diff --git a/src/components/player/base/Container.tsx b/src/components/player/base/Container.tsx
index a4310ad8..9fc10bff 100644
--- a/src/components/player/base/Container.tsx
+++ b/src/components/player/base/Container.tsx
@@ -11,7 +11,6 @@ import { VideoClickTarget } from "@/components/player/internals/VideoClickTarget
 import { VideoContainer } from "@/components/player/internals/VideoContainer";
 import { PlayerHoverState } from "@/stores/player/slices/interface";
 import { usePlayerStore } from "@/stores/player/store";
-import { usePreferencesStore } from "@/stores/preferences";
 
 export interface PlayerProps {
   children?: ReactNode;
@@ -79,7 +78,6 @@ function BaseContainer(props: { children?: ReactNode }) {
 
 export function Container(props: PlayerProps) {
   const propRef = useRef(props.onLoad);
-  const enableThumbnails = usePreferencesStore((s) => s.enableThumbnails);
   useEffect(() => {
     propRef.current?.();
   }, []);
@@ -88,7 +86,7 @@ export function Container(props: PlayerProps) {
     <div className="relative">
       <BaseContainer>
         <MetaReporter />
-        {enableThumbnails ? <ThumbnailScraper /> : null}
+        <ThumbnailScraper />
         <CastingInternal />
         <VideoContainer />
         <ProgressSaver />
diff --git a/src/components/player/hooks/useSourceSelection.ts b/src/components/player/hooks/useSourceSelection.ts
index 3016e332..3813fa9f 100644
--- a/src/components/player/hooks/useSourceSelection.ts
+++ b/src/components/player/hooks/useSourceSelection.ts
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ import {
 } from "@movie-web/providers";
 import { useAsyncFn } from "react-use";
 
+import { isExtensionActiveCached } from "@/backend/extension/messaging";
 import { prepareStream } from "@/backend/extension/streams";
 import {
   connectServerSideEvents,
@@ -72,7 +73,7 @@ export function useEmbedScraping(
     report([
       scrapeSourceOutputToProviderMetric(meta, sourceId, null, "success", null),
     ]);
-    await prepareStream(result.stream[0]);
+    if (isExtensionActiveCached()) await prepareStream(result.stream[0]);
     setSourceId(sourceId);
     setCaption(null);
     setSource(
@@ -133,7 +134,7 @@ export function useSourceScraping(sourceId: string | null, routerId: string) {
     ]);
 
     if (result.stream) {
-      await prepareStream(result.stream[0]);
+      if (isExtensionActiveCached()) await prepareStream(result.stream[0]);
       setCaption(null);
       setSource(
         convertRunoutputToSource({ stream: result.stream[0] }),
@@ -190,7 +191,7 @@ export function useSourceScraping(sourceId: string | null, routerId: string) {
       ]);
       setSourceId(sourceId);
       setCaption(null);
-      await prepareStream(embedResult.stream[0]);
+      if (isExtensionActiveCached()) await prepareStream(embedResult.stream[0]);
       setSource(
         convertRunoutputToSource({ stream: embedResult.stream[0] }),
         convertProviderCaption(embedResult.stream[0].captions),
diff --git a/src/components/player/internals/ThumbnailScraper.tsx b/src/components/player/internals/ThumbnailScraper.tsx
index b0fc8474..cede84c8 100644
--- a/src/components/player/internals/ThumbnailScraper.tsx
+++ b/src/components/player/internals/ThumbnailScraper.tsx
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@ import { playerStatus } from "@/stores/player/slices/source";
 import { ThumbnailImage } from "@/stores/player/slices/thumbnails";
 import { usePlayerStore } from "@/stores/player/store";
 import { LoadableSource, selectQuality } from "@/stores/player/utils/qualities";
+import { usePreferencesStore } from "@/stores/preferences";
 import { processCdnLink } from "@/utils/cdn";
 import { isSafari } from "@/utils/detectFeatures";
 
@@ -128,6 +129,7 @@ export function ThumbnailScraper() {
   const resetImages = usePlayerStore((s) => s.thumbnails.resetImages);
   const meta = usePlayerStore((s) => s.meta);
   const source = usePlayerStore((s) => s.source);
+  const enableThumbnails = usePreferencesStore((s) => s.enableThumbnails);
   const workerRef = useRef<ThumnbnailWorker | null>(null);
 
   // object references dont always trigger changes, so we serialize it to detect *any* change
@@ -159,8 +161,8 @@ export function ThumbnailScraper() {
 
   // start worker with the stream
   useEffect(() => {
-    startRef.current();
-  }, [sourceSeralized]);
+    if (enableThumbnails) startRef.current();
+  }, [sourceSeralized, enableThumbnails]);
 
   // destroy worker on unmount
   useEffect(() => {
@@ -183,8 +185,8 @@ export function ThumbnailScraper() {
       workerRef.current.destroy();
       workerRef.current = null;
     }
-    startRef.current();
-  }, [serializedMeta, sourceSeralized, status]);
+    if (enableThumbnails) startRef.current();
+  }, [serializedMeta, sourceSeralized, status, enableThumbnails]);
 
   return null;
 }
diff --git a/src/hooks/useProviderScrape.tsx b/src/hooks/useProviderScrape.tsx
index fd27c06d..84aeec4e 100644
--- a/src/hooks/useProviderScrape.tsx
+++ b/src/hooks/useProviderScrape.tsx
@@ -171,7 +171,8 @@ export function useScrape() {
         conn.on("update", updateEvent);
         conn.on("discoverEmbeds", discoverEmbedsEvent);
         const sseOutput = await conn.promise();
-        if (sseOutput) await prepareStream(sseOutput.stream);
+        if (sseOutput && isExtensionActiveCached())
+          await prepareStream(sseOutput.stream);
 
         return getResult(sseOutput === "" ? null : sseOutput);
       }