After installing the security update for Firefox yesterday, videos from online college no longer load. There were no error messages. Systemd journal showed no errors either. YouTube videos play fine. I had been hoping for an updated Firefox, but I can’t use this, so after trying to make it work with settings, I downgraded to the previous version, and it works again. I didn’t know where else to post about it so I’m posting here.
Being on Leap 15.4 I’m guessing but, <https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/575950-SUSE-SU-2022-3396-1-important-Security-update-for-MozillaFirefox> shows that patch is correctly written as “openSUSE-SLE-15.3-2022-3396” – and, there was also a related patch to update the Mozilla certificates – possibly “openSUSE-SLE-15.3-2022-3395”.
Given that the Mozilla certificates have been correctly installed, the Mozilla Firefox version 102.3.0esr (64-Bit) behaves correctly with respect to MP4/H.264 Video if, the following openSUSE SDB has been adhered to:
- SDB:Firefox MP4/H.264 Video Support – <https://en.opensuse.org/SDB:Firefox_MP4/H.264_Video_Support>.
Thanks for replying, I’m on Leap15.3, The certificates were installed, and the Packman repository and the libraries have been installed for sometime. I know how OpenSUSE is about so called “bad” plugins. There doesn’t seem to be a libcodec56 or the other 56 libraries at packman, but everything works fine under Firefox 91.13Oesr (64-bit), but 102.3.0 didn’t play the videos so I reverted back. I use it nearly every day but if I find out what is wrong I will install the update and see. It’s a little hard to revert back because of profiles, but I have a Firefox account which makes it easier.
Have you tried the downloaded Firefox direct from Mozilla?
Just extract the .tar
Open the folder firefox and click the file: firefox
You will need to allow it to execute
It ain’t a “bad” issue –
- It’s a licensing and legal issue – SUSE and openSUSE have a paid management and lawyers …
Not everything in life is “free” and in “free beer” …
Never mind about that, I have the following FFmpeg libraries installed on Leap 15.4 with Firefox version 102.3.0esr and, HD videos supplied by news and technical channels perform as expected –
> LANG=C zypper search --installed-only avcodec avformat avdevice
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
S | Name | Summary | Type
---+------------------+--------------------------------+--------
i+ | libavcodec57 | FFmpeg codec library | package
i+ | libavcodec58_134 | FFmpeg codec library | package
i+ | libavdevice57 | FFmpeg device library | package
i+ | libavdevice58_13 | FFmpeg device library | package
i+ | libavformat57 | FFmpeg's stream format library | package
i+ | libavformat58_76 | FFmpeg's stream format library | package
>
Hello, I meant “bad” in the sense of good, bad, and ugly plugins. OpenSUSE used to and may still include plugins with licensing issues in the bad plugin package. Those with licensing issues were missing or dummies. I didn’t mean that they were poorly formed as some others were. All I meant was I already knew about that. I’m sorry if it sounded testy, I didn’t mean for it to. Today I updated my other laptop and after installing the Packman libraries Firefox 102.3.0 loaded videos fine but asked for me to unlock my key ring but wouldn’t accept my password after trying a couple of times to put it in. I restarted the computer and tried several times with Foxfire but it did the same thing each time. Each time I then started Yast with the same password, no trouble. The same thing happened with Firefox 102.3.0 on the first machine, but it did unlock the ring. When I get caught up on my work I’ll try updating Firefox on the first machine again, and see what happens. . Thanks
To caf4926, no I didn’t try that. I’ll try reinstalling the update from Leap first and if that doesn’t work I’ll try what you said. thanks
I reinstalled the update and started it with Konsole, and the videos again failed to play. Here’s the output:
ghosty@linux-90hg:~> firefox
Missing chrome or resource URL: resource://gre/modules/UpdateListener.jsm
Missing chrome or resource URL: resource://gre/modules/UpdateListener.sys.mjs
[Child 19370, MediaDecoderStateMachine #1] WARNING: Decoder=7f6c6d2c4d00 state=DECODING_METAD
ATA Decode metadata failed, shutting down decoder: file /home/abuild/rpmbuild/BUILD/firefox-1
02.3.0/dom/media/MediaDecoderStateMachine.cpp:370
[Child 19370, MediaDecoderStateMachine #1] WARNING: Decoder=7f6c6d2c4d00 Decode error: NS_ERR
OR_DOM_MEDIA_METADATA_ERR (0x806e0006): file /home/abuild/rpmbuild/BUILD/firefox-102.3.0/dom/
media/MediaDecoderStateMachineBase.cpp:151
[Child 19370, MediaDecoderStateMachine #1] WARNING: Decoder=7f6c6d2c4400 state=DECODING_METAD
ATA Decode metadata failed, shutting down decoder: file /home/abuild/rpmbuild/BUILD/firefox-1
02.3.0/dom/media/MediaDecoderStateMachine.cpp:370
[Child 19370, MediaDecoderStateMachine #1] WARNING: Decoder=7f6c6d2c4400 Decode error: NS_ERR
OR_DOM_MEDIA_METADATA_ERR (0x806e0006): file /home/abuild/rpmbuild/BUILD/firefox-102.3.0/dom/
media/MediaDecoderStateMachineBase.cpp:151
This is way over my head. I’m going to try and update the FFmpeg libraries and try again. If that doesn’t work I’ll revert back again.
