Since version 2.0, Firefox has a session restore feature which enables you to continue browsing from where you left even if you restart the browser. Firefox achieves this by periodically saving the status of all open tabs to the hard disk. In the event of a crash or computer shutdown or any unnatural termination of Firefox, the browser is able to restore the browsing session from the last saved tabs status.
The problem
By default, the time interval between each session save is set at 10 seconds. If the number of opened tabs is high and the web pages loaded on these tabs are heavy (images, Flash etc), this periodic saving of session can cause Firefox to momentarily stop responding during each save, every 10 seconds. You might not notice this during casual surfing but if you are watching an online video such as those on YouTube, you might notice this irritating, repeating glitch.
Most users attribute choppy videos to poor Internet connection, but in some cases the problem might lie in the browser’s small session-saving interval.
The solution
Increase the interval, of course. To do this.
- Type about:config into your address bar.
- Read the notice and click the mandatory "I’ll be careful, I promise!"
- In the “Filter” box type browser.sessionstore.interval to locate this parameter. You can also get to it by scrolling down.
- Double-click on the item and change the value to 60000 (60 seconds). You can enter a larger or smaller value if you wish, but remember that a large value means less frequent saves and higher the chance of losing opened tabs in case of browser crash.
[via Reddit]
didn't fix it
yep didn't fix it
Perhaps the session save time isn't your problem. It could be due to your Internet connection, or due to the general yuckiness of Flash.
worked great thanks!
Wow, I've had this problem for ages and tried what you suggested and it really worked. Thanks a bunch.
beautiful … perfect tip – worked great .. thanks …
A million cakes and cookies to you! It worked!
Darn after days of researchng, I thought this might be the answer. But it hasn't made a difference at all. Nothing seems to make a difference. I'm forced to watch videos in IE. Are there any other suggestions?
This may sound crazy, but reinstall IE11 from a download site. When I did this, firefox began working correctly. Don't ask me why.
this made it better but didn't get rid of it completely, I had to turn off hardware acceleration for flash and that together solved the problem for me
nothing here remotely helped. xp sp3, firefox
This had been driving me effing crazy since I did a reformat a few weeks ago. This and turning off hardware acceleration solved about 95 percent of the problem. I can live with it now.
Thank you! I'd done every possible solution and nothing worked. This did it.
I use Windows 7. Videos such as the ones people upload to their website site in both IE and Firefox were jittery, yet Youtube videos were fine. To no avail I tried clearing cache and some other crazy things but the one thing that did work, and it should have been obvious to me after checking to see if my flash is up to date is to check for Microsoft updates. I have it set to auto update but what I found were non-critical updates that had not been auto-updated. One was for my hp wide screen monitor and five others. Once I updated those & restarted the computer then that solved my problem. I am sure this problem can be multi-faceted but this one fixed my jittery video problem.
To update Windows 7, click on the windows globe icon in the lower left hand corner, also known as the Start button in older versions, hover the curser over "All Programs", then move up to "Windows Update" and click on that, then just follow the prompts.
Didn't work for me so I went back to the default setting an now the videos are playing fine.
Fixed it. Thank you!
Fixed it for me as well. ThankYou!