Why will videos not play on my home network?

July 25, 2014 8:31 PM

For some reason my laptop will not play videos on my home network. The sole exception is when I view youtube videos on the youtube site itself. The video players will load, but then wait to buffer the video without ever loading anything. I have no issues on other networks than my home network, and I have no issues with other devices or laptops, other than my personal laptop, even on my home network. And what is so special about the youtube site that makes it immune to the problem? I have tried using other browsers, and the behaviour persists.

I am using Chrome on a Macbook Air running OS 10.9.4 but have tested in Safari as well with identical results.

I am usually pretty good at troubleshooting these sorts of things, but I can't figure out where the problem is coming from based on what I've managed to figure out so far. If it is the router, why is only my computer affected? And if it's my computer, why is it only affected on this network? Any help will be greatly appreciated!

posted by jamincan to Technology (4 answers total)

Wild guess: possibly your computer thinks there is an IPv6 route to the resource where the videos are and is trying to use that route, but you really only have IPv4 connectivity?
posted by Nerd of the North at 8:53 PM on July 25, 2014

Is the behavior the same both over the wireless network and directly connected to the router via an Ethernet cable?
posted by XMLicious at 12:27 AM on July 26, 2014

Have you tried making a new user account? Unlikely, but a good troubleshooting step.
posted by kathrynm at 4:00 AM on July 26, 2014

Response by poster: Thanks for the suggestions guys. Coincidentally, after dealing with this for months, I just now stumbled on the solution when I realized that there is a 2.4 Ghz and 5 Ghz version of the network. When I tried connected to the 2.4 Ghz version, video started working again. I have no idea why it would make a difference, but it appears it does.
posted by jamincan at 9:40 PM on July 26, 2014