Firefox 132.0 breaks Netflix at the point content should start streaming, with Netflix error code F7361-1253-806E0005, as tested on Windows 10 22H2, Firefox 32-bit on 64-bit Windows.
This is positioned as a DRM issue (no surprise, as DRM is code designed to break playback), said to be fixed in Firefox 132.0.1, but I'm still seeing the same failure pattern.
Well, bugs like this can happen; that's Strike One - but wait, this reveals two deeper issues...
1: No way to undo a toxic update
If your code needs to be "updated" (i.e. fixed) so often that automatic updates are preferred (at least by the vendor), then you need to be humble about such updates, in case they create new problems. That means the ability to undo an update that may be messing things up - but I can't find that facility in Firefox; Strike Two.
2: Update breaks data?
Fortunately, I kept a full offline installer for the previous version of Firefox, to undo whatever the latest update may have broken. I could install that over the newer code base as an "upgrade"; no warnings about version revision or side effects. But when Firefox started after this version fall-back, it warned: "Using an older version of Firefox can corrupt ... an existing Firefox profile. To protect your information, create a new profile for this version of Firefox".
Only choices from that modal dialog box were Exit or Create New Profile. I certainly did not want to botch my profile by starting a new one that might lose all "my stuff", so chose to Exit. Strike Three.
Now, this worrying if this is not specific to 132.0, i.e. if Mozilla thinks it's OK to routinely botch user profiles and "just" spawn new ones, whenever one tries to undo a toxic update. Changing data compatibility is non-trivial, should seldom happen, and be well-tested and documented if it does.
A bland "well, we may botch your data, so let us 'protect' you as the only way to run the program, or go away" doesn't cut it, especially with no further details on what would happen if one "just" starts a new profile. That approach amounts to "Trsut us, we're a software vendor" when the competence layer of the trust stack is already broken by the toxic update.
I re-installed broken 132.0, used Edge instead, watched for a bug-fix version, saw 132.0.1, downloaded and installed that, and lo! Netflix still broken. I presume the Netflix issue will eventually be fixed, or maybe it's something specific to my setup, making "Strike One" a "No Ball". But now we've caught the "man behind the curtain" on Strikes Two and Three, not sure if I'll go back for more of the same.
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