Surface or YouTube Problem?

[ksdixon]

Got an issue with YT which seems to have cropped-up in the past couple of days. Using both the Flash Player or HTML5 Player, YouTube videos will play fine but then freeze somewhere around between 2-15 second mark. Or the video will freeze and audio keeps playing, firefox hangs (not responding) for a short time before the video snaps-back into working a couple of seconds later. It was making for a very frustrating time watching YT.


I tried making a new FireFox profile several times, adding addons one-by-one, and I couldn't nail down which one is causing the problem problem. It wouldn't present itself at first, so I thought I had a solution only for it to happen randomly later-on. And it seemed like whenever the issue hit your only option is to make a new FF profile.


After blaming the Australis Firefox makeover, AdblockPlus and other firefox addons, Adobe Flash plugin, Hardware Accelleration etc. I finally found out it seems to be a YT problem. When signed-out of my youtube account, videos play fine. When logged-in it has the freeze problem. Just tried it 4 times!
Signed out - fine
Signed in - freeze problem
Signed out - fine
Signed in - freeze problem
Signed out - fine

this would also explain why it seemed to work going through addon-by-addon on a fresh profile, and would mysteriously happen later-on (after I had signed-into my account to access My Subscriptions page).

Video showing the problem: 2014 05 03 041229859 - YouTube


Thus far I can see from testing that IE11 plays youtube videos fine when logged-in or logged-out of my account; but the freezing-when-signed-in issue is affecting FF29 and Google Chrome 34. I would imagine that something like this would be more known, as it seems to affect FF on it's own (i.e. not caused by addons) and Google Chrome alike.

Could it be because I am on a Surface Pro 1? Does anyone else have this problem or even a fix/workaround?



I'm getting to the point where I'm considering a system Refresh, although I'd really like to avoid that if possible, as there's no guarentee it would fix it, and then I would have to re-install updates and software again.

 

[HippsieGypsie]

Hi there. It doesn’t look to me as is freezes seeing that it plays again, but rather it’s buffering after you sign in. I think there’s nothing wrong on your end, but it’s Googles’ YouTube end. Then on the other hand you state that it works in IE. Weird....

 

[caperjack]

if IE works and the other 2 browsers don't ,then that your fix ,all be it, its only a temporary fix ,personally I only have IE on my computer because the other 2 gave me issues on some sites ,the video you are watching works fine for me .iam gonna turn on my Mac with FF and check it out on there to see how it works

 

[PJL]

Sites handle calls from different browsers differently, so the fact that IE works seems to imply that it's how YT is handling your FF calls when signed in -- which are likely different than when not signed in due to the involvement of sign-in cookies.

For grins, when signed in on IE and accessing YT, hit F12 and then change the user agent string to Mozilla Firefox (or Chrome since it has a problem too) and see what happens.

 

[caperjack]

ok, it seems to me its not youtube ,works fine on my mac using FF and Safari, adobe flash player version 13.0.0.206,not signed in
and works fine on my desktop with win8.1.1 with html player, signed in
also works fine on my Acer one running win7 starter , and adobe flash player ,not signed in


maybe something different in how you connect to the internet ,wired or wifi

 

[ksdixon]

I have 'don't tell sites anything about my tracking preferences'. Removed all cookies and then changed to 3rd party cookies never accepted. Video still froze-up only when signed-into my YT account. No proxy is currently being used. I used to use the Hola Unblocker firefox addon to view foreign Netflix content libraries. And connect to the immunicity proxy to view sites that have been blocked in my country, UK. And finally the UAControl firefox addon to force the viewing of neogaf.com as an android mobile device because I much prefer the android layout of the site. But this video freezing problem affects firefox without any addons, before I ever get close to re-installing those proxies.

Pressing F12 in IE11 to spoof the useragent, shows that Mozilla FireFox has the video freeze problem when signed-into YT account; although not Chrome for some reason. However the actual Google Chrome browser does indeed still have the problem.

