YouTube video playback freezes and keeps reloading every couple of minutes in Browser

Bug Reports
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1

REPRODUCIBILITY: Often
OS VERSION: 5.0.0.72
HARDWARE: Xperia 10 II
UI LANGUAGE: Finnish
REGRESSION:

DESCRIPTION:

I start playing a video (at 720p) in the Browser, and it plays fine but within minutes the video freezes (audio continues). Sometimes it recovers (the video skips and starts running again), but usually after some 10-15sec of frozen video, the audio stops too and YouTube’s spinning loading animation starts spinning. It spins for about 15-30secs, video goes black and playback resumes normally. Until it all repeats within minutes, making it very frustrating to try watching a video.
Test case, the issue happens for some reason in almost every video they release: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0Qw8GrOcp0

PRECONDITIONS:

Internet connection (wifi or mobile data)

STEPS TO REPRODUCE:

see description

EXPECTED RESULT:

Video plays OK

ACTUAL RESULT:

Video stops to buffer every couple of minutes

MODIFICATIONS:

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

The issue happens on both wifi and mobile data. I have cleared the browser cache. I am not logged in into YouTube. During playback the video’s timeline shows the that the video has buffered plenty forward so it’s not running out. Does not happen on all channels, but at least one does it practically every time (a new video is released). Most videos play just fine.

2

I have the same configuration. Opened the link and could watch the whole example video. It seems that the problem is not affecting my phone. My phone is not currently my daily driver so I have not installed e.g. Android App Support and have flashed it recently. Currently I am having only couple of apps installed, which may explain something.

3

Same here, X10 II. It works.

Try to clear cookies and site data for all time, same for cache of course. All time.

Do you have other apps running while watching the video?

You might want to install a system monitor (Crest fork) and see what resources are at their limit during playback.

That said, I much prefer SailPipe to watch YT content.

4

I attempted to watch the afronementioned video with uTube but it failed to find streams for it. I was wondering if this is something to do with different resolutions available on YouTube for a video or not (soon after upload) and perhaps some specific format fails on playback…?

I’ll install SailPipe and test that too!

5

Answer to both microtube not working and your issue might be reason as to why microtube is not working.

Youtube recently moved to their proprietary streaming format called SABR (Server ABR). Microtube does not support it so it lost ability to play youtube videos altogether. And it might be causing issue in browser

1 Like
6

Do you have some patches from Patchmanager active? I had similar issues and were because of some patches, I don’t remember which ones.

7

I don’t have any patches. This has now happened on other channels as well, the key seems to be that when the videos are new (no streams found in other players) they stutter heavily with Browser, older stuff seems to work fine.

8

PS: these days I much prefer SailTube to watch YT content

9

Did you get any solution for this? I’m having the same issue with my Jolla Phone 2026. Sometimes the videos are fine and sometimes the video freezes and audio continues normally. This happens in the native browser and Brave android browser and it’s not limited to YouTube only, it can happen basically on any site containing videos. I’ve noticed that the video keeps playing normally if I move the page a bit with my finger while playing videos and touching the display also gets the video to move again if it stops when I’m not touching anything. Could it maybe be some aggressive background task management etc?

1 Like
10

I’ve since upgaded from Xperia 10 II to Jolla Phone 2026. I’ve seen the issue very rarely and it seems to resolve itself (much faster) so I haven’t thought it as much of a problem now. Can’t tell if this is due to the newer OS, newer hardware or something else completely.

11

desktop mode helps for me. in this youtubevideos play fine

12

oh and if i start the video and switch back to mobile mode it continues to play, and i can open other videos. only if i open a new tab with youtube it freezes again

13

I found Youtube unusable until I installed the small app Qualcomm Tuning Patch from Storeman (you will find it under the category Applications). Apparently SFOS switches of some performance enhancements in the Qualcomm chip, which slows down the performance of graphics, touch screen and some more.

I have a Sony Xperia 10 II with SFOS 5.1.0.11.

After downloading (installing), restart your found. There is no app or app icon to be found. Just restart the phone.