The Art-Music, Literature and Linguistics Forum

Before contacting my Internet provider I just wondered whether any technically-minded members had a view on a recent serious problem which has affected my use of the net ???

My internet browser is Mozilla Firefox and I have the latest version installed. This is allowing full and easy access to any sites on the web without any problems whatsoever.

If, however, I now attempt to download any music or to watch streaming video these freeeze almost immediately and commence buffering. If I pause the download or stream and then wait for a few minutes the download/stream resumes, only to freeze again shortly afterwards. In order to download a piece of music from Mediafire I have now to go through this tedious process four or five times before the download is complete. The downloaded file plays perfectly!

I have cleaned out my cache, have got rid of all temporary internet files, run a full system scan...with no problems reported!  Broadband speed-checker usually reports a download speed of around 20MG. I have rebooted both my pc and my internet router: no change!

This has only begun to happen over the past week. I am tempted to download and try a different browser (say Google Chrome).....except that-in every other respect-Firefox is operating perfectly normally!

Any suggestions ??? ???

Colin, try Google Chrome. I have both Firefox and GC on my PC and alternate between the two - I find that Firefox can be very slow at times and now generally use GC which is less cluttered and gives a faster response (at least in my experience).

 :)

I can certainly try that, John. You are not the first person to suggest switching to Google Chrome.

If that does not solve the problem.......... ::)

I don't think Chrome does a better job.
I use the latest version of Firefox as well, and have no downloading problems. That is: other than the now and then hickups of Mediafire. Downloading from YT is a different matter. There I have sometimes problems that files will not complete a download. Mostly to do with conversions.
Si I feel that you should contact your provider. It must be a problem with the available bandwidth of your provider.

Oddly enough, downloading from You Tube is the ONE thing which is still working perfectly ::)

I use the "Free You Tube Downloader" programme and it is still doing the job without any "sticking issues".

I had that slow-down effect last November, at a time when my old Service Provider had introduced a new connection in their network, and they had made a mistake with the MTU at some point. It never did come right again - at least not before I very quickly switched to a different Service Provider. They were very slow to respond to complaints - or perhaps lacked the technical knowledge to do so - and I believe they lost a lot of customers during that episode.

If trying out different Browsers does not solve the problem then I shall contact my service provider and threaten to change to a different network.

If YT downloading is o.k. and there are still freezing problems, you should think of a memoty problem in your computer.
Enough memory? Failing memory? Not all the test you do on your system give the right answer.
I don't know what version of Windows you use, but with Windows 7 these problems occurred now and then.

BTW I use the same YT downloader. Most of the times it is ok!

Mysterious things these machines called compouter

Never heard of them.  ;)

Colin, you might just try uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox.   Simple, doesn't take a lot of time and often is all it takes...... 8) 8)

OldFezzi

Thank you for your kind suggestions :)

I did check my PC's Memory.......no problems there.

It would appear that my initial options include-

(a) Uninstalling and then reinstalling Firefox

(b) Switching to an alternative Internet Browser. I do have Internet Explorer on my machine and it certainly works as far as, for example, streaming video is concerned but that is not the real problem...which is Downloading.

I do not want to do anything however until a good friend of mine who knows a lot about computers and is Vice-President of a Software Company returns from the company's HQ in Florida at the weekend. Browsers work perfectly but need plug-ins/extensios to download and I would not want to mess about with my browser without being sure that I had these necessary additions.

I have just realised that I did not update this post to say that-miraculously-my problems disappeared at the beginning of the weekend :) :)

My suspicion must be that there was a problem at my internet provider's end since I had done nothing further to my machine apart from giving it a good clean-out(although maybe that was it ???)

Anyway....touch wood ;D ;D ;D