streaming videos only play correctly some of the time

[guine]

Over the past week or two I've been noticing that I've been having more and more problems with playing streaming videos. I haven't been able to find anything consistent about when the videos don't play correctly. Theres been videos where I've just had to wait a day or two to see even though I know from other people that theyre working. Sometimes I get nothing, sometimes its just sound and sometimes its just video. It doesn't seem to depend on the websites either, earlier today I was able to get one video on a webpage to play correctly but the other one on that page would only give me sound for a couple of seconds and then stop like it was buffering even though the status bar showed it had loaded the entire video. I don't think its just a firefox problem either because I was having the same problems at the same websites running opera as well. Any ideas about what wrong and how to fix it? Thanks.

[no2498]

i know this comes from a webcam program but it helps me


The video is sluggish/has a slow response. What can I do?


You may have set "ximagesink" ("X Window System (No Xv)") as video-output.
This means, that your cpu is doing all the work. Change it to "xvimagesink"
("X Window System (X11/XShm/Xv)") in order to let your graphics card do the work.



To change the settings, run "gstreamer-properties", click the Video tab
and change the appropriate settings.

[lovinglinux]

What kind of videos? Flash, Quicktime...?

[guine]

What kind of videos? Flash, Quicktime...?

Im pretty certain that theyve all been flash videos.

[guine]

i know this comes from a webcam program but it helps me


The video is sluggish/has a slow response. What can I do?


You may have set "ximagesink" ("X Window System (No Xv)") as video-output.
This means, that your cpu is doing all the work. Change it to "xvimagesink"
("X Window System (X11/XShm/Xv)") in order to let your graphics card do the work.



To change the settings, run "gstreamer-properties", click the Video tab
and change the appropriate settings.

The default had been set to auto but I switched it over to "X Window System (X11/XShm/Xv)" and Ill try that for a little. A video that wasn't working for me yesterday played with it on both auto and "X Window System (X11/XShm/Xv)" although it was a little jumpy in the beginning while loading on the second one while it loaded smoothly with it on auto.

[lovinglinux]

Please provide the output of the following commands and instructions. This will make sure I will have a good understanding of your Firefox and Flash installations, so I don't need to guess what might be happening to your system:

1 - Flash Version

Type about:config in Firefox address bar, then type plugin.expose_full_path in the filter, then double-click the same item in the results to make it true. Then type about:plugins in the address bar, find Shockwave Flash, copy the corresponding Path and Version and paste here. it should look lie the image below:

http://tinyurl.com/287j7on

2 - Firefox version and architecture

To find Firefox version and architecture, click "Help >> About Mozilla Firefox" in the menu. The info will be located at the bottom of the info dialog (you need to resize the window to see it):

http://tinyurl.com/26b85o2


3 - System Info

Execute the following commands then copy the generated file, named firefox-report.txt from your Desktop and upload it here or paste the contents.

To execute those commands, select the entire content below, then go to "Applications >> Accessories >> Terminal" and click the terminal with the middle-mouse button.



echo 'Ubuntu Architecture' > ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo '' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
uname -a >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo '' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo 'Ubuntu Version' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo '' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
cat /etc/lsb-release >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo '' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo 'Firefox Packages' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo '' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
dpkg --get-selections | grep 'firefox*' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo '' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo 'Firefox binaries' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo '' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
which firefox >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
file /usr/bin/firefox >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
file /usr/local/bin/firefox >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
file /opt/firefox/firefox >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo '' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo 'Firefox divertion' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo '' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
file /usr/bin/firefox.ubuntu >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo '' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo 'Sources' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo '' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
ls /etc/apt/sources.list.d >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo '' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo 'Flash packages' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo '' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
dpkg --get-selections | grep 'flash*' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo '' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo 'Plugin locations' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo '' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
locate libflashplayer.so >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo '' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
locate flashplugin-alternative.so >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo '' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo 'Flash symlinks' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
echo '' >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
file /usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/libflashplayer.so >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
file /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/flashplugin-alternative.so >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
file /etc/alternatives/mozilla-flashplugin >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
file /var/lib/flashplugin-installer/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so >> ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt
firefox ~/Desktop/firefox-report.txt

[guine]

1.
Shockwave Flash

File: /home/guine/.mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so
Version:
Shockwave Flash 10.1 r53

MIME Type Description Suffixes Enabled
application/x-shockwave-flash Shockwave Flash swf Yes
application/futuresplash FutureSplash Player spl Yes



2. Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.8) Gecko/20100723 Ubuntu/9.10 (karmic) Firefox/3.6.8



3. Ubuntu Architecture

Linux thealmightybob 2.6.31-22-generic #63-Ubuntu SMP Wed Aug 18 22:54:26 UTC 2010 i686 GNU/Linux

Ubuntu Version

DISTRIB_ID=Ubuntu
DISTRIB_RELEASE=9.10
DISTRIB_CODENAME=karmic
DISTRIB_DESCRIPTION="Ubuntu 9.10"

Firefox Packages

firefox install
firefox-3.5 install
firefox-3.5-branding install
firefox-3.5-gnome-support install
firefox-branding install
firefox-gnome-support install

Firefox binaries

/usr/bin/firefox
/usr/bin/firefox: symbolic link to `../lib/firefox-3.6.8/firefox.sh'
/usr/local/bin/firefox: ERROR: cannot open `/usr/local/bin/firefox' (No such file or directory)
/opt/firefox/firefox: ERROR: cannot open `/opt/firefox/firefox' (No such file or directory)

Firefox divertion

/usr/bin/firefox.ubuntu: ERROR: cannot open `/usr/bin/firefox.ubuntu' (No such file or directory)

Sources

opera.list

Flash packages

flashplugin-installer install

Plugin locations

/home/guine/.mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so
/usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so
/usr/share/ubufox/plugins/libflashplayer.so

/usr/lib/firefox/plugins/flashplugin-alternative.so
/usr/lib/iceape/plugins/flashplugin-alternative.so
/usr/lib/iceweasel/plugins/flashplugin-alternative.so
/usr/lib/midbrowser/plugins/flashplugin-alternative.so
/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/flashplugin-alternative.so
/usr/lib/xulrunner/plugins/flashplugin-alternative.so
/usr/lib/xulrunner-addons/plugins/flashplugin-alternative.so

Flash symlinks

/usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/libflashplayer.so: ERROR: cannot open `/usr/lib/firefox-addons/plugins/libflashplayer.so' (No such file or directory)
/usr/lib/mozilla/plugins/flashplugin-alternative.so: symbolic link to `/etc/alternatives/mozilla-flashplugin'
/etc/alternatives/mozilla-flashplugin: symbolic link to `/usr/lib/flashplugin-installer/libflashplayer.so'
/var/lib/flashplugin-installer/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so: ERROR: cannot open `/var/lib/flashplugin-installer/npwrapper.libflashplayer.so' (No such file or directory)

[lovinglinux]

Is there a particular reason why you are using flash from your ~/.mozilla/plugins folder?

[guine]

Is there a particular reason why you are using flash from your ~/.mozilla/plugins folder?

No, thats just how it set up.

[lovinglinux]

No, thats just how it set up.

Move ~/.mozilla/plugins/libflashplayer.so to somewhere outside the mozilla folder, restart Firefox and check which version Firefox detects and if it works better.