I am on a wifi connection, as the Surface Pro 1 has no ethernet slot. Speed Test results are ping 31m, download sped 6.19Mbps, upload speed 0.71Mbps. The package I pay for states speeds of 4-8mbit per second.
However I also booted-up an old laptop which was connected via ethernet wire. It's an old 2007 laptop so it struggled with YT videos regardless, but when going from FF28 to FF29 the difference was immense (in FF29 it made FF hang whilst the video 'caught-up' to the audio; whereas in FF28 it was just kind of stutterry all the way around). For comparison YouTube videos used to do a lot of 'unresponsive script' hangs on the SPro on FF28 on YT, as well as a lot of Silverlight crashes on Netflix, and I put it down to the device being touch-based but also full windows and NFLX and YT not really knowing how to interpret it. But I immediately noticed the freezing issue when I upgraded to FF29, and finally worked-out it's when I'm signed-into YT. My concern is that this old laptop clearly isn't a touch-based Surface Pro, so it seems like a Refresh of the SPro will not fix the problem.

The fact that I immediately noticed the difference on FF29 (or at least within the timeframe that FF29 was released, the past four days) on my SPro, tells me that YouTube have changed something in their coding, especially as on my end it also affects Google Chrome. But I can see it works for other people, so why am I affected? Both the SPro and 2007 laptop are running Windows 8.1 Update 1. I would think if YT stopped functioning for most people within the last four days I'd be able to find more people complaining about it at least.

 

[ksdixon]

ok, it seems to me its not youtube ,works fine on my mac using FF and Safari, adobe flash player version 13.0.0.206,not signed in
and works fine on my desktop with win8.1.1 with html player, signed in
also works fine on my Acer one running win7 starter , and adobe flash player ,not signed in


maybe something different in how you connect to the internet ,wired or wifi

Could you test the combination of Windows 8.1.1, FireFox, YT Flash Player, Signed In YT Account for me please and report back what you find?

 

[ksdixon]

Did a refresh of my Surface Pro 1 device, taking it from Windows 8.1 Update 1 back to Windows 8. Installed Firefox 28 (before the Australis makeover). First thing I did was go to YT and played the linked-to video above (2K International Channel Trailer) using the HTML5 player with no problems. Installed Adobe Flash Player for the first time, video played with no problems. Signed-into my YT account, video froze happened in both HTML5 and Flash video players. It's deffinately a YT problem at this point, not Firefox/Australis, Flash, Surface Pro, Windows 8, Windows Updates or anything else.To add a new wrinkle, but possibly get us a little closer to understanding what is happening, I tried signing into a different YT account I have and the video DID NOT freeze under this other account when signed-in, only on my main account. My Account status for the affected account is:
CLionheart - Partner Verified
Community guidelines - Good standing
Copyright - Good standing
I would really like to know how to fix the issue on my main account, especially seeing as far as I can see I have done nothing wrong to invite the playback issues onto my main account.
Only other thing I have noticed lately that is wrong with my main account is that my more recently-created Playlists are not getting added to the left navigation Guide menu in the Video Manager page. It stops at a playlist called 68. BLAH BLAH BLAH, and I have created playlists upto 79. BLAH BLAH.

 

[caperjack]

ok, it seems to me its not youtube ,works fine on my mac using FF and Safari, adobe flash player version 13.0.0.206,not signed in
and works fine on my desktop with win8.1.1 with html player, signed in
also works fine on my Acer one running win7 starter , and adobe flash player ,not signed in


maybe something different in how you connect to the internet ,wired or wifi

Could you test the combination of Windows 8.1.1, FireFox, YT Flash Player, Signed In YT Account for me please and report back what you find?

the only computer I have Firefox on is the Mac and it works fine for me ,I cant/wont install Firefox on any of my other computers just to test something anymore ,sorry ,good luck with you issue

 

[davidw7638]

Using Surface Pro 2 with Win 8.1 (up to date on drivers and patches) Using Chrome Version 43.0.2357.81 m
My YT videos stated to hang yesterday.
I did not modify any system setting or make any changes to my system setup.
Re-installed Chrome with defaults - did not correct the issue.
This does not seem to be a PC or user profile issues.
Looks like something from YT changed.