Fix Buffering Problems in Youtube

you’re watching a YouTube video when all of a sudden it pauses and starts buffering, especially right when the video starts getting good. This problem isn’t uncommon and it happens to the best of us.

There are things that you can try in order to make YouTube videos play better on your computer or mobile device before you throw it out the window.

How YouTube Videos Work

Video files take up storage space; you probably know this because after you’ve recorded so many videos on your smartphone, it starts to fill up and you eventually need to free up storage space.

YouTube videos are no different, and while they are stored on YouTube’s servers, they still use up your internet bandwidth so that they can be delivered to your computer from YouTube’s servers. This essentially means that while you’re watching a YouTube video, YouTube will slowly send you the data needed to play the video (that way you don’t need to download it all first, and then watch it. This is called streaming).

What You Can Do to Fix Buffering Problems

Check to see if anything else is hogging up bandwidth-If YouTube videos are sputtering, check to see if there’s anything else on your home network that might be hogging up bandwidth.

Plug into an ethernet connection if you’re on a laptop-A hard-wired connection is always faster and more reliable than a wireless connection, so if you’re having problems with YouTube videos playing nicely, plug your laptop into ethernet to get the best possible connection.

Sit closer to the router - If you can’t connect to ethernet because you’re on a mobile device, like a smartphone or tablet, the next best thing to do is sit closer to the router. The farther you are away from the router, the weaker your internet connection gets, especially if there are walls between you and the router.

Update your software -Usually we wouldn’t necessarily suggest users update their software in order to fix a buffering YouTube video, but it can work sometimes. Updating your web browser and other pieces of software that deal with video (such as Adobe Flash) could possibly fix issues that you’re having with unstable video, but more often than not, it’s usually just an internet connection problem.

 When all else fails, restart everything in a proper way.