Media Playback Issues (Linux)

[MrAlex94]

Summary

This umbrella issue tracks a cluster of media‑playback problems reported on Linux (YouTube/HTML5 video, codecs, and general playback). Reports are described as not reproducible in Firefox.

What we need from reporters

Please add the following to your issue if missing:

• Distro + version
• Packaging (native, Flatpak, Snap, AppImage)
• GPU model + driver (Mesa/NVIDIA/AMD) and VA‑API status
• FFmpeg version and codec availability
• about:support “Media” + “Graphics” sections
• Whether this reproduces in Troubleshoot Mode
• Example URL(s) and steps to reproduce

Notes

These reports appear related but may have different root causes (codec availability vs playback pipeline). This issue exists to consolidate diagnostics and reduce duplicate reports. Individual issues may remain open until root cause is confirmed.

[goodusername123]

It seems like some of this could be stemming from ESR140 not having support for FFMPEG v8? #4074

It might be worth looking into backporting Bug 1962139.

[kekonn]

EDIT: disregard, I apparently updated in the middle of an ffmpeg rollout and another system update an hour later pulled in more packages and fixed the issue.

For me I noticed that Twitch broke, but Youtube works fine.

I am on CachyOS (rolling), using the cachyos waterfox-bin package from their ChaoticAUR (waterfox version 6.6.7).

GPU: Advanced Micro Devices [AMD/ATI] Navi 31 [Radeon RX 7900 XT/7900
XTX/7900 GRE/7900M] driver: amdgpu v: kernel
MESA: 25.3.4-arch1.2

I have both ffmpeg 8 and 4 packages installed.

Note that AAC support seems to be completely missing.

[tabascosw]

I use ffmpeg8 and ffmpeg7 (libavcodec61, libavutil59,libswresample5) and get a bit more support. Hardware decoding is switched off because I have a very old GPU.
This is on openSUSE TW, wf 6.6.8

This is how it looks when I have only ffmpeg8

[tww0003]

Youtube live streams, twitch, and anything that use H264 or AAC broke after upgrading to ffmpeg 8. Firefox installed via portage works as expected.

Below is my system information. I can provide more info if needed. Seems like the root cause has already been mentioned in this issue however.

Distro + version

Gentoo Linux x86_64
Kernel: Linux 6.18.18-gentoo-dist

Packaging (native, Flatpak, Snap, AppImage)

I installed the .tar.gz downloaded from the main website.

GPU model + driver (Mesa/NVIDIA/AMD) and VA‑API status

AMD Radeon RX 9070 XT
Mesa 25.3.6
VA-API 1.23.0

FFmpeg version and codec availability

ffmpeg version 8.0.1 compiled with the following use flags:
media-video/ffmpeg aac x264 hls openssl x265 vpx opus vorbis

about:support “Media” + “Graphics” sections

Whether this reproduces in Troubleshoot Mode

yes

Example URL(s) and steps to reproduce

Any twitch live stream or Youtube live video. Any H264/AAC stream.

[rotorot0]

Firefox works fine with software and hardware decoding. Waterfox only works with processed YT videos and livestream vods.

Distro + version

Artix Linux (Rolling)
Kernel: 6.19.10-artix1-1

Packaging (native, Flatpak, Snap, AppImage)

Extracted .tar.gz from website

GPU model + driver (Mesa/NVIDIA/AMD) and VA‑API status

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070/PCIe/SSE2
Driver: nvidia-open-dkms 595.58.03
VA-API: libva-nvidia-driver 0.0.16-1

FFmpeg version and codec availability

ffmpeg 2:8.1-3

libavutil 60. 26.100 / 60. 26.100
libavcodec 62. 28.100 / 62. 28.100
libavformat 62. 12.100 / 62. 12.100
libavdevice 62. 3.100 / 62. 3.100
libavfilter 11. 14.100 / 11. 14.100
libswscale 9. 5.100 / 9. 5.100
libswresample 6. 3.100 / 6. 3.100

about:support “Media” + “Graphics” sections

Whether this reproduces in Troubleshoot Mode

Yes

Example URL(s) and steps to reproduce

Any Twitch livestreams and vods. Any Youtube live streams.

