Hello, I need help with video playback in Firefox.
The issue I’m experiencing is that when I play a video and try to skip around, it starts buffering endlessly, and the only way to fix it temporarily is by clearing the cache. Additionally, when I skip backward, the video image freezes while the audio and subtitles continue to play. Reloading the page resolves the freeze.
My setup is:
OS: Fedora 43 KDE Edition (Fresh install)
GPU: NVIDIA RTX 4070 Super (iGPU disabled, Secure Boot disabled)
Browser: Firefox 147.0.4 (tested both Flatpak and Fedora repository versions)
You installed xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda-libs, but did you also install xorg-x11-drv-nvidia-cuda ? The command dnf list --installed \*nvidia\* should show all installed nvidia related packages.
I doubt it is a codec issue since you already installed ffmpeg, but it could be.
Have you installed the x264 and x265 packages from rpmfusion?
Having the issue clear by reloading the page, and the fact that this issue does not happen in brave tends to point to some issue with firefox.
I would suggest one additional step. sudo dnf install libavcodec-freeworld --allowerasing
That will remove several related (*-free) packages that were installed by fedora and replace them with the freeworld codecs.
Some may say it is not required since you already have the rpmfusion version of ffmpeg, but I install this package anyway and so far have had no codec failures on media.
When you post screen output like this please post it all. Your post clipped off the right hand column that showed the repos from which those packages were installed. In certain situations and at times that information may become very important.
This shows you do not have the x264 or x265 packages installed.
A simple sudo dnf install x264 x265 will solve that issue.
Additionally, be aware that a dnf command provides much more readable and informative information in most cases than can be seen with the rpm command. Dnf uses rpm in the background but adds a lot more features.
Awesome, thank you! After running sudo dnf install libavcodec-freeworld --allowerasing, it also installed the x264 and x265 libraries, and now everything is working correctly.
However, I thought that when installing FFmpeg using sudo dnf swap ffmpeg-free ffmpeg --allowerasing, it would already include support for x264 and x265. Why weren’t those libraries installed as part of that process?
ffmpeg is more about manipulating media instead of playing media. There is a difference in the required codecs apparently. I always install both on a new OS install so was not 100% up on the differences. Your experience seems to indicate that libavcodec-freeworld is the required package for multimedia libs and codecs, though ffmpeg-free from fedora is still restricted in its installed codecs.
you did not swap ffmpeg-free with ffmpeg from rpmfusion, because in your 2nd post
under ‘These are the currently installed codecs:’ clearly lists ffmpeg-free and the libav*-free rpms still installed!
With ffmpeg-free installed, you need to install libavcodec-freeworld to enable x264 and x265 codecs.
With ffmpeg and ffmpeg-libs from rpmfusion installed, libavcodec-freeworld is not required.