Gimme my Hulu!

October 28, 2010 11:19 AM

Hulu question: 9 times out of 10, when I'm watching a show, Hulu cuts out to its final/show over screen about 2 minutes before the show actually finishes. Help me fix it? I like cliff hangers!

It doesn't go to the screen where you can reenlarge it froma small view, it goes to an advertisement. Anyone else have this problem? If it matters - I'm on a Macbook, using Firefox

posted by quodlibet to Technology (12 answers total)

I have this problem too, and I'm also on a Macbook. It happens whether I'm using Safari or Firefox. If you check out the Hulu help forums, you'll see that lots of other people are having this problem. Sadly, I haven't yet seen anyone post a solution in response, but perhaps someone here will have some ideas?
posted by pluckemin at 11:29 AM on October 28, 2010

I don't think I've ever had this problem, and I watch a lot of stuff on hulu. Are you sure the last part is actually available? Some of the shows, I don't know if it's licensing rights or what, do (intentionally) have the on-the-next-episode-of-whatever bits cut off. Does it only happen on certain shows?

Or maybe I'm misreading your question and you mean to say that it's showing you a commercial before it cuts to the cliffhanger? In which case...yeah?
posted by phunniemee at 11:30 AM on October 28, 2010

I have had some Hulu weirdness in Firefox caused by various ad blocking scripts and memory leaks caused by Flash. So in general I now watch Hulu videos in a Fluid.app wrapper. Might be worth a try.
posted by bcwinters at 11:31 AM on October 28, 2010

I also have this problem on my MacBook. I recently switched to Chrome and it no longer happens with every single show I watch, but it still happens a lot. I also get picture freezes/sound continues and early commercial breaks, and Chrome seems to be a little better for that than Firefox or Safari.
posted by hydropsyche at 11:32 AM on October 28, 2010

Interesting...for what it's worth, I run Firefox on a PC and I've never had any problems with hulu.
posted by phunniemee at 11:35 AM on October 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: It cuts out before the last two minutes of the actual show - not just, "Next week on Lost..." so there's actual showtime being lost (usually kind of important stuff!). It doesn't just show me a commercial - it forces me to completely reload the show from the beginning and skip forward to the end (and thus watch two more commercials).
posted by quodlibet at 11:48 AM on October 28, 2010

Maybe you're wedded to a browser, but have you tried Hulu Desktop? I haven't had this problem with it (Mac Mini HTPC running Snow Leopard).
posted by mr_roboto at 12:09 PM on October 28, 2010 [1 favorite]

I have this problem, but even worse: I watch the long ad in the beginning with the promise of no ads during the show. Then it skips past the show to another ad with no ability to rewind. I have to watch the long ad again to give it another shot. Sorry this answer does not help you.
posted by reeddavid at 12:36 PM on October 28, 2010

Just nthing - I too have had this problem a couple times recently on a Mac in Firefox.
posted by maryr at 1:30 PM on October 28, 2010

I have had this problem repeatedly, but only over the past 2-3 weeks. This is on a WinXP machine running Firefox. I have had no luck tracking down what it is that causes it, and it's also totally inconsistent, with the exception that I think it happens more on hour long rather than half-hour sitcom type programs.
posted by pixiecrinkle at 8:38 PM on October 29, 2010

Occasionally, same problem here. Firefox/Win XP. FWIW.
posted by IAmBroom at 6:32 PM on October 30, 2010

I see the OP hasn't come back but I just wanted to say thanks to mr_roboto because Hulu Desktop totally solved my problem with Hulu on my MacBook, which seemed to be the same problem reported here. Now I can enjoy uninterrupted vegetation.
posted by hydropsyche at 11:56 AM on October 31, 2010