Youtube videos are suddenly "blank" in Firefox??

Welcome to the Forum, FiveSpeedV8!

You should be able to view the video's on YouTube. I just looked at this one not long ago, and I have the same Version of Flash, and same OS as you, using Fx 2.0.0.6:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=zKQgTiqhPbw

See if you can view this one.

...and I didn't do anything. Sooo. Maybe it was youtube? Why would it suddenly start working otherwise? My computer was not even rebooted. I just woke up, read your posting, clicked on the link, and it worked. then I tried all the ones that have not worked inthe past 2 days and they are working too! Sheesh.

Spoke too soon! OK now this is crazy. It is working sometimes. I finally have symptoms that change when i try different things, but those symptoms are changing.

FIRST: If I accessed youtube as "youtube.com" then the videos worked, but if I accessed them as "www.youtube.com" they are blank.

Clicking on this link worked 15 minutes ago but no longer does:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=n_O0KGqicSo

but this has always failed (everything on the page appears except for the actual video and play button)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_O0KGqicSo


I clicked on the link to the youtube video (no www name) you posted, and it (as expected) opened a new tab with the video page, and sure enough the video was there and it played. If I surf youtube in that tab, everything worked. If I selected a video and "open in new tab" or "open in new window" it worked. But if I opened my own new tab (CTRL-T) and paste a URL for a youtube video, it would only work if I omitted the "www". but now suddenly that ain't working any more.

Then I thought maybe I have to open a new tab or window from a "previously working " tab or window. and that held true for about 10 minutes. Now its all failing again.

EITHER URL works in netscape. Has not failed once. Same for IE. so there is definitely something really weird going on with my firefox. the only thing I can think of trying next is nuking my mozilla profile and re-installing and seeing if there was something there. maybe I can at least save my bookmarks someplace.

Both links open a new tab in FF2.0.0.6, and work equally well. I am, normally, using three tabs, and a fourth one opens to the right. And, I know that it works, even without looking, as I am listening to music streamed as WMP, and Flash links will open and have sound at the same time.

Don't nuke your Profile! First create a new Firefox profile, and see if the problem still exists. If so, you can copy data from the old Profile to the new.

Let us know if a newly created Profile works. Use it long enough to give it a good test, since your problem is intermittent.

OK I figured it out. Sorta.

I went thru my prefs.js file and started removing things.

youtube started working after I REMOVED this entry:

user_pref("browser.cache.disk.parent_directory", "C:\\DOCUMENTS AND SETTINGS\\LOU\\APPLICATION DATA\\Mozilla\\Profiles\\default\\xxxxxxxx.slt");

That is indeed the correct parent directory of the Cache...and youtube works when its not set to that. Lightbulb! "clear the cache and see what happens."

Sure enough, I put all the settings back, cleared the cache and it works now. Duh. A "normal user" woulda tried that first, right ? ("clear the cache, run disk de-frag, and reboot" is what all Windows users do first to fix stuff, right ? lol)

Now as to WHY the cache was the problem...I guess I'll never know.

Good for you! We were looking for something incredibly complicated, and missed the most basic troubleshooting tools.