Please use Code-Tags:
https://forums.opensuse.org/showthread.php/536143-Using-Code-Tags-Around-Your-Paste
… and the Packman repository and the libraries have been installed…
Sorry to come back to this (it is my hobbyhorse), but it never hurts doing the vendor switch again when encountering multi-media problems.
to: Sauerland, sorry, I didn’t know and will from now on.
to: hcvv, I’m not sure what you mean, but I have switched the vendor to Packman already. Are you saying I should tell Yast to switch the vendor again. I’ll try that, it’s easy. Just so we understand each other this doesn’t happen when I use firefox 91.1.3 Oesr, or with Chrome, only with 102.3.0 Oesr.
to: caf4926 I don’t know how to allow it to execute, properties say it is executable and owner is permitted to, but if I try, permission is denied.
That is what I mean. When one has such a multi-media problem like you have, the first action I advice is do the switch again. But when you think you did it rather recent, that is OK. You only said “the Packman repository has been installed”. But as one does not install a repo, but adds it to ones enabled list of repos and then have to do the switch else one has just an unused repo, I suggested in case you mised somehing. That (adding Packman, but not using it) may sound a bit laughable, but I can assure you this shows up several times a year. 
Because I do not look into any multi-media problem before it is 1000% sure that the switch was made, I only now read your problem in more detail. I agree that it looks like a FF regression (which would then suggest filing a problem at Bugzilla). But you could provide a URL of such a video because “videos from online college” is not something anybody here can test and try to reproduce the problem.
to hcvv Thank you for replying. Yes I have switched the vendor to Packman a long time ago and if i start Yast and then the software manager and go to Repositories, all the installed Libraries, etc, are from vendor Packman. The college I take on-line classes from has had two ransom ware attacks since I have gone there, and security requires two-factor authentication, so even if I could share the links it wouldn’t help. The videos are embedded in the “Canvas” pages so i don’t know what format they are in, but i suspect Mp4, some professors are using Techsmith players and they don’t load, either. YouTube loads and plays fine. I have downgraded Firefox to 91.13.0esr because i need it to work. Yesterday just after posting here, Firefox told me it had updated in the background to 102.3.0esr, and again the videos didn’t play, so I reverted back. I also went into about:config and turned autoupdate to false to stop that. I will upgrade it again and find videos that won’t play and include the links then. This may be hard to reproduce because my other laptop on OpenSUSE Leap 15.3 has the updated Firefox and plays these videos fine. However both have been asking to unlock the Gnome keyring after I start Firefox, but only after the update. The first machine that won’t play the videos unlocks, but the second machine tells me the password is wrong. Systemd journal says: “The gnome keyring socket is not owned with the same credentials as the user login.” There has never been a different user on this machine.
The machine I’m having this issue on is a Lenovo Thinkpad 220T with an Intel core i5 and 8 Gb ram. It ran Leap 42.2 and has had all updates and been successively upgraded to Leap 15.3. The other laptop is for backup and is a H. P. EliteBook 8460p also with an Intel core i5 and 4 Gb ram. It started with Leap 15.1 and was upgraded the same way to Leap 15.3. Both are up to date.Both use KDE Plasma desktops and are Intel based with Intel graphics. I only use the first machine for doing work and it has many files and words added to the spellchecker so I would like to keep using it if I can. I also saw a post today from 5 days ago on Reddit that OpenSuse is disabling the patented video codecs. Thank you for giving this attention, sorry it is so long.
I am not a Gnome user, thus I can not say much about anything related to Gnome.
I never saw Firefox updating itself, a bit worrying. Or maybe you have some “automatic” updating switched on somewhere.
In any case, IMHO this should be reported as a bug (as I said, looks like a regression), but I am afraid that the fact that you can not provide a reproducable case will make it not easy for the debuggers.
