Firefox unresponsive when opening multimedia links

General system Applications
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This is an issue has been bugging me to no end. Whenever I open a website with multimedia, say a YouTube video, Spotify, links with video, etc. Firefox becomes unresponsive for a few seconds. The few times that it doesn’t, it causes any previously opened media to buffer e.g. having a YouTube video playing while opening another video causes both to go into buffering. Some quick points:

  • I’m not using the flatpak version. I first installed the ESR version from AUR, then switched to the firefox package from pacman
  • I tried running Firefox in Safe Mode
  • I tried following the tips at https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/firefox#Firefox_startup_takes_very_long to speed up the browser. I should note Firefox takes a bit to launch as well.
  • Chromium does not present any issues handling multimedia whatsoever
  • if it matters, I’m on a desktop PC connected to my wireless network through a Wi-Fi dongle. I had to install the driver from https://github.com/aircrack-ng/rtl8812au
  • I’m using KDE for Endeavour

I appreciate any help. Thank you in advance.

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welcome :grin:

I suggest posting some more hardware infos and perhaps some logs, here is some info how to do this:

https://discovery.endeavouros.com/forum-log-tool-options/how-to-include-systemlogs-in-your-post/2021/03/

Its definitely not a problem I have with firefox, but everyone has different hardware. I don’t know if the proprietary wifi dongle could be a problem. Posting hardware will also reveal your model… if thats the right driver, did you try via AUR?

https://aur.archlinux.org/packages?O=0&SeB=nd&K=rtl8812au&outdated=&SB=p&SO=d&PP=50&submit=Go

1 Like
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Here is my hardware information

https://clbin.com/lifYB

and here are different logs compiled via the log tool

https://clbin.com/OJHX7

I will try removing the driver and using the AUR one, although I must say I have no issues whatsoever in any other application.

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There might be a setting in Firefox, I have seen a couple of forum posts with other issues. But this is out of my field of knowledge.

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Reporting back with my findings. I uninstalled the previous driver, updated my system and installed one of the drivers from the AUR. No working Wi-Fi interface.

After doing some probing, turns out I was using the wrong driver for the RTL8812au chipset, instead of the RTL8821au on my dongle. I installed the correct driver from AUR; lo and behold, Firefox runs much better now. I can open as many YouTube tabs without hanging or buffering! I’m surprised because, like I mentioned, no other program or network function showed any problems whatsoever.

Thank you @Zircon34, I wouldn’t have thought of it, if not for your suggestion.

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That’s great, I kind of suspected it could be that. In general better idea to install via AUR.

I am not sure the exact cause in Firefox, but I guess the problem is solved then. My suggestions is to try this a bit, if it worked you can mark the thread as solved with the answer that fixed it so it can easily be found for the next user.

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