[RJVB]

I'll add some observations of mine here though I'm observing them in Firefox too (even a current Beta), in hope that it can help and someone maybe has an idea.

I'm setting up a refurb G3 Elitebook (6th Gen i7 with HD520 GPU) with a retro install based on an updated Ubuntu 14.04LTS. 5.15.95 xanmod kernel, mesa v21.3.9, recent intel-media and intel-vaapi libraries, pulseaudio 17 and current alsa-libs. Video works and uses the HD driver from the intel-media package, but there is an issue with playback of Instagram videos. As soon as I select a USB DAC, playback halts. If I do that via pavucontrol, playback resumes as soon as switch back to the internal audio interface. Or to a USB audio->bluetooth dongle (= an audio interface that probably contains neither DAC nor amp but sends the incoming PCM data to a BT radio). The issue disappears when I boot an older (5.6) kernel but also when I boot a newer distro (Devuan "Chimaera") with the same kernel (but earlier Alsa and pulseaudio versions).

The only possible error I see appears in the syslog, from pulseaudio:

[ [alsa-sink-USB Audio] alsa-sink.c: Resume failed, couldn't restore original fragment settings. (Old: 576000/288000, New 529200/264600)]

Fun fact: with alsa 1.2.15.2 the issue only affected IG "stories"; with 1.2.15.3 all videos are affected.

Video playback is fine on all other sites I tested (YT, Prime Video) and also in my standalone multimedia player (QMPlay2).

I'm really stymied by this.

[kayodde]

After I updated to 6.6.12 ffmpeg4.4 / ffmpeg-compat no longer works with Waterfox either. I am not sure what I'm supposed to do now as I cannot watch any videos on twitter or instagram with sound any longer.

[RJVB]

Thankfully I have auto-updates off, and make a backup of my current waterfox install directory before upgrading so I can always roll back.

Exactly what does Waterfox use, the FFMpeg binary or its libraries? I currently have both v6 and v8 installed, and all codecs are supported in the expected way (HW decoding only for H264, VP8 and HEVC).
Side-note: weird that the table suggests that the audio codecs could benefit from HW decoding; to my knowledge that's just not true (or else maybe using OpenCL, with questionable gains).

[kayodde]

After I updated to 6.6.12 ffmpeg4.4 / ffmpeg-compat no longer works with Waterfox either. I am not sure what I'm supposed to do now as I cannot watch any videos on twitter or instagram with sound any longer.

Seems the issue got posted on reddit too and the only real solution is to use the flatpak version of Waterfox. I guess it's a fine temporary solution in the meantime but for me on Gentoo it isn't ideal at all

[RJVB]

On Thursday May 14 2026 04:55:42 kayodde wrote: Seems the issue got posted on reddit too and the only real solution is to use the flatpak version of Waterfox.

I have a flatpak version of Chrome because my libc is too old, and don't get any form of HW acceleration in it. Personally I'd roll back to the previous Watefox version or move back to Firefox.

[Kayxue]

Bilibili video player is broken now due to lacking HTML5 support?

[iMistly]

I was having issues with certain media players like X (Twitter) and Instagram not playing audio from videos. As well as live streams from YouTube/Twitch just not playing at all. Found out that Waterfox couldn't find that latest ffmpeg installation, so I fixed it just by installed ffmpeg4.4 from the aur.

OS: CachyOS x86_64
Kernel: Linux 7.1.6-1-cachyos
GPU: AMD Radeon RX 9070 [Discrete]

My Packages:
ffmpeg 2:9.0-5.1
ffmpeg4.4 4.4.8-3.1
waterfox-bin 1:6.6.17-1

I do not know the details very well, but waterfox was only searching up to /usr/lib/libavcodec.so.62 to find the proper ffmpeg libraries (or something like that) when the latest version of ffmpeg is at /usr/lib/libavcodec.so.63
This might just be a very temporary issue between updates, but this is a problem that I ran into. Most likely because I am using the pre-built binary. I am more of adding this comment for people who might have this problem in the future. Please let me know if this is a bad way of fixing this issue.