How to Fix Youtube Freezing on Chrome and Edge

Videos on Youtube are notorious for their constant freezes and glitches, especially if you are trying to play an HD video on a low-end computer. This problem occurs for plenty of users, independent of their setup or the browser they are using and the problem is something that was quite a big deal among the users who urged the browser developers to fix this problem.

The solution to this problem may not always be obvious but you should definitely try various methods before coming to a conclusion. The solutions provided should work for most people and for most browsers and make sure you don’t skip anything.

Solution 1: Update Your Graphics Driver

Updating the graphics drivers seems to have fixed the problem for most users as certain versions of the graphic card drivers were somewhat incompatible with new features of Youtube. Apart from this, updating the graphics driver can fix some of the issues you never even knew you had so it can only be a positive aspect.

Follow the steps below in order to update your graphics driver:

1. Click Start and type Run. Select Run. A Run dialog box will appear.
2. Type “devmgmt.msc” in the Run dialog box and click the OK button. This is to open the Device Manager Window.

3. Locate your graphics card driver by checking under the Display adapters section. Click on the arrow left to this section in order to view the list of Display adapter drivers.
4. Right-click on the adapter of your graphics card and select the Update driver option from the context menu. If you are using an integrated graphics card, there will probably only be one item on the list. If you are using an external graphics card, you can only update this one.

5. Click Search automatically for updated driver software. Then Windows will search and install the new driver for you.
6. Restart your PC for the change to take effect.

Note: You can also visit the site of the manufacturer which made your graphics card and download the latest driver from their site. They usually provide assistance when it comes to choosing the correct driver for your system.

Solution 2: Login and Out of Your Google Account

This is a particularly weird solution but users have reported that simply logging in and out of their Google Account fixed the issue for them completely. Your Google Account is associated with Youtube so that you can create a playlist and receive a personalized hub.

1. Click on the YouTube logo on any YouTube site to open the homepage of YouTube.
2. Click on the arrow beside the name of your account on the right section of the page’s navigation bar.

3. Click on “Sign Out” in the Options panel to sign out of YouTube.

Solution 3: Restore to the Old Version of Youtube

The new design of the Youtube website has caused stability and performance issues for plenty of its users and it probably has to deal with the fact that the new version is not well-optimized for low-end computers or for users who want to run videos parallel with some other resource heavy-task.

However, you can restore the old version of YouTube quite easily if you follow the instructions below:

1. Open YouTube homepage by clicking on the address bar of your browser and typing “youtube.com”.

2. Locate the profile picture icon on the top right part of the windows and click on the arrow pointing downwards.
3. Locate the Restore Old Youtube option from the dropdown menu. Answer Google’s questionnaire about the reason you are switching to the old version of the site and check to see if Youtube is still freezing.

Solution 4: Disable Some Unwanted Plugins and Extensions

Certain plugins and extensions are known to diminish the performance of any of the browsers you might have been using. Their plugins are often unwanted and undesired and were probably installed by mistake or by adware. Also, disable any and all adblockers that you might have on your computer. Follow the steps below in order to get rid of it.

Microsoft Edge:

1. Open the browser and click on the three horizontal dots at the top right part of the browser. This will open the dropdown menu.
2. Click on Extensions and remove anything you find suspicious, especially if they were added recently. Also, you can disable each one, check to see if the problem is solved and re-enable them one by one in order to see just which one was causing the issues.

Google Chrome:

1. Open Google Chrome and paste the following link in the address bar at the top of the browser’s window:

chrome://extensions/

2. Locate anything suspicious and either uncheck the box next to Enables or click on the trash icon to the right. Also, you can disable each one, check to see if the problem is solved and re-enable them one by one in order to see just which one was causing the issues.

If you still wish to use an adblocker, you can try Stands Fair Adblocker because it doesn’t reportedly trigger any issue with Youtube.

Solution 5: Turn Off Hardware Acceleration

Turning off hardware acceleration in your browser is definitely the top-recommended solution for this particular problem and it’s definitely no coincidence. Plenty of users were able to fix this issue after they disabled hardware acceleration so make sure you try this one out.

