Firefox 104.0.1 fixes YouTube playback issues

Mozilla plans to release Firefox 104.0.1 to the Stable channel today. The new version of the Firefox desktop browser addresses a playback issue on YouTube.

Firefox 104.0.1 is the first point update for Firefox 104, which Mozilla released last week. Firefox 104 improved the browser's battery usage through user interface throttling and introduced a new developer tools feature to measure a website's power usage.

Firefox 104.0.1

Firefox 104.0.1 is not yet available at the time of writing. Mozilla plans to announce the release later today, if you are reading this article on August 30, 2022.

Downloads will be provided on the official Firefox website but also as in-browser updates. Once released, Firefox users may select Menu > Help > About Firefox to run a manual check for updates. The window that opens displays the installed version and checks for updates by querying Mozilla servers. Any update found, and it should pick up Firefox 104.0.1 at that point, will be downloaded and installed automatically.

The Firefox 104.0.1 release notes have a single entry:

Addresses an issue with Youtube video playback that was affecting some users.

The changelog does not provide additional details on the issue that some Firefox users experienced. A bug report on Mozilla's bug tracking website provides the missing information.

According to the report, YouTube videos froze on some users since the update to Firefox 104. The bug poster linked to a thread on Reddit that was started five days ago.

The thread starter experienced random freezes on YouTube while using Firefox. One user suggested that the issue has been introduced by video performance improvements in Firefox 104 and that setting two preferences to FALSE would resolve the issue temporarily for affected users:

1. Load about:config in the Firefox address bar.
2. Confirm that you accept the risks.
3. Search for media.wmf.zero-copy-nv12-texture.
4. Set the preference to FALSE.
5. Search for gfx.direct3d11.reuse-decoder-device.
6. Set the preference to FALSE.
7. Restart Firefox.

Mozilla implemented a fix in Firefox 104.0.1 that reverted the change to enable the zero copy feature. Once updated to Firefox 104.0.1, or one of the recent development build updates, Firefox users should not experience any freezes when playing videos on YouTube.

Now You: do you use Firefox and YouTube? What has been your experience lately?

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