The importance of Youtube does not need to be discussed in this text. It has answers to almost all of our problems, aside from the entertainment part. However, users report that they are unable to play Youtube videos on their system. While the issue is specific to a website, once we confirm that the issue is not with their account, we could safely assume that it is a system specific issue.
Cause
The causes could be many depending on the exact symptoms. Some report the Flash Player warning, while it has nothing to do with the Flash Player itself, while others mention that the video continues to be buffered even though the Internet works fine with other websites. generic problems to solve the problem.
We could try the following solutions in sequence:
Solution 1] Check the system date and time
Youtube and many other websites use certificates. Certificates will incorrectly assume that they have expired if the system date is incorrect. For instance. If a website certificate is valid from 2006 onwards and the system date is set to 2001, the site will not recognize the certificates. So, we need to check the system date and time.
In case the date and time are wrong, correct as follows:
1] Press Win + R to open the file Run window and type the command control panel. Press Enter to open the control panel window.
2] Select Date and time from the list.
3] On Internet time tab, click Change settings.
4] Select the option Synchronize with the Internet time server and select time.nist.gov from the drop-down menu.
5] Click Update now and the system would start synchronizing the time with the Internet.
Also, check the time zone in the Date and Time tab, but it is secondary. The main statement is that the date must not be outside the validity range of the certificate.
Solution 2] Temporarily disable antivirus and firewall
While Youtube is perhaps the safest of video websites, some sophisticated antivirus programs when set to maximum block it. Perhaps they may fear that third-party advertisements will infect the system.
Open your antivirus program and pause scanning and protection. This varies from software to software, so it cannot be generalized here.
To disable the Firewall, the procedure is as follows:
1] Press Win + R to open the file Run window and type the command control panel. Press Enter to open the control panel window.
2] Select Windows Defender Firewall from the list. Open it.
3] In the list on the left side, click Turn Windows Defender Firewall on or off.
4] Move the radio button to Turn off Windows Defender Firewall (not recommended) for both public and private network settings.
Solution 3] Disable ad blockers
We know that ads are very annoying and therefore users use ad blockers, which are mainly plug-ins connected to browsers. However, many sites and channels on Youtube may not allow you to use them in conjunction with ad blockers. The logic is simple: if users don't click on ads, website and channel owners don't earn money, so they make it mandatory for users to disable ad blockers before accessing their resources.
For Firefox, copy-paste about: addons in the address bar and press Enter. You will see the list of add-ons including ad blockers. Click on deactivate for ad blocking.
For Google Chrome, copy and paste chrome://extensions in the address bar and press Enter. This would show the list of extensions. Click on To remove for ad blocking.
Solution 4] Delete temporary files and preload
While temporary files are simply to make sure Windows-based applications open faster, they may cause interference. For the problem discussed in this post, you need to clear both the web cache and the temporary files on the system.
1] Press Win + R to open the file Run window and type the command temp. Press Enter to open the folder for temporary files.
2] Click once on one of the files to highlight it, then press CTRL+A to select all files.
3]Hit Delete to delete the selected files, however, all files will not be deleted as the system is still in use. It would ask that some files cannot be deleted and we could just cancel to ignore that prompt.
Solution 5] Clear the web cache
Per Firefox,
1] Copy-paste about: preferences # privacy in the address bar and press Enter. This will open the privacy and security settings.
2]In Cookies and site data section, click Deletes data to clear the web cache.
Per Google Chrome,
1] Copy-paste chrome://settings/clearBrowserData in the address bar and press Enter. This will open the privacy and security settings.
2] Select what you want to delete and click Deletes data. However, the cached files should be deleted.
We hope the above steps can help you solve your problem.
