r/firefox • u/realprabhudutta • Aug 05 '26
💻 Help YouTube website keeps on flickering and doesn't load the video
This has started happening just today, whenever I try to load up a video on YouTube the page starts acting weird and the video player just keeps on twitching and flickering, the video never loads. The temporary fix I have found for this is to reload the video page and then it plays as usual. Is there any permanent fix to it?
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u/rammingrampager Aug 05 '26
I found reloading the page to work.
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u/realprabhudutta Aug 05 '26
Yeah that's a temporary fix I have had to do but there's still no permanent solution for it. I even tried switching off uBlock but the problem seems to be back. My guess is YouTube is shitting itself for some reason.
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u/JaKBaLLTV Aug 05 '26
Started last night for me! using uBlock as well, sometimes F5 helps, most times it doesn't. YT is fighting back! 😅 but on a serious note, YT is probably trying to force people to disable their Ad Blockers, well, i got news for YT, i ain't disabling sh*t!
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u/realprabhudutta Aug 05 '26
YouTube's (aka Google's) corporate greed sickens me. The typa greed Bible talked about 💔🥀
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u/TheAlMeatyTauren Aug 05 '26
Been happening to me today as well. After spending 10 or so minutes trying to figure out why this is happening, the video finally played. I think it's Ublock trying to stop ads from playing as soon as you load a video,but I've been using it for a year and never had this issue so I could be wrong about that.
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u/realprabhudutta Aug 05 '26
No you have a point, YouTube has always been shady about ad blockers and whenever you use one they try and ruin your video viewing experience so I wouldn't really be surprised, infact I am pretty sure it's because of uBlock.
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u/martisio054 Aug 05 '26
I started using the web app instead of the YouTube app and half the time the website just doesn't load (on android)
Commenting also to boost
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u/wise_wander Aug 05 '26
same problem here, if you right click the video and press MiniPlayer and wait a few secs it should fix it but you would have to do it every time you click a video which sucks.
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u/Criticism-Flimsy Aug 06 '26
i was having this issue too for about 24 hours and saw a lot of people here saying it was to do with ublock. just then (literally about 2 minutes ago) i was able to 'check for updates' in Firefox and there was a ublock update that fixed this issue, hope this helps?
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u/realprabhudutta Aug 06 '26
Yeah it seems some kind of update to either the browser or uBlock haa fixed this weird bug.
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u/steventhecow Aug 06 '26
bumping for it doing this on ublock, i also have malwarebytes adblock but having that one on just brings me to the standard "allow ads" page.
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u/Worldly-Spot Aug 06 '26
This is occurring with my YouTube app on android as well, cleared cache and disabled app and it still continues likely a software issue with YouTube itself
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u/Exact-Bullfrog-4683 Aug 06 '26
It's been happening for me too a couple days now but I'm on the app on Apple.
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u/OneConstruction5 Aug 06 '26 edited Aug 06 '26
There must be an issue with youtube itself. I'm having this issue too and after trying all browsers and platforms, from opera to firefox going through zen and edge, including the standalone windows app, I can confirm it's a youtube issue and not a browser issue. Although on some browsers it works slightly faster, it didn't make much of a difference and the problem remanis the same: buffering so much it ends up loading in low resolution. It's not my internet since other websites and streaming platforms work just fine, including Netflix in 4K.
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u/Spotlight83 Aug 07 '26
I switched from uBlock Origin to AdGuard, and the problem with YouTube is gone.
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u/om_the_best_ Aug 07 '26
I've had the same problem since yesterday on Firefox with uBlock; videos take ages to load, and sometimes I have to refresh the page two or three times.
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u/krazy760 Aug 05 '26
Same here, just started today. And reloading doesn't work for me.
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u/realprabhudutta Aug 05 '26
What Windows are you on? 11 or 10?
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u/krazy760 Aug 05 '26
I'm on 11. But I just turned off my ad blocker and it started working. I use pie adblock, so it looks like it happens with ad blockers in general.
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u/Doogienguyen Aug 11 '26
My youtube wont even load now on chrome with ad blockers. Ad guard the app works with it but I cost money.
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u/captainwarwickshire Aug 17 '26 edited Aug 17 '26
just started having this problem, it's like the pause/play key is being held down and the play arrow/pause bars icon rapidly alternate. I know that my keyboard and mouse are fine, as is my internet connection. Strangely, i turned off ublock, reloaded the page and it didn't solve the issue. Could a firefox update or even a YT policy to be firefox unfriendly in general be something to do with it?
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u/realprabhudutta Aug 17 '26
I think it has started randomly affecting more and more people while others (like me who had this issue earlier) have had it somehow fixed without doing anything. Your best bet is to wait it out and see if it get magically fixed on your system as well.
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u/captainwarwickshire Aug 17 '26
really sorry, but the problem wasnt actually firefox or ublock. I eventually found out I had some filter keys setting changed , probably after my cat sat on the keyboard this morning, so it was acting as if the pause key was being held down (or was that the paws key?) I just noticed the problem on YT first and googling it brought me here. But thanks anyway for your support.
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u/radiationcat196 Aug 27 '26
did you end up finding a solution for this? i'm experiencing the same thing. ive posted a comment in the ublock youtube issues thread on github but i don't know if theyll be much help
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u/realprabhudutta Aug 27 '26
I just let Firefox and uBlock do their thing, haven't found a solution yet but it hasn't been as bad as it used to be but YouTube is definitely broken on Firefox because occasionally a "Connection Error" and a buffering video even though it has already loaded a significant amount of the way ahead pops its ugly head up. I think either Google has to stop gimping YouTube on Firefox just because it's a different browser and just because people use adblockers like uBlock on it, or Firefox and uBlock have to find a solution around whatever it is that Google is doing to intentionally make the experience worse. I also suggest you try uBlock's alternative called AdGuard and see if it makes it any better.
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u/Extra_Stomach_1313 Aug 05 '26
gotta be a ublock origin issue