How to Fix YouTube Videos Not Playing Issue in Top 8 Ways

Summary:

YouTube videos not playing? Here in the post, we have pieced together a full tutorial showing why YouTube not playing video along with the top 8 fixes for you to leverage.

Surpassed only by Google in scale, YouTube, along with its progression, has morphed from a video-sharing service to an enormous engine of cultural production and a host for wildly diverse communities. With around 1.9 billion active users every month, the video distribution giant still finds errors reported every so often, one bugging the users directs to the 'YouTube not playing videos' issue that people find denied access to the YouTube video content, and receive either a black screen or a prompt message saying 'YouTube videos not playing, please try again later.' What exactly is the problem when YouTube won't load videos? In this post, we will probe into the matter, unmasking the possible reasons why YouTube not playing videos and the top 8 solutions to fix the error.

Why Are YouTube Videos Not Playing

Before getting into the solutions, let's bring to light some of the major causes of the 'YouTube not playing video' error:

• Browser problems: An unexpected browser loading failure might interrupt normal video display on YouTube and lead to YouTube videos not loading or playing. In addition, an outdated or bulky browser might also affect the normal functioning of YouTube.
• Internet problems: Network failure is also one of the reasons why YouTube videos won't play. And if your internet connection is particularly weak and slow, try to lower the YouTube quality, which might be helpful.
• Computer problems: If something goes wrong with your desktop or device, YouTube won't load or play the videos either. Therefore, consider restarting your computer or performing an OS update, which seems pretty cliché but works in most cases.
• YouTube bugs: The platform itself might inevitably go down and crash sometimes, and trigger the 'videos not loading' error. Usually, YouTube would acknowledge the issues encountered by users and fix them within a matter of hours or a few days. Thus try to reload the webpage, or check out the official announcement to see if there are any latest words.
• YouTube App issues: If you find YouTube not playing videos on Android/iOS mobile devices, try restarting the YouTube app or clearing the caches the app collected; reinstalling the YouTube app would also be a good bet.

Note:

YouTube has defaulted to HTML5 player and ditched the support for Adobe Flash long before. Thus make sure your web browser or device sustains HTML5. Otherwise, all the efforts you put to fix the 'YouTube videos not playing' error would amount to nothing.

Based on the possible reasons above, we have concluded down below the top 8 solutions for you to dive into and fix the 'YouTube not playing videos' error.

How to Fix YouTube Videos Not Playing Issue

1. Refresh the YouTube page

A laggy browser connection might drop HTTP responses every now and then, and refreshing the page tells the web browser to bypass its local cache so that it could freshly download and re-load your YouTube page, and play YouTube videos smoothly.

2. Update the browser

Make sure your browser is up-to-date since the outdated version might interrupt the operation of web service, and cause YouTube to stop loading and playing videos.

3. Clear your browser cache and cookies

Shedding the cache and data accumulated could drive the browser to retrieve the most recent webpage elements, and conduct a smooth YouTube video playback. Below we present the specific practice to clear browser cache on Google Chrome, Firefox, and IE, and fix YouTube videos not playing error.

• For Google Chrome: Go to the Three-dot button on the upper right > History > Clear browsing data. In the Advanced panel, set the time range to 'All time', and then checkmark the options you feel necessary to remove.



• For Firefox: Go to the menu button at the top right > Settings. Select Privacy and Security on the left navigation panel. In the Cookies and Site Data section, click on Clear Data, and check all the options > click Clear; Then Scroll down to History, change the time range to Everything, enable all the checkboxes, and click OK.



• For IE: Navigate the tool icon on the upper right > Safety > Deleting browsing history; checkmark the options you feel necessary to remove, and click the Delete button.

4. Open an incognito/private browsing session

Going incognito or private could also help address the 'YouTube videos won't load and play' error since it could disable all the extensions installed on your browser and eliminate the issues that some features the extensions bring. Thus try turning on the incognito/private session to see if YouTube can play the videos.

• For Google Chrome: Use shortcut combination Ctrl+Shift+N (Windows) or Command+Shift+N (macOS) to go incognito.
• For Firefox: Try shortcuts Control+Shift+P in Linux and Windows, and Command+Shift+P in macOS to turn on the private browsing.
• For IE: Use shortcut Ctrl+Shift+N to open a new InPrivate window.

5. Reset Connection Settings

Load a different webpage to see whether the internet connection is working properly. And if the failing network is the reason why your YouTube videos not loading, try resetting the connection settings, or restarting the router.

6. Enable/Disable VPN

If the YouTube video that you try to play is blocked in your area, enabling VPN could reconnect your devices to the internet through a remote server in another region, and unlock the content you wish to watch.

However, if you have been using streaming YouTube videos with a VPN while receiving the message noting the YouTube videos won't play, then try to turn it off to see if the error goes away. Using a VPN could interfere with your network's flow and make it difficult for your device to communicate with YouTube's servers.

7. Restart the computer

For the last resort here is to restart the computer. Rebooting your computer can potentially solve some PC problems that you may be having with, give your system a clean slate and fresh start, and ultimately fix your YouTube videos not playing error.

8. Once-and-for-all fix: Save YouTube videos for offline playback

If none of the above-mentioned remedies fix the 'YouTube videos not playing' error, try saving YouTube videos with the best video downloader for a smooth offline playback. In this way, you can eradicate the issue to the ground and relish to your heart's content the 1080p or 4K YouTube videos without any disturbance.

Running as a free dedicated video downloader, VideoProc Converter boasts robust support for media downloads with top-notch file quality of any sort, allowing you to download video streams, live videos, video playlists, channels, and music from YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, and other 1000+ sites, and save them in different resolutions and formats. With simple clicks, you can watch UD or 4K Ultra HD YouTube videos flawlessly.