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I haven't got the faintest idea what happened, but since about 3-4 days now I can't play any clips on YouTube properly at all.

Proper as in continuously without loading, pause, playback, pause, loading, playback, pause, loading, playback, etc.

I haven't changed anything hardware nor software-wise. On the other hand I can play Break.com, Viddler, Liveleak, Metacafe without any trouble. I tried my own tips, but that hasn't helped me at all.

What on earth happened? Is it me, or is it YouTube? I'm using Firefox 3.6 Beta 5. But the issue is the same on Chrome as well as on Internet Explorer.

4 Answers 4

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I'm using Chrome beta and I have had similar problem with YouTube videos. I've tried to update my Flash player online without any positive results. What I had to do was to download the latest Flash (offline) installer and install it on my machine. It does sound simplistic, but it works for me.

http://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/?promoid=DXLUJ

http://labs.adobe.com/downloads/flashplayer10.html

http://www.filehippo.com/download_flashplayer_firefox/ (non Internet Explorer)

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Well, if absolutely nothing has changed then you should be able to play them.

Meaning, something has changed. I didn't understand from your question, can you play them but they keep loading slowly (slower than the playback rate) - in which case the problem is most probably your connection, or a load on YouTube.

If you can't play them at all, then, at first sight, I'd suggest installing the newest version of Flash Player.

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  • Can't be my connection, I've got 16 mbits/s, haven't got any issues on other streaming sites (HD or not), and it can't honestly be that YouTube is on heavy load since a couple days now. Dec 29, 2009 at 22:58
  • 'twas just a suggestion. I checked a few sites you mention, and the only one that is lagging for me is metacafe (i'm on a 4 mbits/s conn.). I would guess that being holidays all sites are a little overloaded these days, youtube expecially being the biggest/most popular.
    – Rook
    Dec 29, 2009 at 23:15
  • Usually they all play normally (regardless whther i'm watching HD version or standard).
    – Rook
    Dec 29, 2009 at 23:16
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If other Flash video sites are working fine, maybe you have turned on HTML5 video on YouTube?

Unlike Flash video (on Windows), HTML5 video is not hardware accelerated, unless you are using the IE9 Beta.

I suppose you would have noticed the visual changes, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

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  • 1
    I don't think the HTML 5 trial was available yet when this question was posted.
    – oKtosiTe
    Jan 2, 2011 at 18:38
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    @oKtosiTe: Okay, but the answer may still be useful for the archive.
    – paradroid
    Jan 2, 2011 at 20:04
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Many people (including myself) have noticed that YouTube has issues such as this (not buffering, taking incredibly long to load even low-res video) when you are using third-party DNS services like OpenDNS or Google DNS. One of the most common theories behind this is that many free DNS services to not correctly direct you to the nearest YouTube server, instead pointing you to a less reliable or heavily over-worked group of servers. If you are not using the DNS service provided by your ISP, try switching it back to see if it makes a difference. It sounds odd, but I actually went waiting 10 minutes for a four-minute 240p clip to buffer to being able to play 720p clips with almost no wait.

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