Cecil asks: “Why do my YouTube videos keep stopping and starting?”
Whenever I try to watch a you tube video that has been sent to me from friends, the video will play for 3 or 4 sec and stops and reloads then will play for another 3 or 4 sec until the video is complete, which is frustrating to say the least. I have a dell Inspiron 530 with vista windows home version and use EI9 browser. Is this normal or is my system missing something? I have two of your ebook cd’s but cannot find anything in them pertaining to this problem so I’m wondering if you might have some idea’s.
Our answer
Thanks for your support, Cecil. Yours is a good question. We’re betting that most of you have had this happen to you at some time or other. It’s happened to us and we have very fast broadband connections. But connection speeds are part of it for sure. If you have a low-end broadband connection, flaky YouTube performance maybe something you’ll have to live with. But your connection speed is only one possible reason why your videos annoying start and stop. YouTube is a very busy site – and some times of the day are busier than other. For instance, if your trying to watch a video at 9PM (U.S. Eastern Time) you might find the videos start and stop regardless of your connection speed simply because so many people are watching videos at that peak time.
But there are other reasons too – your browser’s cache might be clogged with junk from weeks and weeks of browsing. So try clearing your browser’s cache.
We’ve went to YouTube to see what they have to say about the starting-stopping problem. And here’s what they have to say:
“If a video doesn’t play continuously, it may be due to your connection speed. You’ll need a broadband connection of 500+Kbps for the best viewing experience.
If your video download speed is slow or inconsistent, you can try pausing the video until the entire stream is downloaded and then playing the video.
Occasionally, an incomplete copy of a video can get stuck in your cache and never fully download. You can re-attempt the download by clearing your browser’s cache.
If this doesn’t solve your issue, it could be that our servers are experiencing very high traffic. If this is the case, you can try again in a few minutes. We’re continuously adding servers to keep up with demand so you don’t run into choppy playback as a result of site traffic often!”
One more suggestion you might want to try: You can adjust the quality of the video by changing the video resolution settings (at the bottom-right of the video). Settings available (for most videos) are 1080P, 720P, 480P and 240P. Some videos may not give you a choice, so if you don’t see these options, it’s because the video isn’t available at other resolutions. Try choosing a lower resolution – that may help you.
We hope that this answers your question and helps you enjoy a smoother YouTube experience.