So you’re trying to watch an old Star Trek episode on the CBS Classic TV Shows site using Firefox (2 or 3) but much to your dismay you find that the video is choppy and dropping frames, ruining your plan to go where no man has gone before. You also might realize that suddenly your faithful old single core processor that’s kept it’s cool through everything you two have been through has suddenly come down with a bad case of heat stroke. Well, if you had checked your task manager (in Windows that is) you would have seen that Firefox.exe was running your CPU at 99% while playing the video which would explain why all your PC’s fans now sound like the engines of a WWII B29 Super Fortress running at full bore. Bloody Firefox, you say? Internet Explorer 7.0/8.0 plays the video just fine?
Don’t blame the browser.
Firefox doesn’t stream videos…the Shockwave Flash plugin does and that particular plugin for Firefox made by Adobe has a problem. For those of you who don’t know, Adobe makes 2 different Shockwave Flash plugins. One for IE and one for Firefox which is also the same plugin that Opera uses and if the streaming video you’re trying to view in Firefox is causing all sorts of problems attempting to view the same video using Opera will produce the same results.
What the exact problem within the Flash plugin for Firefox actually is I can’t tell you, I’m not a programmer. But the bottom line is that it has to be fixed. It’s simply not good enough anymore to simply shrug our shoulders and say well, it’s been like that for 3-4 years now so why bother? Here’s a good reason posted by one member of the Mozillazine Forums in response to someone else’s question; “Why bother?”:
Because Adobe’s grand long-term strategy is for Flash to become a legitimate platform (I, for one, hope that this strategy crashes and burns, but that’s another issue) and severe performance issues like this aren’t very conducive to that goal? And also because there have been a few instances in the past when they did care (for example, this one).
Here’s another reason:
Firefox 3 has basically been rebuilt from the ground up and the results of that overhaul are obvious and plentiful. Firefox 3 is a real honey of a browser. It’s light, fast, easy on the memory (finally) and full of new features and functions. The point I’m trying to make here is that if a heavily used plugin like the Flash plugin is providing terribly poor performance in Firefox 3, that plugin is going to stand out like it never did in Firefox 2. It’s like rebuilding a vintage Chevy V8 from the ground up and installing the old leaky fuel pump on it. So what’s the solution?
Feedback, feedback, feedback! I can’t stress that enough. Test it yourself. Those with dual core processors might have a smooth playback but will show around 70% CPU usage (IE delivers the same video at approximately 14%). Here’s what you do (Windows users only. Sorry, don’t have a Mac or a Linux box at present):
- Using Firefox, head to this website and load up any single episode of any of the old classic TV shows (I like the old Star Trek personally). Don’t play the video yet.
- Bring up your Task Manager and monitor Firefox.exe (just highlight it so you can see it easily).
- Now start the video.
- Check your Task Manager for CPU usage for Firefox.exe and note the results. (Single core PC’s might become somewhat unresponsive. Just pause or stop the playback to solve the problem).
What you should see is CPU usage peaking at approximately 99% for a fairly recent, single core processor and around 70% for dual core processors. Video playback in PC’s with a single core processor should be choppy and erratic plus Windows may become a bit unresponsive. Dual core PC’s should see smooth playback but a heavy load on the processor (around 70%). Once you’ve seen the results for yourselves, now comes the feedback.
Navigate yourself to the support department at Adobe, Shockwave Flash division and fill out this feedback form on what you saw. Make sure you select Firefox and Flash or Shockwave from the drop down menus provided in the form (the plugin is actually called Shockwave Flash but since that isn’t a selection…). Be brief but concise in your description of the steps of your testing and the results you saw and above all–be professional! If you wish to see this problem fixed then don’t get loose on your feedback. I guarantee they won’t bother with it.
Caution: Submit only one feedback please and if you don’t do the test, don’t submit any feedback meaning; don’t just take my word for it. We’re not trying to flood Adobe with this, just get their hopefully positive attention. They’re (Adobe) probably going to yell at me for this anyway so please don’t make it worse. 
Those of you with blogs can of course post about this if you wish.
That’s it. And just so everyone understands, this post is an effort to get something that needs to be fixed, fixed. It’s not an attack on the good folks at Adobe in any way shape or form. The bottom line here is that Firefox 3 is our browser. User feedback has driven a very large portion of it’s development so far (yes…it has) and even though Mozilla can’t help the performance of Adobe’s plugin, we, the users, can. If you want something fixed…make some (reasonably productive) noise about it.
