How I got NASCAR RaceBuddy working in Firefox.

Update July 14, 2012: Thought I should mention that the issues I had below were under Windows XP Home/SP3. Currently, I have a completely new system running Windows 7 Pro/SP1 64-bit (hardware specs) with Firefox 13.0.1 and Adobe Flash 11.3.300.265 with Protected Mode enabled. I’ve never had a problem with RaceBuddy not working other than the Flash plug-in crashing once or twice; however, during some races, like today’s Nationwide race, no issues. This and the previous two versions of Flash have caused some grief amongst some users just watching normal videos in Firefox, Chrome, and even IE but nothing specific to just RaceBuddy.


During the NASCAR Truck race on Friday, NASCAR.COM made TruckBuddy available.  It was very similar to RaceBuddy they had last year during the TNT races. You get a choice of several live video feeds along with a mosaic feed of 4 video streams at once and a live chat feature.

Problem:

When I first tried it with Firefox (version 3.6 or 3.6.2), the video portion did not work and the live chat portion on the right side would not work properly either. It would let me attempt to login via Twitter and provided the typical Twitter Allow/Deny Connection authorization window; however, upon returning to the application it did nothing and acted like I had never logged in.

Solution:

I solved the video problem by disabling Adblock Plus on the NASCAR.COM site. Apparently, if the video advertisement does not play first, then nothing else will or at least problematically.

I solved the chat problem by enabling 3rd-party cookies which I have disabled by default (Tools -> Options -> Privacy). Upon further examination, I could disable 3rd-party cookies again if I gave exceptions to the following:

  • gigya.com
  • livechat.gigya.com
  • socialize.gigya.com

After the race was over, I re-enabled Adblock Plus for NASCAR.COM :). Hopefully this helps anyone else trying to get RaceBuddy working with Firefox should they have it again.

2 thoughts on “How I got NASCAR RaceBuddy working in Firefox.

  1. Mark Headrick Post author

    Since this post seems to get a lot of visits when RaceBuddy has problems, such as today, I thought I would update with my latest experience. Today, while using Firefox 8.0 with Adobe Flash 11.1.102.55 I was only getting a solid black screen where the video should be. Right-clicking on it showed “movie not loaded”. Many folks in the chat were also having problems. I tried Internet Explorer 8.0 and it worked fine. Back in FF8.0, I disabled Adblock Plus and allowed 3rd-party cookies and even disabled hardware acceleration in the Flash Player settings. No change. Then one time I happened to do a SHIFT-Click on the refresh button (which I had done before) and everything worked. I then put all my settings back the way they were and everything still worked. Apparently they changed something on their end. Maybe NASCAR heard my complaints in the chat window or what I tweeted to @TheDalyPlanet. Who knows, LOL.

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  2. Mark Headrick Post author

    In case someone looks at this, I can’t get RaceBuddy to work because I am unable to login or register at the NASCAR website. I click on the links and nothing happens. Something is really broken.

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