Computer Question

[blueyedgirl5946]

Whenever I am on You Tube, I cannot open the videos there now. I have checked and verified I have the latest version of Adobe Flash and it is installed correctly. Does anyone have an idea what else I could check that might be causing this problem. I have Windows 7 and use Internet Explorer for my browser.

 

[margd]

It might help if you try a different browser. I use Firefox and whenever I run into some weirdness like that, I try Chrome instead. So far, switching to Chrome has always done the trick. I've got a Mac so can't help with specific Windows issues but switching browsers is always worth a try.

 

[vyger]

You could have malware blocking it. Also known as spyware and or addwear, something that got on to your computer that is blocking things. Internet Explorer is really bad for that. It is often targeted because it is on all windows computers and is not updated that often. Firefox is much better because they are constantly finding and fixing issues like this. Because it is an independent program Firefox can also be uninstalled completely and reinstalled to fix problems. You can't do that with IE.
There is a very good and free program that scans and fixes spyware infections. It is called Malwarebytes.
Free Cyber Security & Anti-Malware Software
Download the free version for windows and install it and run it. Let it remove all the stuff it finds, restart the computer and run it again. Sometimes it takes multiple scans to fix things and remove all the junk. Then in the future do a scan a few times a month to keep the bad stuff off.

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

I doubt youtube uses adobe flash now. I pretty sure it uses HTML5 video.

edit: I think you can test whatever browser you use with how well it uses HTML5-
The HTML5 test - How well does your browser support HTML5?

 

[blueyedgirl5946]

I do have Firefox on my computer. The problem didn't affect this browser. I run Microsoft Security Essentials and the paid version of Malwarebytes for security. Nothing was caught by either of these. Now, for reasons I don't understand, the videos will work again using Internet Explorer.

I have however noticed something weird. So I have another question concerning Malwarebytes. I see that the reports of the security scans are no longer in chronological order. So when I want to look at the most recent, I have to look through all the ones there. Does anyone know how to fix this problem.

 

[vyger]

On the report page click on the date in the top bar where it says date. This will reshuffle the reports. click it again and it will order them from oldest to newest.
It is possible that it removed something that made IE work again. It is also possible that Youtube fixed the problem on their site or that IE was updated. A number of years ago Youtube got attacked and prevented the playing of everything for about 2 days. Sometimes things happen.

 

[micknsnicks2mom]

sometimes the settings of the internet security software we use can effect what a computer allows...

 

[PushPurrCatPaws]

I doubt youtube uses adobe flash now. I pretty sure it uses HTML5 video.

edit: I think you can test whatever browser you use with how well it uses HTML5-
The HTML5 test - How well does your browser support HTML5?

^ Youtube uses HTML5 for its default video player. I think Windows 7 users and earlier need to rely upon adobe flash to play videos. If the youtube video you are trying to play doesn't play nice with your 'Windows 7/ Internet Explorer/ adobe flash' combination (and gives you a warning like: "Your browser does not currently recognize any of the video formats available" for example), sometimes you can try just going to the address bar in your browser for the youtube video and add this to the end of that full youtube address:

&nohtml5=0

Then try the video again.

 

[blueyedgirl5946]

micknsnicks2mom vyger
vyger Thank you so much. This was so simple and I had stared at that page and scratched my head trying to figure this out. I fixed it and I do so much appreciate your answer.