Embedded Videos in firefox not playing

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1

Recently i have been having issues with embedded media in firefox mainly videos. The issue arose a few days ago, i had updated all my packages, rebooted and then they stopped working. Anyone else experiencing this or know how to fix it?

2

I had the same experience also a few days ago, just as when I wanted to watch a video of Fedora server administration :slight_smile: As a result I installed Google Chrome and watched the video with that. By now, this problem with Firefox seems to have gone, though.
This is the version of my OS and Firefox:
Fedora Linux 36 (Workstation Edition) x86_64
Firefox: 104.0.1 (64-bit)

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3

I’m on the same version of Firefox, and Fedora, perhaps its some other underlying issue.

4

Is it flatpak or rpm version of Firefox? If it is the rpm version of Firefox, do you have ffmpeg-libs package from rpmfusion repository installed?

5

RPM version. I have ffmpeg installed, and ffmpeg-libs is not a package available ffmpeg-free is the one available and installed

6

ffmpeg-free is the one distributed from the fedora repos and does not have the codecs for some of the restricted formats.
I have these.

$ dnf list installed ffmpeg*
Installed Packages
ffmpeg.x86_64                                5.0.1-3.fc36                                          @rpmfusion-free        
ffmpeg-libs.x86_64                           5.0.1-3.fc36                                          @rpmfusion-free        
ffmpegthumbnailer.x86_64                     2.2.3-0.2.20210902gitd92e191.fc36                     @rpmfusion-free        
ffmpegthumbs.x86_64                          22.04.3-1.fc36                                        @rpmfusion-free-updates

The thumbnailer and thumbs packages are not required, but the others are.

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7

I could have sworn I had rpmfusion installed on this system. Guess I was wrong, I was able to get ffmpeg-libs and embedded media works again. thank you.

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8

hi there, I encountered that same issue, however, I already have libswresample-free installed (required by signal-desktop and vlc) and it seems to conflict with ffmpeg-libs.

Is there any way to solve this issue without ffmpeg-libs or to solve the conflict?

EDIT: I tried to use the mozilla-openh264 package by following these instructions but videos are still not playing.

9

Packages from other 3rd party repos (as it seems signal-desktop and libswresample-free are) may conflict with packages from fedora-centric repos such as rpmfusion. It is fairly simple to remove the conflicting packages but it is up to you to decide which is more important to your needs.

10

@computersavvy Well, that’s the thing, both having Signal/VLC and videos in Firefox are kind of a requirement for me (I mean, these are really basic things that work out of the box in all other distros I’ve tried), so the question is more “how can I bypass this conflict”, or “did I miss something with mozilla-openh264, shouldn’t it work”?

From what I understood, it seems that the non-free ffmpeg should not be necessary for videos in Firefox, but in practice the plugin just does not seem to work on my computer.

11

The ffmpeg and ffmpeg-libs packages are required for all codecs that are not 100% unencumbered with licensing, copywrite, or patents. Fedora only supports the ones that are unencumbered.

Firefox, from whatever source, uses ffmpeg and if you have the ffmpeg-free package from fedora it limits what firefox is able to process.

12

Let’s try this another way: is there a non-free libswresample that I could install to replace libswresample-free and that I could use with ffmpeg-libs, any way in which I could satisfy the Signal/VLC requirements while installing the non-free ffmpeg?

EDIT: I gues if I install Signal and VLC from flatpak that would work, right?

EDIT 2: OK, I removed the RPM libswresample, (which removed signal-desktop, and VLC), installed ffmpeg, then reinstalled Signal/VLC and everything works fine now.
I guess they use libswresample if only ffmpeg-free is installed but somehow know that it’s not needed with the full ffmpeg with non-free additions.

(I am limited to 3 replies per thread as a new user, hence the edit instead of a reply to @computersavvy)

13

I have no clue. I use vlc installed as rpm, and do not use signal. Vlc works with all videos I have.

# dnf list installed vlc
Installed Packages
vlc.x86_64                                              1:3.0.17.4-1.fc36                                               @rpmfusion-free-updates
14

wow i experienced this too.
i have tried several ways above but not worked for me.

but luckily i solved this by installing chrome browser from their website . but yap this chrome is owned by google but this can plays embedded videos flawlessly