Ubuntu – Video in Firefox loads and then pauses

Ubuntu 18.10, Firefox 66.03

Videos in the browser (youtube, twitter, reddit) load, and then pause. I can see any moment of the video as a still, but I can not play the video.

Does anyone know a fix for this? I have tried installing flash, installing ubuntu restricted extras, gstreamer, and so far the behavior persists.

edit: hardware… also disabling hardware accelleration in firefox does not solve anything. Currious why Virtualbox is reporting as VmWare.

$ lspci -vnn | grep VGA -A 12  
00:02.0 VGA compatible controller [0300]: VMware SVGA II Adapter [15ad:0405] (prog-if 00 [VGA controller])
    Subsystem: VMware SVGA II Adapter [15ad:0405]
    Flags: bus master, fast devsel, latency 64, IRQ 18
    I/O ports at d010 [size=16]
    Memory at f0000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128M]
    Memory at f8000000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=2M]
    [virtual] Expansion ROM at 000c0000 [disabled] [size=128K]
    Kernel driver in use: vmwgfx
    Kernel modules: vmwgfx

00:03.0 Ethernet controller [0200]: Intel Corporation 82540EM Gigabit Ethernet Controller [8086:100e] (rev 02)
    Subsystem: Intel Corporation PRO/1000 MT Desktop Adapter [8086:001e]
    Flags: bus master, 66MHz, medium devsel, latency 64, IRQ 19
    Memory at f8200000 (32-bit, non-prefetchable) [size=128K]