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Firefox Nightly Video Playback on Fedora 33

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I've installed Nightly the same way I have for years on my latest Fedora 33 install—i.e., download tarball, extract into /opt, set appropriate chmod and chown, make .desktop file, etc.—but certain videos certain videos on certain sites refuse to play. A Fedora discussion discussion led me to think it's how Fedora 33 may sandbox apps; I haven't yet had any hits on solutions in the Fedora groups, so I thought I'd ask here, since I can't be the only one with this issue.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I've installed Nightly the same way I have for years on my latest Fedora 33 install—i.e., download tarball, extract into /opt, set appropriate chmod and chown, make .desktop file, etc.—but [https://www.ted.com/talks/prince_william_this_decade_calls_for_earthshots_to_repair_our_planet certain videos] certain videos on certain sites refuse to play. A Fedora [https://ask.fedoraproject.org/t/possible-firefox-nightly-sandboxing-issue/11371/4 discussion] discussion led me to think it's how Fedora 33 may sandbox apps; I haven't yet had any hits on solutions in the Fedora groups, so I thought I'd ask here, since I can't be the only one with this issue. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Chosen solution

Make sure you have the latest FFmpeg and libavcodec packages installed.

You can also check the Web Console for possible messages.

Read this answer in context 👍 0

All Replies (14)

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It works for me. Have you tried it in safe mode. I just downloaded Nightly, extracted it, made a shortcut on my desktop. Do you have any issues with YouTube? KDE or Gnome?

Operating System: openSUSE Tumbleweed 20210101 KDE Plasma Version: 5.20.4 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.77.0 Qt Version: 5.15.2 Kernel Version: 5.10.3-1-default OS Type: 64-bit Processors: 8 × Intel® Core™ i7-4810MQ CPU @ 2.80GHz Memory: 31.0 GiB of RAM Graphics Processor: Mesa DRI Intel® HD Graphics 4600

Modified by jonzn4SUSE

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Thanks for checking in, @jonzn4SUSE...

I have tried it in safe mode, without success; YouTube plays just fine, as do several other sites. No love for TED and a few others.

I really wonder if this is due to some of Fedora's sandboxing features; e.g., openH264 is installed as a flatpak, although that shouldn't matter as Nightly seems to ship with it's own openH264.

Modified by Bryan Moore

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KDE or Gnome. Does it work in the distro current version of Firefox?

Modified by jonzn4SUSE

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Sorry, I meant to include it was GNOME.

The distro version (84.0.1-2.fc33) works fine.

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Interesting... Maybe try downloading it again and just extract and run it. Can you also post a screenshot of the issue?

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Did that a couple of times...

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What if you download it and try to play it?

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Plays fine in Videos when downloaded.

Modified by Bryan Moore

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Yeah, looking like more of a Gnome / Ubuntu issue. Just for kicks, if you feel like testing... switch to KDE and see what happens.

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It can't be an Ubuntu issue, since I'm on Fedora, and I'm not sure being on GNOME would make any difference; however, I'm becoming more and more convinced it's a quirk of Fedora's new sandboxing.

Thanks, anyway, @jonzn4SUSE...

Modified by Bryan Moore

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LMAO.... Ubuntu on the brainu.  ;-))

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No worries... It's extra-comical to me because I started my Linux journey with Ubuntu (back in the good ol' Warty days) and used it up until about two or three years ago. :-)

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Suluhisho teule

Make sure you have the latest FFmpeg and libavcodec packages installed.

You can also check the Web Console for possible messages.

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Didn't even think to check libavcodec, @cor-el, and that was it; installing "GStreamer Multimedia Codecs - libav" fixed things.

Thanks a ton!