Cannot See Links to Videos Anymore (Fixed, I think)

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Wiggam72
Posts: 451
Joined: July 30th, 2013, 9:05 am

Re: Cannot See Links to Videos Anymore

Post by Wiggam72 »

Because of this thread, I began looking into hardware acceleration again. Before getting this new PC, I previously had an issue with a cellphone video I posted playing on Facebook. It was obvious to me that a FF update screwed something up because it played for years with no problem.

I was told via a post I made to disable acceleration hardware and it worked. So, this thread reminded me about it and went to the video and it played flawlessly. in fact, it looks much better than it used to. Of course, the reason is that this new PC and monitor plays 4k.

I then started reading about hardware acceleration and wanted to see if hardware acceleration was enabled and stumbled onto a setting in FF that I didn't know about. The article recommended that because I have a setup that can handle high-end graphics, I can change it from the default setting of 4, to 7. After doing so, I noticed a performance increase.

Here's how to get there. Turning off hardware acceleration

Click the menu button (the one with the three lines) and choose Options.
Select the General panel.
Under Performance, clear the Use recommended performance settings checkbox.
Uncheck Use hardware acceleration when available.

Then you can change the default number in the pull-down for Content process limit

Click the Firefox menu (the one with the three lines) , then click Exit.
Start Firefox normally.

The following link can help both high-end graphics users and low-end alike. There is quite a bit of info there besides the instructions I posted. I hope it can help the OP as well. I say "hope" because when the OP disabled hardware acceleration it didn't work unless Safe Mode was used. Good luck! Oh BTW, I had to edit the instructions I posted because a couple of things won't properly paste, i.e. the Menu image, and the Content process limit image.

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/up ... celeration
Last edited by Wiggam72 on August 19th, 2018, 1:05 pm, edited 1 time in total.
skuddle
Posts: 334
Joined: September 8th, 2012, 9:46 am

Re: Cannot See Links to Videos Anymore

Post by skuddle »

Thanks for your reply. Just for grins, I went through the process again - turning off hardware acceleration, setting Content Process to 7, then restarting. Same thing. Restarted in Save mode. Can see video links. Restart in normal mode. Cannot see video links. I'll try using a different profile next time.

NEXT TIME:

Okay. I restarted FF using a new profile and now I can see the videos :-D ; however, I've lost all of my bookmarks and extensions.

1. How can I transfer the bookmarks from the "bad" profile into the "new" profile?

2. Do I need to reinstall all of my extensions?
* HP Pavilion Desktop 510-p114
* Windows 10 Home 22H2 19045.4046
* Firefox 124; Thunderbird 115.8
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RobertJ
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Re: Cannot See Links to Videos Anymore

Post by RobertJ »

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Bookmarks are in a file called places.sqlite and favicons are in favicons.sqlite, transfer with FF not running.

Transferring extensions can be done but I recommend reinstalling them one at a time and then testing.

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FF 92.0 - TB 78.13 - Mac OSX 10.13.6
Wiggam72
Posts: 451
Joined: July 30th, 2013, 9:05 am

Re: Cannot See Links to Videos Anymore

Post by Wiggam72 »

Skuddle, glad you got it sorted out. Great advice from RobertJ.

Before testing out the videos, I recommend installing the add-on "Enhancer for YouTube" and then click on Options. Scroll past the black video box under the heading "Video player" and the last thing in that heading you will see is "Automatically play videos at my preferred quality." Check that box and change the settings to first choice 8k, 2nd choice 5k, 3rd choice 4k, 4th choice 1080p.

This way, it will automatically choose what the default quality is. Otherwise, if it detects that your PC will have trouble playing it, it more than likely will not make the default quality available and therefore you will not be able to see what will happen at the highest quality. There are several other settings that can be changed that has nothing to with hardware acceleration.

Here are a few videos for you guys to try out to test hardware acceleration etc.

This one is 4k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftlvreFtA2A

This one is 5k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRt4Duf7GoI Heads up. There's a very funny comment by the poster second from the top. :lol:

This one is 8k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1La4QzGeaaQ My setup can't handle this one! I had to view it at 4k. No 5k available for this video.
skuddle
Posts: 334
Joined: September 8th, 2012, 9:46 am

Re: Cannot See Links to Videos Anymore

Post by skuddle »

@RobertJ...

