What Can You Do If YouTube Doesn't Work

According to statistics more than 2 billion users watch videos on this site every day. It is the first site that occurs to most users who want to watch a new music video of their favorite singer or a movie trailer. But sometimes there are video playback issues. What can you do if YouTube doesn't work?

Usually there are two main problems. The first one is that the site won't load. The second one is that videos won't play. Let's look a little closer at these two.

If YouTube does not load, you should do the following:

1. Check whether the website URL is correct.
2. In the Windows Start menu select Run. In the Run dialog box type “cmd” and click OK. In the console type “ping youtube.com” and press Enter. If you have 100 % packet loss the problem is more likely with the site. Wait for a while till the site is online again.
3. Try to access the site using a proxy server (anonymous proxy). If you succeed, it is probably your provider that has the problem. In this case contact the help desk.

If YouTube videos won't play, there are several reasons. One of the most common is a slow Internet connection.

In order to make sure that the problem is in the slow internet connection you can check the connection speed with the help of an online speed test service, for example speedtest.net. If the speed doesn't correspond to your tariff plan, contact the help desk of your provider.

Sometimes if you choose a lower video quality and pause the video, it can help to solve the problem.

If the Flash Player is outdated or not installed, the problems can also occur. So, install or update the Flash Player and check if YouTube works.

YouTube has an HTML5 mode that can cause video playback issues in some browsers. In order to turn off this mode follow the link below: http://www.youtube.com/html5.

Even if the mode is turned off, update your browser to the latest version because an outdated version of the browser can cause different problems connected not only with video playback. You can also clear cash and cookies and check if JavaScript is on.

If all of the above doesn't help make sure that the video is not blocked by Windows Firewall. In the Start Menu select Control Panel and then Windows Firewall. www.youtube.com should be in the list of trusted sites and other web apps (Windows Media Player, Quicktime, etc.) should not be installed by default for playing stream video.

Sometimes ad blockers can hinder video playback. In this case such apps should be turned off or www.youtube.com should be added to the Exception Site List.