Firefox very slow to load YouTube.

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Why does Firefox take so long to load YouTube?
Is there no permanent fix for this?
It takes more than a minute to start Firefox and then open YouTube.

Any help please.
Thanks Dave

 

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No help for this problem?
Thanks.

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DaveBRenn wrote:

Why does Firefox take so long to load YouTube?
Is there no permanent fix for this?
It takes more than a minute to start Firefox and then open YouTube.

Any help please.
Thanks Dave

 

DaveBRenn wrote:

No help for this problem?
Thanks.

Perhaps there is no one here that uses Firefox AND has problems loading YouTube? That might be a reason why there is no response so far.

I am running Firefox ESR 128.3.1 on Windows 10 1809 LTSC and Firefox ESR 115.16.1 on Windows 7 x64 / Windows Server 2012 R2 (basically Windows 8.1 x64) and I have no problems loading YouTube here.

What is the version of Firefox you are using and on what OS? Since you are posting in this forum, can I assume you are using Windows 10 22H2?

You say it takes a minute to load Firefox and start youtube. Did you configure Firefox to load YouTube automatically when it starts?

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

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Thanks James Bond 007,

I am running Windows 10 22H2
Firefox 131.0.3(32bit)

How do I confogure Firefox to load YouTube automatically
when it starts?

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DaveBRenn wrote:

Thanks James Bond 007,

I am running Windows 10 22H2
Firefox 131.0.3(32bit)

How do I confogure Firefox to load YouTube automatically
when it starts?

You are using the 32 bit version of Firefox? Is there a reason you want to stay with the 32 bit version of Firefox?

Are you using the 32 bit or 64 bit version of Windows 10? If the OS is 64 bit, why not use the 64 bit version of Firefox? That is what I use.

There are 2 ways I know that you can load a particular site (say YouTube) when you start Firefox : (Pictures are captured from Firefox ESR 128.3.1.)

First way :

Choose Tools and then Settings from the Firefox Menu Bar, or you can open a new tab and type about:preferences in the address bar and press Enter. Click General on the left, you should see the above window.

Say you have YouTube opened on Firefox, click “Open previous windows and tabs”, and close Firefox.

The next time you open Firefox, it will open ALL the previous windows and tabs, including YouTube if you have it opened when you close Firefox the last time.

For example, if you have 10 tabs opened on Firefox the last time you closed it, then this option will reopen all those 10 tabs the next time you open Firefox.

Second way :

Click Home on the left, you should see the above window.

On this window you can choose your “Homepage” (the page(s) Firefox opens when it starts). Choose Custom URLs from the first dropdown menu, then you can type the address of your Homepage in the box, or click Use Current Pages to use the current opened tabs, or click Use Bookmarks to choose a page from your saved bookmarks.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

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Am running Firefox 32bit as I am running Windows 10 22H2 32bit.
Thanks Dave

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Since you ask about how to load YouTube automatically, I think I can assume you have not done that.

Then I also believe that the problem most likely lies with your browser (or more specifically with your browser profile).

Perhaps you can try creating a new profile and use this profile to test whether YouTube still loads slowly :
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-remove-switch-firefox-profiles

Say you created a new Firefox profile called FF (can be any name you want).

Locate your Firefox shortcut on the Windows desktop, and make a copy of it. Rename the new shortcut to some other name you want.

Right click the new shortcut and click Properties.

The target box should contain
“C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe” or
“C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe”

if you installed Firefox in the default location.

Add the following to the end of the target box, and click OK :
(spacebar)-P(spacebar)FF

(spacebar) = Press spacebar

If you choose a name other than FF when you created the new profile, make sure to change FF above to the name you used.

The changed target box should now contain
“C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe” -P FF
or “C:\Program Files (x86)\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe” -P FF

Close ALL instances of Firefox (if it is still open). Then double click on the new shortcut. This launches a completely new instance of Firefox from scratch. No saved bookmarks, no extensions, all settings at their default value.

You can use this new Firefox instance to test whether YouTube still loads slow. Hopefully this will reveal whether Firefox itself is the problem, or your original Firefox profile is the problem.

Your original instance of Firefox (including your saved bookmarks, extensions and changed settings) is still present in your original Firefox shortcut on the desktop.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the worst.

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James Bond 007 thanks.
I have created a new profile in Firefox, and it seems to have
made Firefox and YouTube load a lot faster than before.
I will monitor this for a few days and see if this permanent.

Many thanks

Dave

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If “it takes more than a minute to start Firefox and then open YouTube”, I suspect the problem lies with the browser, first and foremost – even though YT is getting very resource-greedy with all browsers.

I use FF as my secondary browser and I find that problems of this nature are best solved (or mitigated) by, at the very least, ‘refreshing’ FF:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/refresh-firefox-reset-add-ons-and-settings

However, I tend to go the whole hog and empty the cache, uninstall FF, reboot my device and install a new, up-to-date version. This uninstall/reinstall process will include the ‘refresh’ process, if the user requests it – and I recommend it.

If you have any add-ons or extensions (e.g. an ad-blocker), try to keep the number of add-ons/extensions to a minimum.

More generally, I have found that FF increasingly struggles with video content – and there’s very little the user can do about that.

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Magnus, many thanks for your reply.
If I have any more problems with Firefox I will
try what you have suggested

Thanks
Dave

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