Youtube.com loading as skeleton screen

ImWolf

ImWolf

Windows XP Pro x86 / Firefox 52.9 esr

My online bank updated, so I had to spoof FireFox yet again up to version 78.

general.useragent.override;Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:53.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/78.0
(I only changed the last value up from the previous 74.0)

Not sure if this was the culprit, but it's the only change I can recall making lately.... Now youtube.com loads as a bunch of grey boxes and lines.
ytload.jpg


I tried adding and editing several variations of "general.useragent.override.youtube.com", but none of the values I insert seem to make any difference.

Where should I look next?

Thanks,
Wolf
 
Forgot to mention, I also tried clearing all cache and cookies..... then tried the big "Refresh"..... nada.
 
You're going to have to use separate user agent strings for your bank & Youtube. For Youtube setting it back to the default will do the trick. It sounds like you will need a Firefox extension that lets you easily switch user agents.
 
In Firefox I don't believe there was a default "general.useragent.override" string.... I added this about 2 years ago when my bank first started the constant security updates. Now however, it appears that this string overrides other domain specific useragent strings.

Now, if I enter "general.useragent.override;Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:53.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/58.0", then Youtube loads normally, but I cannot access my online banking. If I change the value to "Firefox/74.0", then I can login to the bank, but Youtube doesn't load.

When I delete this string and enter two other strings instead;
"general.useragent.override.mybank.com;Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:53.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/74.0" and
"general.useragent.override.youtube.com;Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 5.1; rv:53.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/58.0"
Then only youtube loads, while my bank login reports I'm using Firefox V.52 and need to update.

This is quite strange because 2 days ago my banking login insisted I needed Firefox V.78. Now they switched back to 74.0.

Obviously both Youtube and my banking page are using these user string values, but how I set them to both work is still a mystery.
 
Here's a bit more info to chew on Clippy.... About a month ago I came across your post regarding Basilisk Serpent, and I installed the portable version. I then added many UserAgent strings but I don't recall where I obtained that information or recommendation to do so. Serpent will load my online banking and youtube just fine. (come to think of it, the user strings in Serpent might have been installed that way).

Unfortunately, I have many issues with Serpent that are related to the adblockers I added. I had to disable all of them or I would get so many broken links on web pages instead of photos, videos and the like. Without the adblockers however, I also get a ton of ads. This is very frustrating too since I really like the portable browser being all in one directory instead of spread out all over the place. (very easy to backup).

I had also tried copying some of the Useragent strings from Serpent into Firefox, but I saw no change. I'm not even sure why they work in Serpent since many reflect OS's other than my Windows XP.

Anyway.... here are the different strings currently being used by both browsers.

FirefoxUA.jpg


SerpentUA.jpg
 
Last edited:
This thread may have been all for not..... I played around with Serpent some more this morning, a lot.

Ended up removing Ghostery, Ublock Origin, Adblock Plus, and then installed something I never tried b4 called Adblock Latitude. After several hours loading web pages I've not seen a single pop-up or other annoyance, and not a single broken link either!

Every embedded video I clicked played flawlessly. Even long Youtube videos played past the dreaded 23:18 mark without freezing, and with the sound and visual still in sync. This is much nicer than Firefox has ever delivered.

And yes, I can also access my online banking.

When I checked Taskmanager/Process, Basilisk is only using about 570,000K of memory, which is about half of what Firefox would use under same open tabs and video streaming.

I've made Serpent my default browser for now, and will continue "testing" everything for a while. Then, I can probably completely remove Firefox from the system?
 
Hi again!

I realize this thread is a bit outdated, but wanted to let you all know I use Serpent all the time and with the very latest build, I'm on youtube with no problem.

user_pref("general.oscpu.override", "Windows NT 10.0");
user_pref("general.useragent.compatMode.version", "78");
user_pref("general.useragent.override", "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win32; x86; rv:78.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/78.0");

this I find seems to work most of the time, but you should be able to use (spoof) either FF 78 or 91 with the latter sometimes failing to load everything, though 91 is a bit faster (for me anyway).

serpent.jpg


You can always get yourself the latest from Roy's blog.

http://rtfreesoft.blogspot.com/
 
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