Slow youtube, buffering at any resolution, all systems wired and wireless.

[xenon2000]

I know there are a ton of threads on this topic. I have read several of them. I can't seem to find any that are helpful for me though. So sadly I am creating a new thread on the same thing.

The issue has been going on for months. Just been too busy to look into it. And since it is only Youtube videos, I haven't really focused on it. But it's getting old. Tomorrow or Monday, I will try bypassing my router and just take one system directly to my cable modem to see if that makes a difference. But I wanted to get the ideas flowing in the meantime.

My speedtest.net results right now are 33ms ping, 31.5 Mbps down, 26.9 Mbps up. Not my fastest stats. But certainly fast enough for handling 1080p youtube videos. Yet even at resolution below 480p, it simply loads too slow and won't buffer to play without pausing.

Wired LAN is gigabit, some clients are only 100M, but most are 1000M. Wireless N, but most devices are 54G.

I have some XP systems. But I have only tested on Windows 7 and 8 systems. Have tested using Chrome, IE, Firefox, and Opera. All act the same. I then tried a download plugin to see the speed. It's like 50 KB/sec! At best I think I got 150 KB/sec. Which takes forever to download. No wonder the buffering mechanism is worthless and it pauses all the time. So basically if I want to use Youtube, I have to download which takes a long time, and THEN watch it and delete it. I don't pay for high speed internet for this. And it have been fine for years before this.

It's not my systems, again, it was fine before several months ago. Nothing changed in my network or systems back then. Other than the usual windows and java updates, etc.

Oh, this is also an issue on the non-windows systems like the Android 4.x phones and tablets as well. Which those too were fine several months ago.

I wish I had changed something like a router or something, but none of my hardware or software (besides updates) have changed since this all happened.

I will test directly to the cable modem later and see what happens. I have rebooted my router several times and even the cable modem just in case. No change.

 

[maxiim]

Lots of companies nowadays throttle things like youtube, netflix, hulu etc because they are really direct competition for distributing tv content. I'd start there, though majority of them deny it

 

[maxiim]

Lots of ISPs nowadays throttle things like youtube, netflix, hulu etc because they are really direct competition for distributing tv content. I'd start there, though majority of them deny it

 

[xenon2000]

Lots of companies nowadays throttle things like youtube, netflix, hulu etc because they are really direct competition for distributing tv content. I'd start there, though majority of them deny it

Are you suggesting that I call my ISP? Seems odd they would just now start throttling Youtube, yet not affect Hulu, Amazon and other streaming sites. Hulu and Amazon I watch full length movies and TV shows. Youtube I generally watch short clips. I also know that Cox and Comcast have been in hot water with Level 3 over throttling and that blew up in their face a long time ago. Plus, there is no way that me calling Cox is going to solve anything. The person on the phone will have no idea and if Cox is throttling, they certainly will not reverse the setting for ME, just because I asked about it.

But thanks for bringing that idea up, as I did forget to mention that other streaming solutions are still working fine. Just youtube is having this issue. I will probably try direct to the cable modem tomorrow and see how that goes. See if it's my router, even though that hasn't changed either.

 

[xenon2000]

I need to test some more tomorrow. But today I connected a weaker system directly to the cable modem and Youtube 1080p was smooth and loaded fast in IE and Firefox on Windows 8. But was super choppy and high CPU usage with Chrome. So that seems like a different issue.

Going to test some other systems directly to the cable modem and see what results I get. But so far it looks like I can get Youtube to work fine with the right combination directly to the cable modem. So it might be my router??? Which would be odd since other streaming services are fine. Anyways. I will do more testing.

 

[xenon2000]

Just did some more research. It appears to be a google issue. I don't understand why it hasn't been resolved yet. It's been months now. Some articles claim it has to do with google not paying for the proper bandwidth or routing. I don't know what the exact issue is. But it does not seem to be my network or COX my ISP. So I guess I just use different video sites until Google gets it resolved.

 

[xenon2000]

This is my solution. Youtube videos are now playing perfectly with no pauses for HD video on all devices. (Laptops, Tablets, Phones, Desktops)

The issue is with Google caching servers. You can look up all kinds of info on the current issue. So unfortunately my current solution may not work for all locations and may not work forever.

I have been using Google's DNS for years. 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4 , but months ago Youtube got slow for me. And now I know it's google with the issue.

I just changed my DNS on my router to Level 3's DNS of
209.244.0.3
209.244.0.4
And now HD (and all) videos play perfectly with no pauses.

Hopefully this solution will stay working until Google gets their act together and fixes the issue for all routes and locations.

 

[xenon2000]

Well, that was shorter lived than I expected. After about 24 hours of youtube working great, since more than a month ago. Now it's back to being slow and pausing. While I know the issue is google, I was really hoping that this fix would last at least a month at a time.

 

[mineult]

There must be a problem with the adobe flash which might conflicting with the browsers. So, you need to uninstall and reboot the computer. After that, you need to reinstall the adobe flash once again. I hope this will solve the freezing problem of computer.

 

[xenon2000]

There must be a problem with the adobe flash which might conflicting with the browsers. So, you need to uninstall and reboot the computer. After that, you need to reinstall the adobe flash once again. I hope this will solve the freezing problem of computer.

It can't be that. As the issue is on all my devices. Windows laptops and Desktops, Android phones and tablets. And when I changed my DNS, it was working fine on all devices for 24 hours. Nothing rebooted.

Earlier I included one of many URLs that explain the issue that google is having (or choosing to have) right now with the way Youtube bandwidth is handled. Look up 'youtube cache blocking' for more details.

Also, my computers are not freezing. The videos "freeze". A better term is "pause". The videos pause because the buffer doesn't get filled fast enough to keep up with the video playback.

 

[cgman9]

I followed this thread and it fixed my slow youtube issues: http/www.reddit.com/r/technology/comments/13kmvd/have_time_warner_internet_but_can_barely_stream/

 

[farhan782000]

Hey xenon2000, try googling for Speedbit Video Accelerator. Download it maybe that'll do the trick, well it did for me.