Firefox not playing content

fox · January 18, 2021, 11:11:46 AM

I'm running FF 84.0.2 on Ubuntu 20.10. I have noticed more and more that FF is giving me trouble playing content. The most recent example is Randy Bachman's Vinyl Tap on CBC. I tried opening this episode and when I went to play it, I got the error "We're sorry, something went wrong. Please try again." I tried several times; always the same result. When I tried this in Chrome and Chromium, it played OK. What's with Firefox? I use it because it's open source, but I'm getting more and more annoyed with it and thinking of switching if I can't solve this problem.

ssfc72 · January 18, 2021, 01:37:00 PM

Worked fine for me with the Opera browser running from Mint 19.1.

Jason · January 18, 2021, 07:08:50 PM

Works for me in Brave.

1. Are you using the Strict mode setting in Firefox? Sometimes it breaks sites.
2. And are you using any other software that might block popup applications or block scripts?

Jason · January 18, 2021, 07:09:54 PM

You might be already aware but Chromium is Open Source, too, as is Brave.

Jason · January 18, 2021, 07:18:57 PM

I don't know how I missed this before but Brave's Shield feature is more configurable than I thought. You can choose, on a per-site basis, what level of blocking you want to use. That can be useful for troubleshooting when things go wrong instead of just turning off the Shield. See attachment.

Anyway, back to Firefox. In the blocking section in your settings, I believe there are three levels, No blocking, Standard and Strict, as well as Custom. If you're on Strict, try Standard. I think you can do this on a per-site basis in these settings, too. It's just not as easy as Brave although there is likely an extension that will make it easier for FF.

fox · January 18, 2021, 10:00:34 PM

Quote from: Jason Wallwork on January 18, 2021, 07:18:57 PM
I don't know how I missed this before but Brave's Shield feature is more configurable than I thought. You can choose, on a per-site basis, what level of blocking you want to use. That can be useful for troubleshooting when things go wrong instead of just turning off the Shield. See attachment.

Anyway, back to Firefox. In the blocking section in your settings, I believe there are three levels, No blocking, Standard and Strict, as well as Custom. If you're on Strict, try Standard. I think you can do this on a per-site basis in these settings, too. It's just not as easy as Brave although there is likely an extension that will make it easier for FF.

I tried disabling the shield for this site; no effect. In my preferences, I was using Standard blocking. And yes, I knew that Chromium and Brave are also open source. I have Chromium downloaded, as well as Chrome, for instances like this one. But I have always used and enjoyed Firefox. Never had these problems until recently.

Jason · January 19, 2021, 04:18:45 AM

I just thought of something else. Were you using a VPN when you accessed the site? Try turning it off or switching to a different zone. It may be that a certain IP or range of IPs have been blocked for streaming audio/video because of abuse. It's not that likely but possible.

Jason · January 19, 2021, 04:22:59 AM

I just tried it in Firefox and it worked fine. I'm using 84.0.2 (64-bit) as well.

What else have you tried to do to fix it so I'm not suggesting things you've already tried?

fox · January 19, 2021, 08:26:23 AM

Quote from: Jason Wallwork on January 19, 2021, 04:22:59 AM
I just tried it in Firefox and it worked fine. I'm using 84.0.2 (64-bit) as well.

What else have you tried to do to fix it so I'm not suggesting things you've already tried?

First of, I'm not using a VPN on my Pi, but I am on my regular desktop. I use PIA, and I don't know how to set this up on the Pi. PIA seems to have no impact on Firefox on my desktop computer.

I haven't tried any fixes other than the ones mentioned in a previous post. If you or anyone else has an idea of another fix to try, I'm all ears.

Jason · January 19, 2021, 10:07:29 PM

Are there codecs you need to install?

For example, I was playing a video from the CBC news site and when I right-clicked it (on full-screen) it said something about Kaffeine which I know is a Linux player. If they're not using an open video standard then Kaffeine would need codecs which it must have obviously. Perhaps it's the same with your RPi or Firefox? I don't know if that makes any sense. I'm just spit-balling. I would guess they're using MP3 to stream it.

Can you try an MP3 on your desktop and play it on Firefox? And then using another app? If it works on your desktop but not in Firefox, you can check the section in settings where it chooses how to recognize extensions and what to do with them.

Jason · January 19, 2021, 10:09:32 PM

Have you googled the problem? And have you just checked the RPi forums? Nobody may be accessing the CBC website but maybe they've come across a similar issue with playing music on another website. Or maybe you could open a new thread and ask others to check the website to see if works for them on Firefox. And if does, then maybe you can figure out the difference between your installs.

fox · January 20, 2021, 08:03:11 AM

Quote from: Jason Wallwork on January 19, 2021, 10:07:29 PM
Are there codecs you need to install?
....
Can you try an MP3 on your desktop and play it on Firefox? And then using another app? If it works on your desktop but not in Firefox, you can check the section in settings where it chooses how to recognize extensions and what to do with them.

I don't know if there are codecs I need to install on Firefox. How would I determine this? If you mean codecs to install on Ubuntu, that can't be the problem because I can play this stream in Chrome/Chromium. If it's an MP3 stream (how would I determine this?), I can play MP3's on the computer, in both Rhythmbox and Gnome Videos.

fox · January 20, 2021, 08:05:29 AM

Quote from: Jason Wallwork on January 19, 2021, 10:09:32 PM
Have you googled the problem? And have you just checked the RPi forums? Nobody may be accessing the CBC website but maybe they've come across a similar issue with playing music on another website. Or maybe you could open a new thread and ask others to check the website to see if works for them on Firefox. And if does, then maybe you can figure out the difference between your installs.

I think I did Google the problem, but I'll try again. This has nothing to do with my Raspberry Pi. The problem is on my computer. I haven't tried it on my RPi, but even if it didn't play there, the issue would still be Firefox on my computer.

fox · January 20, 2021, 03:01:16 PM

Interesting - Firefox 78.6.1-ESR plays the audio on my RPi 4 in Raspberry Pi OS! So the problem is either in the FF version on my computer or it's the way it is set up.

fox · January 22, 2021, 09:14:18 AM

I now have another hint as to what is wrong, but I don't know how to fix it. On the computer where I'm having the problem, I installed Firefox-ESR from a snap package. I tried two files I've been having trouble playing; one was the audio file I started this thread with and the other, a video on the National Geographic website. Both worked. So I thought to use ESR, but first, in order to get all my bookmarks and things current in regular Firefox, I'll sign up for a FF account and use this to sync with ESR. Bad move! As soon as everything was synced, I could no longer play the two files that I could a few minutes ago in ESR. So there is clearly some setting or extension I'm running that is causing the problem, but I have no idea what it is. It isn't turning off enhanced tracking; this doesn't help. I even tried turning off tracking and that didn't help either.