Help me troubleshoot YouTube and Twitch errors?

July 10, 2018 8:05 PM

I like to listen to/watch YouTube and Twitch while working. I was out of the country for six weeks, so maybe something happened in an update, but ever since I've been back (a couple days) YouTube and Twitch videos have been having problems. Occasionally they'll just play, but mostly they throw up an error screen and won't play the video, and refreshing doesn't help. Waiting like 15 minutes and then refreshing often allows me to play the video, though. Is anyone else having problems? Or do you know how to fix mine?

I am using Chrome with AdBlock Plus, AdGuard AdBlocker, and TamperMonkey Anti-Adblock Killer (I really don't like ads). I turned all of the adblockers off to see if they were causing it and nothing changed other than I could see YouTube was trying to throw up an ad instead of the video but it still then reverted to an error. Firefox plays videos during these blackout moments, but with no sound, so that's not helpful either. I turned my modem/router off and on again, and nothing changed. Restarting my computer also didn't help. My computer is a three year old HP Envy laptop running Windows 8.1 Pro.

There's a Learn More link at least on the YouTube errors, but clicking on it doesn't do anything.

Help!

posted by vegartanipla to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

Some brief googling didn't turn up anything definitive, but here are some steps you can try, in roughly descending order of convenience:

* Try disabling hardware acceleration in either browser.
* Update your browsers to the latest version, if you haven't already.
* Try temporarily disabling your firewall or antivirus.
* Try reinstalling either browser.
* Try installing an older version of either browser.
* Try connecting to a different network.
* Try reinstalling video or audio drivers. This link has instructions on using an HP tool for managing drivers, but it seems to be down right now.
posted by J.K. Seazer at 9:17 PM on July 10, 2018

Does downloading the videos with youtube-dl work for you?
posted by Bangaioh at 12:42 AM on July 11, 2018 [1 favorite]

What kind of modem/router do you have? Does it give you any indication of its upstream connection quality? You might be looking at an external cabling fault.
posted by flabdablet at 12:50 AM on July 11, 2018