In case you want to file the bug and never did so before:
For makeing bug-reports.
https://en.opensuse.org/openSUSE:Submitting_bug_reports
and, with the same username/password as here
https://bugzilla.opensuse.org/index.cgi
to hcvv, again thank you for your response. The Gnome Keyring as I understand it is part of the OpenSuse base system and is used by Network manager and other applications if it is available. I find the Gnome Desktop Environment difficult to work with because it opens applications full screen, and I use copy and paste, etc… I only run KDE Plasma with Wayland support. Firefox defaults to Auto-update though I haven’t had it update itself except in August it updated 91.11 to 91.12 and I lost the work I was doing, so I don’t like that. I didn’t know about it then and just let it go. Now I find I can use about:config in the search bar and set it to false. Firefox’s engineers wanted to prevent people who use it occasionally from running old versions and removed the ability to turn it to check and ask in the settings. I don’t know if this works in version 102.3.0esr or not. It’s a nuisance to keep upgrading and then downgrading again later, but I want to be able to use Firefox so i’ll do it again and find something that won’t play for an example, and file a bug report. Thanks
I let Firefox update and it won’t play MP4 videos but will play other HTML5 formats. Here’s a link to a video it won’t play: https://archive.org/details/SampleVideo1280x7205mb
Big Bunny plays fine here, firefox 102.3.0esr 64 bits (updated today and restarted to clear out certificate issues), LEAP 15.4.
Plays just fine here – Video and Audio both super OK – Full Screen also OK –
> firefox --version
Mozilla Firefox 102.3.0esr
>
Operating System: openSUSE Leap 15.4
KDE Plasma Version: 5.24.4
KDE Frameworks Version: 5.90.0
Qt Version: 5.15.2
Kernel Version: 5.14.21-150400.24.21-default (64-bit)
Graphics Platform: X11
Processors: 8 × AMD Ryzen 5 3400G with Radeon Vega Graphics
Memory: 29.3 GiB of RAM
Graphics Processor: AMD Radeon™ Vega 11 Graphics
> inxi --admin -xxx --filter --graphics
Graphics: Device-1: AMD Picasso/Raven 2 [Radeon Vega Series / Radeon Vega Mobile Series] vendor: ASUSTeK
driver: amdgpu v: kernel bus-ID: 06:00.0 chip-ID: 1002:15d8 class-ID: 0300
Display: x11 server: X.Org 1.20.3 compositor: kwin_x11 driver: loaded: amdgpu display-ID: :0 screens: 1
Screen-1: 0 s-res: 3840x2160 s-dpi: 140 s-size: 698x393mm (27.5x15.5") s-diag: 801mm (31.5")
Monitor-1: HDMI-A-0 res: 3840x2160 hz: 60 dpi: 140 size: 698x393mm (27.5x15.5") diag: 801mm (31.5")
OpenGL: renderer: AMD Radeon Vega 11 Graphics (RAVEN DRM 3.42.0 5.14.21-150400.24.21-default LLVM 11.0.1)
v: 4.6 Mesa 21.2.4 direct render: Yes
>
> LANG=C zypper search --installed-only --repo 'Packman Repository - Essentials' libavcodec libavformat libavdevice
Loading repository data...
Reading installed packages...
S | Name | Summary | Type
---+------------------+--------------------------------+--------
i+ | libavcodec57 | FFmpeg codec library | package
i+ | libavcodec58_134 | FFmpeg codec library | package
i+ | libavdevice57 | FFmpeg device library | package
i+ | libavdevice58_13 | FFmpeg device library | package
i+ | libavformat57 | FFmpeg's stream format library | package
i+ | libavformat58_76 | FFmpeg's stream format library | package
>
Same here. Works perfect.
Additional to my posts about “switching”: from my start of using openSUSE (even before it was called like that), The only thing I ever did for getting full multi-media support, was adding the Packman repo and doing the switch. I never bothered about all those questions and advises to install certain codecs. Apparently all one needs is there from the installation and replaced (and maybe additional dependent packages added) by the simple switch.
Could we see what ffmpeg and libavcodecs you actually have installed on that machine?
Would you show the output of:
zypper if ffmpeg-4
zypper if libavcodec57*
zypper if libavcodec58*
Solved. My thanks to all of you. I ran the code Paul suggested and found that I didn’t have ffmpeg-4 installed, everything else was from Packman. I had tried a few times to install it and forgot about it after ruby, after saying all package dependencies were good, wouldn’t install it because it conflicted with ffmpeg-3 from Suse and three other Suse libraries. This was some time ago. Packman doesn’t seem to have ffmpeg-3 so I didn’t notice it. I copied the information about conflicting packages and removed them first, and it installed fine. That fixed it, now Firefox works.