1. Open the Google Chrome browser from your PC.
2. Open the browser and click on the three horizontal dots at the top right part of the browser. It says Customize and control Google Chrome when you hover above it. This will open the dropdown menu.

3. Click on the Settings option near the bottom of the dropdown menu.
4. Scroll to the bottom of this page and click the Show advanced settings option.
5. Scroll to the bottom of the new page again, then uncheck the box to the left of Use hardware acceleration when available to remove the check and disable this option from Google Chrome.

Solution 6: Update Your Computer’s Drivers

Updating drivers is an important habit on its own but it’s also important to do it in order to prevent problems like this one from happening at all. Once you get used to keeping your drivers, updated, you will learn to check regularly and often.

Luckily, you can simply update all of your drivers which may be outdated and that will definitely fix your issue if it is driver-related.

1. Click Start and type Run. Select Run, A Run dialog box will appear.
2. Type “devmgmt.msc” in the Run box and click OK button. This is to open the Device Manager Window.

3. Locate some of the devices which may be in need of a new driver. Your best bet is to update as many devices as you can as you don’t know which one caused the issue.
4. Right-click on the device and select the Update driver option from the context menu.

5. Click Search automatically for updated driver software. Then Windows will search and install the new driver for you.
6. Restart your PC for the change to take effect.

Solution 7: Increase Disk Cache Size

In some cases, the browser might be running out of cache space due to which it might not be able to cache any more files. Therefore, in this step, we will be increasing the Disk Cache size. For that:

1. Navigate to the main installation folder of the browser that you are facing the issue with.
2. Right-click on the main executable of the folder and select “Send to” and then “Desktop (Create Shortcut)”.
3. This will create a shortcut to the browser on the desktop.
4. Right-click on this shortcut and select the “Properties” option.

   

5. In the “target” option, paste the following line at the end of the already written one with space.

   –disk-cache-size=1073741824

6. Click on “Apply” to save your changes and run the browser.
7. Check to see if the issue persists.

Solution 8: Perform System Restore

In some cases, the error might be due to a glitch with the operating system. Therefore, it is recommended to use a system restore point to restore Windows to an earlier date where the issue didn’t exist. This should get rid of the freezing issue with almost all browsers and you should be able to play your Youtube videos normally.

Solution 9: Using Workarounds

Apparently, restarting the Graphics Driver fixes the issue but most users report that it only does so for a short period of time. This, however, fixes the issue and many users are able to get back Youtube functionality. Therefore, in order to restart the Graphics Driver:

1. Press “Ctrl” + “Shift” + “Windows Key” + “B” keys simultaneously and it will restart the driver.
2. Make sure that the Youtube video is paused before you exit full screen because that can cause it to glitch out in some cases.
3. Another workaround is to put the computer to sleep whenever this happens and wake it back up. This has reportedly fixed the issue for some people.

Solution 10: Reinstall Chrome

In certain situations, you might actually have to reinstall Chrome to fix this issue because it seems to go away only if the installation is processed again. In order to do so:

1. Press “Windows” + “R” to open the Run prompt.
2. Type in “Control” and press “Enter”.

   

3. Click on the “Uninstall a Program” option.
4. Right-click on “Google Chrome” and select “Uninstall”.

   

5. Follow the on-screen prompts to uninstall Chrome.
6. Download Chrome from here and run the executable to install it.
7. Check to see if the issue persists

Note: You can do this for any browser but you will have to search for their respective download link.
Some common ones are listed below.
Firefox
Opera
Safari

Solution 11: Disabling Ethernet Driver

In some cases, the error message goes away if the ethernet driver is disabled by the user. Therefore, in this step, we will be using the network control panel to disable the ethernet driver. For that:

1. Press “Windows’ + “R” to open the Run prompt.
2. Type in “ncpa.cpl” and press “Enter”.

   

3. Right-click on the “Ethernet Driver” and select “Disable”.
4. Check to see if the issue persists.