Hey,
I am running probably the most basic system ever. An Intel Pentium D running at 2.66ghz. It’s not overclocked and I have 1 gigabyte of ram.
I had no problems with video feedback whatsoever! I’m using Windows XP with all of the latest updates applied. I also have various applications running like iTunes, Avast! and at this time, I’m in a multi-conversation with about 15 people.
I didn’t experience any CPU problems at all, I’m using Firefox 3 as well. CPU usage peaked at like 60% and often dropped to like 40%.
I’m not so sure that this is a widespread issue or not.
- Dwayne Charrington.
http://thricescene.com
I submitted feedback to Adobe.
I have a quad-core Q9450 and it pretty much maxes out 1 core, but the videos play back fine w/o any choppiness.
I’m just concerned about the CPU usage.
brian,
If your seeing anywhere near 50% overall use that means one core is indeed maxed out but since you have the other core free your video runs smoothly. Still, this is not a good thing since running the same video in IE (in Windows case) uses no more than 10% of a single core CPU. A lot is obviously dependent on hardware configurations I’m sure. A quad core running only onboard video for example will probably suffer when a single core CPU running a decent name brand video card with plenty of memory might barely touch the CPU.
Many thanks for submitting your feedback.
If Adobe can make it work and work well and consistently for Internet Explorer it should be able to do the same for Firefox.
Hey Dwayne,
Actually it is widespread but it seems to manifest itself differently on different hardware configurations (and the drivers that come with it). I guess my point is here that for Windows, the Flash plugin for Internet Explorer works well and consistently on almost all hardware configurations where the one for Firefox does not. There were bugs that contributed to this problem in previous versions of Firefox but in Firefox 3.0 those are fixed. Opera also uses the exact same plugin and exhibits this same type of problems.
Glad it’s working well for you though. You wouldn’t be willing to let me know what video hardware you’re using would you? Just curious.
Hey Kirk,
My video hardware is:
ATI Radeon 9200SE Gamebuster 128mb.
My Firefox currently has 14 plugins installed and I am also using the Silvermel theme. Even though these may not be relevant, some plugins may contribute to the choppy playback and excessive CPU usage perhaps?
Its an interesting problem though. I recall experiencing this problem occasionally in Firefox 2, but Firefox 3 seems to be a vast improvement.
I do seem to have a problem with Firefox 3 not loading flash movies sometimes though. And for some reason the Myspace music player sometimes doesn’t load for me and I’m on a 1.5mbps connection.
- Dwayne Charrington.
http://thricescene.com
Hey Dwayne,
I’ve also run into certain sites where I can’t load the video player or no video appears (forever loading) but it’s fairly rare. On some of these I have to disable “AdBlock Plus” in order to view the video which I’m guessing is that you’re required to view the ad that comes before the video or displays in a small screen beside the player or else no video. (I’m sure you’ve seen into these things before).
By 14 plugins do you perhaps mean 14 extensions? Extensions and plugins are 2 different things, extensions being things like AdBlock Plus, NoScript, ReminderFox etc and plugins being things like Flash, Shockwave, Acrobat reader and such.
And you’re right, extensions can very often cause problems and/or interfere with each other. One easy way to find out if it’s one of your extensions adding to the problem is to switch back to Firefox 3’s default theme and then start Firefox in “Safe Mode” and disabling all extensions via the “Safe Mode” dialog box. If the problem lessens at that point or goes away entirely then restart Firefox normally and manually disable all extensions and re-enable one at a time, restarting and testing in between each one, until you find the culprit. Lastly, switch back to your regular theme and test one more time is it wasn’t any one of the extensions. It’s tedious but most genuine troubleshooting is and often yields the results you’re looking for.
Just in case you haven’t done this already.
Hey Kirk,
Ha. Ha. yes, I meant extensions. I’ve had a pretty huge weekend my brain isn’t switch on yet.
I actually disabled Adblock Plus, and noticed that the problems decreased. Adblock Plus is notorious for causing problems with sites rendering properly including ironically MySpace applications.
I’m intrigued by this plugin bug though, I’ll keep an eye out and see if it randomly occurs with Firefox sometime down the track or something.
Thanks for the tips, I’m sure someone else will find them of use as well.
- Dwayne Charrington.
http://thricescene.com/
mine only went up to about 40 percent and im in ff 3
Hi all,
I’ve just installed the first build of Firefox 3.0.1 and will be checking out how things perform. The final is due towards the end of this month.
Just so you know.
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Here’s what you do (Windows users only. Sorry, don’t have a Mac at present):
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Are these the only two possible?!? Windows and Mac? Are you sure?