YouTube is one of the most popular platforms to watch your favorite content creator videos, vines, movies, song videos, life hacks, etc. The platform has over 2 billion active users. There is almost everything that you wish to watch available on YouTube. Given that it is one of the biggest platforms out there, you might run into some issues here and there. Not constantly, but rarely, such as the server going down, or even issues in playback. Today we will be talking about a common problem where YouTube videos keep freezing but audio still plays.
There are playback issues where you won’t be able to change the video quality or the video that you previously watched is now not playable and similar issues. One of the most annoying problems is when the YouTube video freezes and the audio keeps playing or vice versa. This is super annoying lead by the issues when the server suddenly goes down. Luckily there are various troubleshooting methods to fix the video freezing issue on YouTube. Read along to know more about it.
Reasons why YouTube videos keep freezing but audio still plays
There are a few reasons why such an issue could occur. The main reason will have to be poor internet connections. If it is slow or too many users are connected to the network can slow things down a lot, especially if it is a slow-speed network connection. It could also be an issue with browsers, maybe there is a bug that is triggering that problem or if the browser is outdated, or for that matter even using an unsupported browser will cause such issues. One other reason could also be playing an extremely high-resolution video with hardware not supporting such high resolutions. Read along to know a few methods that you can use to eliminate the Video freezing and audio playing issue on YouTube.
Fix YouTube Videos Keep Freezing
Check Network Connection
The first and foremost thing that has to be done is to check your internet connection. It could be possible that your network speed might have been reduced due to some maintenance or probably any other issue that you can think of. You can confirm the speeds mentioned in your plan by simply performing a speed test. You can check your internet speed by using Ookla, Fast, or any speed test website. Also, you could simply restart the router and see if the problem persists or resolves.
Reduce Video quality
If you are watching videos of the highest quality possible and face such an issue, it is best to turn the video resolution a bit lower. If you have a display that can playback at only 1080p, playing YouTube videos higher than said resolution will naturally end up with freezing and some lags as well. What you can always do is simply set the video quality to auto. When on Auto, YouTube will automatically adjust the video quality according to your internet connection’s speed.
Refresh YouTube page
Sometimes, websites and web pages might have an issue in displaying content properly. It might have skipped a few items to load and this can result in the video freezing on YouTube. Simply hit the F5 key or click on the refresh icon to reload the webpage. YouTube videos keep freezing is a common issue and refreshing the webpage works most of the time.
Check for Browser Updates
Updates are important for a software as it helps in improving their performance. The same can be said about browsers. Having the latest updates can fix issues with YouTube playback. Checking for updates on Google Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge is simple and easy.
On Google Chrome, simply click on the three dots and select Settings. On the settings page click on About Chrome. It will now check for updates if any and download them. To install it will ask you to restart the browser
On Firefox, simply click on the three horizontal lines at the right side of the menu bar. Click on it and select Settings. In the search bar, simply type in Updates. You can then see the Firefox version that is currently installed and click on the Check for Updates button to look for new updates. The updates will download and then ask you to restart to complete the installation.
On Microsoft Edge, click on the horizontal three dots at the menu bar on the right side. Select Settings and then head over to the About Microsoft Edge. The browser will then automatically check for updates if any and then install them right away.
Disable Browser Extensions
Sometimes, there could be a few browser extensions and add-ons that might be cursing conflicts with the playback of YouTube. You can disable these extensions and then check if the video plays normally. If you use Google Chrome, simply type in chrome://extensions in the URL bar.
The same goes for Microsoft Edge: edge://extensions. Whereas on Firefox, click on the three-line menu and select add-ons and themes to manage all installed add-ons Once you have disabled the addons open YouTube and check if there is any playback issue.
Disable or Enable Hardware Acceleration
On Google Chrome open the settings page and type in Hardware inside the search box and then enable or disable hardware acceleration. You can do the same on Microsoft Edge as well. If you have Firefox, simply select the three-line menu and head over to Options, Advanced, and then General. You will see the hardware acceleration section under Browsing. Simply enable or disable it. Once you have made the required changes, open up YouTube and test it. The playback should now be working fine.
Clear Web Browser cache files
If YouTube responds slow and has problems playing videos, it could be that your browser’s cache storage might be full. Emptying it can help to improve YouTube playback as well as page load times and responsiveness. On Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge click on the three dots, More Tools, and then select Clear Browsing Data. On Firefox, you can simply open the Settings page and search for the cache. You will have the option to clear the cache of your browser.
Switch to another browser
Sometimes a bug might have plagued the browser causing YouTube videos to freeze. Until the bug gets resolved and fixed, you can always make use of other web browsers such as Firefox, Microsoft Edge, Brave Browser, or even Opera Browser.
Restart the device
If the issue has suddenly occurred and if none of the above options worked, the best you could do is give your device a nice restart. Restarting can mostly help solve such kinds of issues and will bring back the normal playback of YouTube videos.
So that’s all on how to fix YouTube videos keep freezing but audio still plays issue. We hope that at least one of the above methods has worked for you in solving the YouTube videos keep freezing while the audio playback is running.
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If you have any other issues or maybe even a method that has worked for you but not mentioned here, you can always drop a comment and share your opinions about it.
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