Watching Netflix in Firefox on Ubuntu 20.04 generates error F7355
I've just set up a laptop with brand new Ubuntu 20.04 and visited Netflix in Firefox.
There was a yellow toaster underneath the address bar stating
You must enable DRM to play some audio or video on this page
So I clicked 'Enable DRM'. Then I saw "Firefox is installing components... please try again later" and after that went away I reloaded Netflix but it still would not play. When I play back video I get Netflix error F7355.
Then it points me to https://help.netflix.com where I can only find information on this error when I have trouble playing back on macOS or Windows. But I don't use those, I use Linux...
I understand that I can probably install Chrome which will Just Work - but I don't use Chrome. It seems like it could work but I'm missing something. What should I do to watch Netflix in Firefox on Linux on Ubuntu 20.04?
You don't have DRM enabled and thus you are missing Widevine plugin to decode the DRM protected Netflix content.
-
First make sure you have the media codecs installed
sudo apt install libavcodec-extra
-
Then enable DRM:
Open Firefox and type
about:preferences#content
in the address bar. Look for Digital Rights Management (DRM) Content field and check the box in front of Play DRM-controlled content.This will start to install the Widevine plugin from Google. Depending on your network speed it will take a few minutes to install this add-on.
-
Make sure that you have the required add-ons:
Open a new tab in Firefox and type
about:addons
in the address bar. Make sure that you have Widevine and OpenH264 add-ons installed with ‘Always Active’ mode. -
Restart Firefox.
You should know be able to play Netflix via the Firefox web browser.