# Help! Flashblock seems to be killing Youtube. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 20, 2014, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-flashblock-seems-to-be-killing-youtube/688875 "2014-05-20T23:25:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2014, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-flashblock-seems-to-be-killing-youtube/688875/1 "2014-05-20T23:25:30Z")
I don’t know whats going on today. I’ve been using Flashblock with no problem for months. Today, I can’t launch a youtube video. I get the Normal arrow to click, screen goes black. \*\*Then Nothing. \*\* Tried six different videos. 😕 I can’t imagine why Youtube would be trying to F with people using Flashblock. We still see their ads. Any ideas what’s going on or how to fix it? I finally launched the videos from IE. yuck!!! I don’t have any special plug-ins installed on IE because I don’t use it unless forced to. ---
**Author:** ![dstarfire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dstarfire/32/5762_2.png) [@dstarfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dstarfire)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-flashblock-seems-to-be-killing-youtube/688875/2 "2014-05-21T01:18:49Z")
regular flashblock user here. Had that behavior many times on other sites. Try adding \*.youtube.com to flash blocks white list. If that doesn’t work, you’ll have to find out what (e.g. ad server, download blocking script) or who (isp, cdn, malware) is trying to be an envelope for youtube videos. Also, make sure that flash is set to ‘always enable’ on your addons page. One of Firefox’s recent updates may have made that not a default. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-flashblock-seems-to-be-killing-youtube/688875/3 "2014-05-21T01:31:54Z")
Added youtube to the whitelist. Now youtube skips the arrow and goes directly to the black screen. I noticed in the options Block HTML5 is checked. I wonder if that’s it? ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-flashblock-seems-to-be-killing-youtube/688875/4 "2014-05-21T01:34:52Z")
unchecked block html5 video and restarted firefox. didn’t help. I guess for now I’ll have to start Firefox with all the add ons disabled. ---
**Author:** ![Drum\_God](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drum_god/32/44_2.png) [@Drum\_God](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Drum_God)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 3:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-flashblock-seems-to-be-killing-youtube/688875/5 "2014-05-21T03:03:07Z")
I don’t use Flashblock, but I haven’t been able to play a YouTube video at all today. I have tried clicking on videos embedded on other websites and viewing videos directly through YouTube. No dice. I use a fully updated version of Firefox on Windows 8.1. ---
**Author:** ![Crazyhorse](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crazyhorse/32/31_2.png) [@Crazyhorse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crazyhorse)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-flashblock-seems-to-be-killing-youtube/688875/6 "2014-05-21T05:14:09Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > unchecked block html5 video and restarted firefox. didn’t help. I don’t know if it’s relevant to the Flashblock issue but you might try[setting Youtube to use HTML 5](http://www.youtube.com/html5) in addition to unchecking that box. I’m not having any trouble loading youtube videos and I don’t have Flash installed. Youtube’s support for HTML 5 was the tipping point when I could ditch Flash and make due without the few other things that still require it. ---
**Author:** ![dstarfire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dstarfire/32/5762_2.png) [@dstarfire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dstarfire)\ **Post date:** [May 21, 2014, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-flashblock-seems-to-be-killing-youtube/688875/7 "2014-05-21T05:22:18Z")
Tried to play a youtube video tonight, just got the loading arrow forever. Watching the status bar, I noticed it was connecting to [s.ytimg.com](http://s.ytimg.com), so I tried adding \*.ytimg.com to flashblocks whitelist, and that seems to have fixed it. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-flashblock-seems-to-be-killing-youtube/688875/8 "2014-05-23T12:18:27Z")
I’ll try my pc at home again this evening. If youtube is still broke then I’ll try dstarfire’s fix. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2014, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-flashblock-seems-to-be-killing-youtube/688875/9 "2014-05-23T14:43:55Z")
I use Flashblock. I do not have youtube or [ytimg.com](http://ytimg.com) whitelisted, and HTML5 video is blocked too. I just tested youtube and it is working fine for me (ie., working with Flashblock as it is supposed to: videos play after an extra click). Have you tried reinstalling either Flashblock or Flash (or both)? ---
**Author:** ![witney](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e36b37/32.png) [@witney](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/witney)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-flashblock-seems-to-be-killing-youtube/688875/10 "2014-06-04T06:32:09Z")
I had something like that for a while this year, someone posted elsewhere that inserting a _headphone jack_ into your PC would fix it —\*\* it did for me !!!\*\* ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2014, 9:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/help-flashblock-seems-to-be-killing-youtube/688875/11 "2014-06-04T09:58:04Z")
Hm, I have issues with vimeo videos going to black but since any vimeo video I want can generally be found on youtube with a bit of rummaging, I don’t think I will bother with trying these fixes unless youtube also goes wonky.