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[SOLVED] Videos won't play in Youtube

I had the (almost famous) problem, that, from one moment to the next, videos on YouTube would not play.

I remembered, that I've already had the problem and reinstalling/disabling/enabling almost everything did not solve it, whereas creating a new profile did. The disadvantage of this, however is, that everything is gone and you have to completely reconfigure everything FF-related. By taking apart the profile, I found out, that the problem seemed to come from a corrupted setting.

So, here's a method that retains your bookmarks, extension settings, etc...

  • Close Firefox
  • Go to your Application Data Folder
 (Windows 7: C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\,
  Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\YOURUSERNAME\Application Data (if I remember correctly) )
  • Go to Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles
  • Open your profile folder (should be SOMESCRAMBLEDCODE.default)
  • Rename the files prefs.js and extensions.sqlite
  • Open Firefox
  • You get a new tab for every installed extension. Open each one of them and click ->only<- 'Allow Installation' and 'Next'
  • When you reach the last one, click 'Restart Firefox' after 'Next'

When you restart, your theme and FF-internal settings are gone, but all the bookmarks, extensions, extension settings, sync, history, etc. are still there. -- Not much, but saves your from a lot of trouble

I am aware, this is not a question, but if there is some sort of FAQ (I did not find ;) ), this could be added.

I had the (almost famous) problem, that, from one moment to the next, videos on YouTube would not play. I remembered, that I've already had the problem and reinstalling/disabling/enabling almost everything did not solve it, whereas creating a new profile did. The disadvantage of this, however is, that everything is gone and you have to completely reconfigure everything FF-related. By taking apart the profile, I found out, that the problem seemed to come from a corrupted setting. So, here's a method that retains your bookmarks, extension settings, etc... * Close Firefox * Go to your Application Data Folder (Windows 7: C:\Users\YOURUSERNAME\AppData\Roaming\, Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\YOURUSERNAME\Application Data (if I remember correctly) ) * Go to Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles * Open your profile folder (should be SOMESCRAMBLEDCODE.default) * Rename the files prefs.js and extensions.sqlite * Open Firefox * You get a new tab for every installed extension. Open each one of them and click ->only<- 'Allow Installation' and 'Next' * When you reach the last one, click 'Restart Firefox' after 'Next' When you restart, your theme and FF-internal settings are gone, but all the bookmarks, extensions, extension settings, sync, history, etc. are still there. -- Not much, but saves your from a lot of trouble I am aware, this is not a question, but if there is some sort of FAQ (I did not find ;) ), this could be added.

All Replies (1)

Hi joeysun, this sounds somewhat similar to the Reset feature, but your method preserves the extensions. For comparison: Refresh Firefox - reset add-ons and settings.

It sounds as though the main change is renaming prefs.js, which stores many custom Firefox settings. It might be interesting to compare the old prefs.js with the new one after you've made your most important settings changes. That might help identify the problem.