As of today, can't force Flash anymore on YouTube

[allizomeniz]

I have the about:config setting "media.webm.enabled" on False to force Flash on YouTube. Today it's not working, videos won't play at all unless I set it to True. I tried the add-on YouTube Flash Video Player, but it doesn't work either. Apparently Google's done something to make life difficult. Anyone heard anything about this?

[dfoulkes]

A new Flash came out this month... did you update?

That's about all that I have.

[LIMPET235]

Hi,
I think that YT &/or Google are playing with YT again.
I have a similar problem with all my videos on YT & on my RC Yachting club site with various Firefox versions..
Most are just black screens, some play for a little while & then freeze but all just go out-of-focus.
They were all fine when I uploaded them the other day. (errr Tues/Wed night.)

I've sent them feedback on all the errors but doubt whether they will revert back to a working YT anytime soon.

Running the latest Flash update but they insist they're using HTML5 & webm.
Should play but do not.
Nothing changed at my end.

&, There are heaps of people who have the same problem with YT on their forum.
Here's just one...
> https://productforums.google.com/forum/ ... um/youtube

Test this video I just uploaded the other day...
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6-kLt5SSlI
It fails with the error message & black screen in Firefox v20.

[Gusar]

There's reports everywhere about the announcement that Adobe is killing Flash, apparently for real this time. The planned end-of-life is year 2020, but it wouldn't surprise me if, in light of the announcement, Google turned off Flash on Youtube starting today.

[LIMPET235]

About the only thing one can do, is to start downloading any video that you want to watch.
A proper PITA.

I think that most are .mp4, so it should be an easy, if un-necessary work-around.

[Happy112]

To all :

This add-on should do the trick : (fingers crossed ..... )

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo ... eo-player/

[Tomatoshadow2]

Will anyone miss Flash once it's gone or do you like HTML 5 better anyway?

[LIMPET235]

Nope, Happy112.
Did not work at all.
Still receive the same damn error message/s.
Yt & Google have, once again, stuffed it up!

[Gusar]

About the only thing one can do, is to start downloading any video that you want to watch.

Err, or just use the HMTL5 capabilities of the browser?

[Frank Lion]

Will anyone miss Flash once it's gone or do you like HTML 5 better anyway?

HTML5 runs fine on my tablets and streams well, but on the PCs it stutters and buffers an awful lot. So on the PCs I use Flash and this - YouTube Flash Video Player - and all is well.

[Tomatoshadow2]

@Frank Lion, on Youtube and Twitch, HTML 5 is blazing fast for me. I rarely ever use Flash anymore, only if I'm on a T.V. Networks site to watch one of their shows, that's really the only time, I need to run the flash plug-in.

[LIMPET235]

Well, according to the YT HTML5 site, my (highly configured & preferred) Firefox v20 has "HTMLVideoElement" & "WebM VP8" capability enabled.

Why did YT & my club site work the other day & not now?
& why do the videos go out-of-focus?

[Gusar]

Well, according to the YT HTML5 site, my Firefox v20 has "HTMLVideoElement" & "WebM VP8" capability enabled.

Are you really using Firefox 20?

Youtube doesn't serve VP8 anymore, it seems that way to me at least, any random video I check isn't available as VP8. Shouldn't be problem though, because an up-to-date version of Firefox (45esr, 52esr, 54) has built-in VP9 decoding and, on a not-dead OS, also h264 decoding via a platform decoder.

[Grumpus]

Tried it with just Widevine -html5 - played with clarity but couldn't get a stable download rate, wireless signal all over the place
Got in about 2 minutes worth, using auto 360 setting, no other setting available.

Sun Sail Swamp 65 Class #3 23 7 2017
Laurence235

[LIMPET235]

@ Gusar,
Yes.
I still run version 20, along with a few other, later ones.
But, I cannot configure them to what I have in set up in version 20.
Besides which, I don't go anywhere "weird."
I'm mainly here, moderating all night.

Just a PITA that YT &/or Google have to change & break things.

Grumps,
I read somewhere that HTML5 only allows a quality setting of 360? at the moment.
Lots of comments about it on the Google/YT Support site.