Why do some YouTube videos stop playing after a short time?
Since sometime in October, 2013, I have noticed that more and more YouTube videos stop playing within a minute of starting. Most that stop do so in 15 or 16 seconds. The playing stops because the download stops. I watch this on a network activity monitor I always have running. Not all videos do this, but the problem is becoming more and more frequent. Some videos which played correctly for me in the recent past are now exhibiting this problem.
Other than installing the latest Firefox updates I have NOT changed the software on my machine. I run Linux by the way. I do not think this is a Linux problem because (1) it was all working before and (2) my son who runs both Mac OS X *and* Windows is also seeing the same problem. We both use Firefox as our browser on all our platforms.
I should also note that I am NOT seeing this problem with any of the other video websites I use, only when I go to YouTube. That leads me to believe that the problem is not in Firefox; if it were it should affect videos from all websites.
Additionally the problem occurs whether or not I log into YouTube.
I have not run Firefox in safe mode because all the extensions I use did not affect the download of Videos before, so I don't expect unchanged extensions to suddenly start causing problems.
So, anyone else see this problem? (There was another note which talked about the same problem but it was disabled.)
Also -- pardon my paranoia, but -- I need to ask: Since YouTube is owned by Google and Google has its own browser it wants you to use, Chrome, is it possible that Google is intentionally causing some YouTube videos to fail if it sees that they are being sent to Firefox?
(That is not so outlandish I think. Microsoft WAS at one point caught mangling web pages going to certain web browsers other than IE. And these days Google wants to dominate the Internet just as badly as Microsoft does, so why not pull dirty tricks too?)
If this keeps happening I am going to have to try Google's Chrome to see if it somehow manages to play YouTube videos correctly while Firefox does not. But I really do NOT want to install Chrome because I trust Google about as much as I trust Microsoft, which is to say Not At All.
Thanks in advance.
Všetky odpovede (3)
Hello,
There have been some issues with Flash 11 in the recent past. This could be a manifestation of that issue. Kindly check this response below to see if this helps you in viewing Flash videos.
Also, if you want to check if this is a flash problem and specifically on youtube, you can try the HTML5 version of Youtube. In this, there are no plugins involved, and the browser natively renders the videos. You can signup for the HTML5 trial by visiting http://youtube.com/html5. Please try that and check if the issue goes away.
Also, in this case, Google might not be doing anything sinister - they generally try to be standards compliant too. You can definitely try installing Google Chrome and test this issue, but we definitely would want you to continue to be a Firefox user :)
Some problems with Flash video playback can be resolved by disabling hardware acceleration in your Flash Player settings. (See this article for more information on using the Flash plugin in Firefox).
To disable hardware acceleration in Flash Player:
- Go to this Adobe Flash Player Help page.
- Right-click on the Flash Player logo on that page.
- Click on Settings in the context menu. The Adobe Flash Player Settings screen will open.
- Click on the icon at the bottom-left of the Adobe Flash Player Settings window to open the Display panel.
The image "fpSettings1.PNG" does not exist.
- Remove the check mark from Enable hardware acceleration.
- Click Close to close the Adobe Flash Player Settings Window.
- Restart Firefox.
This Flash Player Help - Display Settings page has more information on Flash Player hardware acceleration, if you're interested.
Also, try this one too
Recent crashes of certain multimedia contents (this includes Youtube videos, certain flash games and other applications) in conjunction with Firefox are most probably caused by a recent Flash update and/or a malfunctioning browser plugin such as Real Player.
In order to remedy the problem, please perform the steps mentioned in these Knowledge Base articles:
Other, more technical information about these issues can be found under these Links:
Please tell us if this helped!
>> There have been some issues with Flash 11 in the recent past. This could be a manifestation of that issue.
I rather doubt it. I installed the version of Flash that I have on May 18, 2013, on my Linux machine. Things were working just fine until sometime in October, 2013, this year. I also rather doubt that Flash is the problem since my son reports this same behavior on his Windows and Mac OS X machines.
The next item increases my doubt of it being a Flash problem even more....
