Firefox won't play videos unless I keep moving the mouse! Ugh!

[BGM]

On my computer (and another one, actually) I have this problem with video playback (youtube, vimeo) in Firefox where the videos will hang unless I move the mouse around whilst it plays.  I've tried everything imaginable to solve this and all to no avail.  (Windows 7 Pro x64 with Firefox 30+)

Has anyone else had this happen to them?
How do I fix it?

[MilesAhead]

I can remember that happening back in XP.  I can't recall if I ever found out the cause though.  You might try checking for new mouse drivers.

Have you looked in Device Manager for any conflict icons?

One trick we did in support that worked often on weird problems like this was to boot into Safe Mode, go into Device Manager, right click on the device with the issue, and delete it.  Boot up normally.  Windows should say "Windows has found new hardware" and reinstall the driver automatically.

Many times it works correctly for quite awhile.

[BGM]

Thanks, Miles.
Strange to say - I have the problem on two different computers with two different mice.  One is an Anker, the other a MS Mouse 5000.  Both with the latest version of Firefox, but I've had the problem for a long time.

I'll try the mousey driver thing.

[app103]

I have not seen that problem since WinME, and I fixed it back then by uninstalling and then reinstalling Flash.

[BGM]

So I removed all the mouse drivers in Device Manager, but it still stalls.
And I removed and installed Flash Player, but it still stalls.

Also, in Internet Explorer, it is 10 times worse.  Videos keep stalling unless you move the mouse around.
I'm still looking for answers.

[MilesAhead]

Does anything on this page seem similar?

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=912521

[Ath]

Check your virus scanner.

[Case:]
Today we had an issue that one of our service executables wouldn't work properly. It's sole task is to listen for incoming connections on a port, and run a connector exe when requested through that port (yeah, sounds like a web-server, but it isn't)
Adding the connector exe to the process-exclusion list of MS Forefront (unfortunately our AV solution), and restarting the service executable, solved the issue.

[BGM]

Ath - well, when you say "connector" do you mean Adobe flash?  Thing is that it is a firefox plugin.
AND the machines are running MS Security Essentials.

@Miles - it does look similar.  The browser isn't crashing, and switching tabs doesn't work either.

It's rather painful, too.  You just can't watch.  You have to watch and move the mouse.

Actually, I just noticed something else.  This one computer was running Firefox 34, so I upgraded it to 35 via the help menu.  And I was watching the progress meter and noticed that unless I moved the mouse, the little spinner in the upgrade panel would not move.  Strange!
I'm going to run a memory test and see if it is a RAM issue.

[superboyac]

Ath - well, when you say "connector" do you mean Adobe flash?  Thing is that it is a firefox plugin.
AND the machines are running MS Security Essentials.

@Miles - it does look similar.  The browser isn't crashing, and switching tabs doesn't work either.

It's rather painful, too.  You just can't watch.  You have to watch and move the mouse.

Actually, I just noticed something else.  This one computer was running Firefox 34, so I upgraded it to 35 via the help menu.  And I was watching the progress meter and noticed that unless I moved the mouse, the little spinner in the upgrade panel would not move.  Strange!
I'm going to run a memory test and see if it is a RAM issue.

this is not really a productive comment, but...
Firefox lately has been annoying wrto flash video playback.  I am now watching all videos in chrome.  I felt like in 2014, flash videos were causing slowness/freezes/crashing in firefox all the time, like multiple times a day.

[BGM]

@superboyac - yeah, and it's more annoying when it happens to the person with whom you share an office who thinks you are supposed to fix everything that doesn't work right because you are IT....

The memory test passed with flying colours.  So that wasn't the problem.

[tomos]

Firefox lately has been annoying wrto flash video playback.  [...]  I felt like in 2014, flash videos were causing slowness/freezes/crashing in firefox all the time, like multiple times a day.

same here.
Firefox and Adobe Flash Player relationship seems to be a recurring problem.

[Vurbal]

Doesn't Chrome use its own, built-in version of Flash instead of the one installed in Windows?

[MilesAhead]

Doesn't Chrome use its own, built-in version of Flash instead of the one installed in Windows?

I think the old Opera versions do also.  If you install the x64 Opera 12.17 it's a good diagnostic tool.  Also it's fast.

http://www.opera.com/download/guide/?os=windows&ver=12.17&local=y

Edit: I'm running 12.14 x64 on Windows 8.0 x64.  I don't use it often.  But it seems to work fine from what I can see.

[BGM]

I put Slimjet on the other computer and my comrade is having no problems playing videos.
He couldn't watch them in IE or Firefox (with only a few addons), but with the Chrome-based Slimjet - no problem.

I'd still like to solve this because I love Firefox.

Thanks for y'all's comments, by the way.

[4wd]

Just as a matter of interest, does the same happen with HTML5 content?

https://www.youtube.com/html5

This is IceDragon, (Comodo's version of Firefox):



Click the button to have Youtube try and serve videos in HTML5 rather than Flash.

I'd also uninstall the Flash Player while testing, (just to make sure).

[BGM]

4wd - yes, I know about that and have turned it on and off to no avail.

Oh - you mean to enable html5 with Flash uninstalled?
I'll have to try it out.