to eliminate the stuttering. I am using the most recent Firefox (21) and updated all of my active plug-ins. I do not use the 'blocking' programs they mention, except I do not allow third party cookies. Pandora STILL stutters both when a song starts, and at intervals partway through each song at random times. I cannot determine my player since it is not visible (although I think it is either shockwave or quick time) and I am at my wits end. I even added a gigabyte of RAM memory to my computer recently, but to no avail.

I really appreciate and thank all of the posters for their help and advice so far, but cannot solve this problem so far. Any further thoughts or advice?

Thank you!

Hi phasetex, this has changed since my previous visit to Pandora. Starting in Firefox 21, instead of using Flash, Firefox is playing the MP4 stream in the native HTML5 audio player. This is made possible using the components installed with Windows Media Player to decode the stream. It's seamless on Windows 7, but I wonder whether something is missing on Windows XP?

Do you know which version of WMP you have? If you start it up from the Start menu, you can check the player's Help > About menu. If the menu is hidden, tap the Alt key first to display it. Currently version 11 is available for XP: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/wi.../download-windows-media-player.

(If I find time to fire up my old XP laptop, I'll try to test on there, too.)

I am using Firefox version 21.0 and media player version 11.0

Hi hobieva, have you noticed any change in Firefox 21? I'm only testing the free parts of the Pandora website, so I don't know whether that uses the same player as the subscription portion. Also, I do not have DivX plugins in my Firefox, in case those are kicking in.

No, Pandora and Youtube both stutter if I scroll down in them or another tab.