>> Also, if you want to check if this is a flash problem and specifically on YouTube, you can try the HTML5 version of YouTube. In this, there are no plugins involved, and the browser natively renders the videos. You can signup for the HTML5 trial by visiting http://youtube.com/html5. Please try that and check if the issue goes away.
As per the suggestion above I tried the HTML 5 version of YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRY4-feFZZY ("Car-L" meets the lions) stalled at 16 seconds like so many other videos. However there IS a different player running since when using the Flash player the video just stopped whereas using http://youtube.com/html5 the video stopped AND there is a circle of dots going round and round in the center of the stopped video. A reload of the page yielded the same result but with a stop at 14 seconds. So, I took Flash out of the mix and the error still occurs.
>> To disable hardware acceleration in Flash Player: Go to this Adobe Flash Player Help page. Right-click on the Flash Player logo on that page. Click on Settings in the context menu.
No can do. The "Settings" item is grayed out. Clicking on the "Global Settings" menu item has no effect. My very low-power machine probably doesn't even have a hardware video accelerator. That, however, has never affected the playing of any YouTube video in the past.
>> Please tell us if this helped!
None of the above has helped. I am not going to mess with my software. Videos do not stop with any other video website I use. It is ONLY stopping with YouTube (which is owned by Google). The only change to my software which I have made within the time frame of this issue is to upgrade Firefox. I generally upgrade Firefox (and Thunderbird) as soon as I am notified that a new version exists and am now on the latest version, 25.0.1.
EITHER there is a weird problem where Flash under Firefox is somehow not asking for more video data from YouTube (and only YouTube) ...
OR my ISP (or my home router) is interfering with more-video-data requests only to YouTube (How likely is that?) ...
OR Flash is asking for the data and the YouTube servers are forgeting to send it (or pretending to forget to send it).
That lack-of-data behavior is VERY CLEAR from watching the network monitor on my system: I click on a video, there is a flurry of activity (mostly download), the video starts and plays for a few seconds, network download activity goes to near zero, the video plays for a few more seconds until it runs out of bits. Then nothing. Or Nothing AND a circle of dots going round and round.
===============
>> You can definitely try installing Google Chrome and test this issue, but we definitely would want you to continue to be a Firefox user :)
First of all, I don't want to. I want *one* SAFE browser with which to surf the web. Being open-source and user-built Firefox fits that bill. Chrome on the other hand, being owned by a profit-motivated company, Google, does not fit that bill.
Nevertheless I will install Chrome to see if it magically makes GoogleTube - I mean YouTube - videos play again. Why? Just to do the experiment for you guys. It will take a while since I'll have to do a full system backup before I put one bit of Google software on my machine, and I am not in a position to do that backup until tomorrow. Once I have the full backup I will be in a position to remove every bit of Chrome. IF I want to.
I'll let you know what happens with Chrome vs. Firefox WRT YouTube. If Chrome plays YouTube videos but Firefox won't ....
===============
>> Also, in this case, Google might not be doing anything sinister - they generally try to be standards compliant too. You have to remember that Google has already been caught doing dirty tricks such as having their Street View vehicles break into local wireless networks as they drove by. Google is NOT above dirty tricks, and they WANT people to use Chrome so they can make more money by monitoring our web surfing far more closely.
WHY does this problem ONLY occur with YouTube?! WHY does it only occur with some videos? WHY is the percentage of soaped videos slowly increasing with time?
If you ask me - or even if you don't - these problems are occurring because Google is intentionally trying to drive people to Chrome.
Sorry for the paranoia, but Google HAS ALREADY PROVEN it is willing to bend the rules.
Thanks in advance.
Upravil(a) Jeff Barry dňa
HI All. I tried all sorts of fixes to get YouTube videos to play without stopping part way through. None worked until I saw a post that said Firefox "You Tube Center" add-on could do the job. In the settings for "Player" turn off (un-tick) "DASH Playback". Now the video progress bar races to the end and the whole thing works loike a charm. There are all sorts of other good things wit this add-on as well.