120M Is YouTube borked for anyone else?

Sigma · 28-07-2014, 11:31

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?

MalteseFalcon · 28-07-2014, 11:50

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.

Sigma · 28-07-2014, 11:52

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.

General Maximus · 28-07-2014, 12:01

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.

toytown · 28-07-2014, 14:44

Yep borked for me also.

General Maximus · 28-07-2014, 14:52

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?

toytown · 28-07-2014, 14:55

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

General Maximus · 28-07-2014, 15:14

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]

toytown · 28-07-2014, 15:17

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

General Maximus · 28-07-2014, 15:21

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

toytown · 28-07-2014, 15:36

Quote:

Originally Posted by General Maximus

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

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.

General Maximus · 28-07-2014, 15:51

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

Sigma · 28-07-2014, 18:36

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.

apb27 · 28-07-2014, 19:30

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

General Maximus · 28-07-2014, 19:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sigma

There's been no reply from any VM staff on this issue, but that shouldn't really surprise anyone.

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.