Youtube stalling

October 17, 2007 10:03 AM

You tube downloads stall in the middle.

When I attempt to play a yourtube video, sometimes it plays fine. Other times it will start downloading and then just stop, with the video partially downloaded.

I tried increasing the local storage in the settings, that didn't help.

posted by TigerCrane to technology (10 comments total)

I don't know the answer, but this happens to me too.

However, it only seems to happen on laptops.
posted by Pants! at 11:32 AM on October 17, 2007

I have a similar problem - I noticed that if I'm viewing a stalled video in one browser window, and I open another browser window (which defaults to my iGoogle page) the youtube video will start loading again, but not all the way, it pretty much only loads until the iGoogle window is finished. This is on a macbook running safari using wireless.

Although I am indeed curious about solving my problem, I'm wondering if the same thing happens with you, TigerCrane, and if that means anything.
posted by kpmcguire at 12:43 PM on October 17, 2007

Happens to me sometimes as well, but again, only on my laptop....no idea why, and it's a new thing.
posted by conifer at 1:12 PM on October 17, 2007

Happens to my laptop too. If I wiggle the mouse pointer over the progress bar, it seems to get it moving again (or at least gets the bar moving, no clue if it's actually loading data).
posted by schoolgirl report at 1:27 PM on October 17, 2007

What ISPs do you guys have?
posted by damn dirty ape at 1:41 PM on October 17, 2007

I have AT&T dsl, using a 2wire router they offer.

schoolgirl report, based on what your comment, it makes me think that it might be a problem with flash as opposed to the ISP/router. Perhaps it is loading fine, but it doesn't quite "realize" it. That wouldn't explain why it seems to be happening mostly on laptops, though.
posted by kpmcguire at 1:59 PM on October 17, 2007

Heppens to me in Buenos Aires but didn't happen three months ago in Thailand (while circumventing the ban that country had in place).
posted by conifer at 2:04 PM on October 17, 2007

Is this happening to anybody who isn't connected via WiFi? It could be a crappy wifi driver is falling asleep (aka, saving power) while you're downloading.

But if the problem is limited to YouTube, it seems more likely that it is on their end. But then, everyone knows google is infallible, so... it must be something wrong with all of your computers.
posted by finite at 1:26 AM on October 18, 2007

I solved this problem by getting a faster computer.
posted by streetdreams at 10:02 AM on October 19, 2007

My pseudoscientific mind seems to think it's mostly the fault of flash. Also, it could be that I think flash is the devil.
posted by kpmcguire at 3:11 PM on October 23, 2007