I found places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite in both the profile that does not see video links (call it "normal") and the "blank" profile (the one that does see video links), but I'm afraid to start moving them around and then boogering everything.

places.sqlite in the normal and the blank profile is 5,120 kb.
favicons.sqlite in the normal profile is 1,720 kb, but 5,120 kb in the blank profile. (Odd, same filesize as places.sqlite.)

All of the above files were last saved on 8/19/2018. I see there is also a places.sqlite-shm, a places.sqlite-wal, a favicons.sqlite-shm, and a favicons.sqlite-wal. Should I copy those 4 files along with the others into my blank profile, or just the places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite??
* HP Pavilion Desktop 510-p114
* Windows 10 Home 22H2 19045.4046
* Firefox 124; Thunderbird 115.8
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RobertJ
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Re: Cannot See Links to Videos Anymore

Post by RobertJ »

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places.sqlite-shm, a places.sqlite-wal are temporary files that usually only exist when FF is running. They are used to update the sqlite files when FF is shutting down.

SHUT DOWN FF and give it time to completely shut down. Then copy the "normal" places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite from the normal profile to the new profile.

Restart FF using the new profile and your bookmarks/favicons should be there.

.
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therube
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Re: Cannot See Links to Videos Anymore

Post by therube »

From what I remember...

That video was nothing more then an embedded Youtube video.

And if it does not display in the forum post, then to me, it says that something is blocking it.
An extension? Or a setting (perhaps even something like 3rd-party cookies)?

So talk of hardware acceleration, while fine, is early, I would think.
If HA is disabled, & it works, OK, that's likely it.
But if it does not, you need to look elsewhere - like extensions or other areas of "blocking".

Go through your extensions, disable the most likely candidates, & test.
Fire 750, bring back 250.
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skuddle
Posts: 334
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Re: Cannot See Links to Videos Anymore

Post by skuddle »

Okay, I think I was able to correct my problem. I did so by shutting down FF, copying places.sqlite and favicons.sqlite from the "normal" profile into a new blank profile, editing the profile.ini file to point to the new blank profile, and restarting FF. So far, so good.

After reinstalling my extensions from the web I can see the video links. We'll see how long this lasts. My thanks to therube, RobertJ, and all the others who posted suggestions to fix my problem.
skuddle
Posts: 334
Joined: September 8th, 2012, 9:46 am

Re: Cannot See Links to Videos Anymore (Fixed, I think)

Post by skuddle »

It's been 3 days since I "fixed" this issue. It has now returned.

I am not aware of any Microsoft "update" that has occurred since August 20th.

I can resolve the problem by disabling NoScript and then restarting normally. If I re-enable NoScript and start normally, then my formatting capability disappears.

Not sure what else I can do at this point except run without NoScript. Any additional help would really be appreciated.
* HP Pavilion Desktop 510-p114
* Windows 10 Home 22H2 19045.4046
* Firefox 124; Thunderbird 115.8
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RobertJ
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Re: Cannot See Links to Videos Anymore (Fixed, I think)

Post by RobertJ »

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On the other hand you can configure NS to allow the scripts on that site that are needed to display the video. I use NS and have no problem with that site if I temporarily allow certain scripts. It can take awhile but NS needs configuration for many sites especially those that have media.

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FF 92.0 - TB 78.13 - Mac OSX 10.13.6
skuddle
Posts: 334
Joined: September 8th, 2012, 9:46 am

Re: Cannot See Links to Videos Anymore (Fixed, I think)

Post by skuddle »

@RobertJ

I went back to tacomaworld.com and took a good look at the NoScript options. I saw that "twstatic.net" was set to "default". When I set it to "trusted" all of my editing options were re-enabled. I suppose that has something to do with it because everything works (again).

Thank you for your help!
* HP Pavilion Desktop 510-p114
* Windows 10 Home 22H2 19045.4046
* Firefox 124; Thunderbird 115.8
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RobertJ
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Re: Cannot See Links to Videos Anymore (Fixed, I think)

Post by RobertJ »

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:D

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FF 92.0 - TB 78.13 - Mac OSX 10.13.6
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