# Why has YouTube stopped working?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-youtube-stopped-working/513599>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [October 12, 2009, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-youtube-stopped-working/513599 "2009-10-12T23:42:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\
**Post date:** [October 12, 2009, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-youtube-stopped-working/513599/1 "2009-10-12T23:42:48Z")

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For the past couple of days (maybe longer) I haven’t been able to watch any YouTube videos. I get this message:

> [@](#):
>
> Hello, you either have JavaScript turned off or an old version of Adobe’s Flash Player. [Get the latest Flash player](http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer/).

I don’t have JavaScript turned off. I [got the latest Flash player](http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer/), and I still get the same message. I have tried it on IE7, Chrome and Firefox, same result on all three browsers.

Googling that error message shows that lots of other people are having the same problem, but no solution I can find, other than to watch the videos via Google Videos, which works fine. Any ideas?

I’m running Windows XP on a 2003-vintage PC (Pentium 4 I think).

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**Author:** ![AmunRa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@AmunRa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AmunRa)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-youtube-stopped-working/513599/2 "2009-10-13T02:18:02Z")

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Have you tried uninstalling flash player [(download uninstaller here,)](http://kb2.adobe.com/cps/141/tn_14157.html) then reinstalling?

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**Author:** ![Livardo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/43a26b/32.png) [@Livardo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Livardo)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 5:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-youtube-stopped-working/513599/3 "2009-10-13T05:19:28Z")

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I had some weird Youtube error one time (I don’t think it was the same as what you’re experiencing). What I did was empty my cache and clear the cookies for the site (you can do that with Firefox) and that fixed it.

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**Author:** ![Jormungandr](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a6a055/32.png) [@Jormungandr](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jormungandr)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 1:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-youtube-stopped-working/513599/4 "2009-10-13T13:16:31Z")

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I think it has to do more with the Flash player. I’ve gone to sites where it’s failed to load and hitting reload fixed it.

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**Author:** ![CWN](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/bc79bd/32.png) [@CWN](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CWN)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-has-youtube-stopped-working/513599/5 "2009-10-13T23:53:47Z")

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I had the same problem, I downloaded the free [codec media player](http://download.cnet.com/Media-Player-Codec-Pack/3000-13632_4-10749065.html?tag=mncol)from C/Net and that fixed the problem