Player not working for videos?

Bugs
1

The website doesn’t seem to be working for me right now. Any video I try to watch just loads forever and I get the message “Please click on the play icon in the player below to start playback.” But there isn’t any option to do so, and clicking play/pause does nothing as the video keeps loading.

Youtube, internet and browser seem to be working fine otherwise so this issue seems to be specific to watch2gether.

2

Thanks for your feedback. I can’t really reproduce the issue in my end. Are the videos loading for you on this site: https://listenonrepeat.com/

Does it make a difference if you use an incognito window of your browser to open Watch2Gether?

3

Hi, having the same problem here

I tried doing what you suggested and it works just fine. If that’s any help, it seems like when I tried it, it only affected me and not the other persons in the room; moreover, toggling off my adblockers only fixed the problem temporarily. Once I refresh the page, I’m back to square one. I’ve also cleared my browser’s cache, to no avail.

I wonder if that has anything to do with the recent YouTube update? At any rate, it only started 3 days ago.

Hope this is insightful

EDIT: It seems like no matter what, it always reverts back to that problem for the moment.

Update: it seems that completely emptying the cache has solved the issue, I will be monitoring that though.

4

Thanks a lot for your feedback! You are also just seeing a black screen instead of the video? Or is there any kind of error message?

Are you referring to any specific YouTube update?

5

Just a black screen, yes.

The YouTube update part is more me spitballing, but that problem did occur a short while after YouTube rolled out an update, so it got me wondering if there is a relation.

I should also mention, emptying the cache did work but only momentarily, though turning off my adblocker afterwards seems to make it work again. The issue is very sporadic it seems.

Update: again, the problem comes back roughly 5 or so minutes after I’d turned my adblocker off.

Update 2: my hunch that it has something to do with YouTube seems to be confirmed, as, out of curiosity, I’ve tested loading a Dailymotion video and it works, even when the YouTube video does not. Having said that, watching a YouTube video in Incognito mode seems to work fine. Really puzzling.

6

Thanks a lot! It’s definitely an issue on YouTube’s side. However, it would still be interesting to know why it happens and whether there is a workaround. Do you experience the same issue when playing videos on this site: https://listenonrepeat.com/ ?

By the way, when you see this happening, could you right-click on the site, select ‘Inspect’ and email me a screenshot of the console at florian@watch2gether.com? Thanks!

7

Thank you for your answer.

I do experience the same problem on listenonrepeat, yes, minus the “Please click on the play icon” part.

I’ll also send you the screenshot in just a moment.

Update: the screenshot has been sent.

Update 2: I also sent another screenshot containing the lower half of the inspect screen.

Update 3: interestingly, when I come back to the tab after not having interacted with it for a while, the video works again but then the problem comes back as soon as I reload the page.

Update 4: it has evolved somewhat; now, when I turn off my ad blocker, it plays the video it was on just fine, but the problem comes back as soon as I go to another video.