Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

Starting yesterday afternoon, YouTube became pretty much unusable for me. Most videos won't even start. Some start, but then stop about 15-20 second in and never resume. Sometimes videos just time out with that "an error occurred" message.

If I try and watch videos via ProxFree, bypassing VM's caches of YouTube content, everything works perfectly, so it must be a VM issue.

I've found a couple of other people on forums with the same problem, as well as a couple of folks on Twitter. Anyone else got the same issue?

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

No, have you tried the old trick of clearing the cache and cookies? Sometimes that can cause problems, seems daft at times but 9 times out of 10 it actually solves problems. If that doesn't help, then it might be worth calling VM.

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

Thanks. Yeah, I've tried that.

Here's a video I just made that shows the issue: -

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13pu7XbQfQk

It's like that with almost all videos I click on, yet they all work just fine if I go through a proxy site, bypassing VM's cache of YouTube's content.

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

I have just watched the trailer for the new Hunger Games film as well as a couple of the "Everything wrong with....." videos in HD and I had no probs at all. That being said, I have got my browser configured to delete temporary files, cookies etc on exit.

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

Yep borked for me also.

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

I have been watching stuff for the last hour and it has been fine. Have you tried doing some nslookups and trace routes to see where your traffic is going?

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

It's a VM issue, using a VPN the videos appear immediately.

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

I am not using a vpn and I haven't got any probs at all

C:\Users\General Maximus>nslookup www.youtube.com
Server: google-public-dns-a.google.com
Address: 8.8.8.8

Non-authoritative answer:
Name: youtube-ui.l.google.com
Addresses: 2a00:1450:4009:808::1006
173.194.41.162
173.194.41.167
173.194.41.160
173.194.41.168
173.194.41.164
173.194.41.174
173.194.41.161
173.194.41.163
173.194.41.166
173.194.41.169
173.194.41.165
Aliases: www.youtube.com

C:\Users\General Maximus>tracert youtube-ui.l.google.com

Tracing route to youtube-ui.l.google.com [74.125.230.96]
over a maximum of 30 hops:

1 <1 ms <1 ms <1 ms second-counter-computer-new.mit.edu [18.19.1.1]
2 8 ms 7 ms 6 ms 10.159.144.1
3 12 ms 15 ms 28 ms nott-core-2b-xe-1132-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.255.231.69]
4 17 ms 20 ms 19 ms nrth-bb-2a-ae6-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.254.42.77]
5 17 ms 17 ms 19 ms leed-bb-2a-ae1-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.254.42.53]
6 * 15 ms 15 ms leed-bb-1c-ae0-0.network.virginmedia.net [62.254.42.126]
7 19 ms 19 ms 18 ms teln-ic-2-ae1-0.network.virginmedia.net [212.250.14.146]
8 20 ms 19 ms 21 ms 194-14-250-212.static.virginm.net [212.250.14.194]
9 20 ms 24 ms 28 ms 209.85.252.188
10 18 ms 19 ms 18 ms 72.14.238.185
11 22 ms 19 ms 19 ms lhr14s24-in-f0.1e100.net [74.125.230.96]

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

As far as i can see, when im using VM without a VPN, youtube is trying to connect to the following server for its xml file and video, but that server (or cluster) appears to be down.

https://r4---sn-8pgbpohxqp5-ciml.goo...rossdomain.xml

That server is hosted at virginmedia

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

how do you find that out? I'll do the same thing and see where it is pointing.

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

I'm not sure what you intend to prove though? Your connection is fine, due the area that you are being served from. i.e. you are using different virgin media cache servers to me.

You can find the server it's using by getting it from the blockableitems list on adblocker (if you have it installed) or simply viewing the source for the page and looking for the first iteration of "googlevideo.com".

Using VM it access's their downed server, that VM host at.
https://r4---sn-8pgbpohxqp5-ciml.googlevideo.com

Using VM through a VPN it accesses Google's youtubes servers in the USA at https://r20---sn-aigllnzr.googlevideo.com, which works perfectly.

The issue is a localized virgin media one and it needs to be fixed by them.

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

had a quick look and searched for googlevideo.com and it couldn't find any matches

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

A bunch of folks have posted about this on Virgin's forum now. The people who've posted their location are either from the West Midlands or Oxfordshire. There's been no reply from any VM staff on this issue, but that shouldn't really surprise anyone.

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

west midlands here, its pretty messed up, nothing loads for ages sometimes.

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

They are probably all sat in their offices with their heads in their hands crying. I think it is ad that they don't like to admit faults and try and reassure everyone they are looking into it. You won't hear anything from them until they think it has been fixed.

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

Same here

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

It's frustrating. It usually goes through the following stages: -

1. Ignoring people.
2. Denial ("it's your PC!", "it's your browser settings!" etc.).
3. Acceptance.
4. Apologising.

Sadly, steps 1 and 2 can sometimes go on for weeks.

I posted on VM's Facebook page with info on the issue, as well as a link to the video I made that shows the problem. I told them that a bunch of affected users had posted on VM's forums, but nobody had replied. They told me to post on VM's forum and someone will reply - it's like they didn't even read what I said.

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

Their initial Youtube CDN buffering issue went on for months before they got past step 2 :p:

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

start the clock

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

West Mids here and it's broken too, fine via my VPN however, funny that:D

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

Or they're doing the same as you, going 'Well it works for me!'

---------- Post added at 23:05 ---------- Previous post was at 23:03 ----------

Simplest way for Windows users, that does not require installation any software, plugins, or add-ons, is to open Task Manager and go to Resource Monitor.

Look under Network Activity, sort by Total Bytes/sec and find the highest entry for your web browser when watching a video.

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

Yes its been crap for me in Maidstone.

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

It's messed up Google Play on my phone too, when connected via Wi-Fi. I tried to update a bunch of apps and some of the updates wouldn't download - they wouldn't even start. I tried a bunch of times, but they just wouldn't work. I switched to 3G instead and the updates all downloaded just fine.

Someone on Virgin's forum (not a VM employee) posted and said that they're aware of this issue and that it'll be fixed in 24-48 hours, but they didn't post a source for that statement.

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

I have also had big issues with Youtube in South Wales :(

Re: Is YouTube borked for anyone else?
 

Sounds like a broken GGC node again...