Hi groovyMac users–if you’re like me, then you’ve noticed that starting this month, YouTube has been experiencing some pretty harsh lag. This seems to be confined to Google Chrome users, and, if I’m not mistaken, seems to be more prevalent for OS X and Macbook users as well. Essentially, the YouTube slowdown is pronounced in the form of choppy video, yet inexplicably smooth audio. Even weirder, the video lag ceases if you wiggle your mouse around.
If you were considering reporting the problem to Google, don’t bother–they know. And for now, there is no permanent fix. But there are three workarounds:
- Clear your cache before visiting YouTube (pain in the butt).
- Use a different browser like IE or Firefox (Heaven forbid!)
- Visit YouTube in incognito mode (most convenient)
Given that this YouTube/Chrome video lag seems to stem from cache issues and/or other data that Chrome/YouTube are tracking–let’s remember now that both YouTube and Chrome are owned and developed by the big G–I’m going to have to go out on a limb here and say that this is kind of fishy. Does this YouTube lag have something to do with a recent update to YouTube and/or Chrome that adds some extra (and buggy) layer of user tracking? Maybe.
Google’s in yr computerz. Trackin wutz you watch.
Stay tuned for a permanent fix for this issue.
Or just simply remove all extentions.. Works for me
it worked for me, thanks
That’s interesting Rookie. What would be even more interesting is if you could spare a moment to figure out exactly which extension is the culprit… Going to be doing some testing with this!
Ok, so I went ahead and checked out the installed extensions:
chrome://chrome/extensions/
One extension caught my attention:
Screen Capture (by Google) 5.0.4
Mmm screen capture. That sounds like it could have an impact on video. So I disabled it and Pooof. All troubles were gone.
Screen capture? Installed without my prior consent?? Mmmm. I absolutely loooovvvee Chrome, but this sucks. Big time. Mmmmm I’m not sure what t do next. Looks like I’ll be needing to invest some time in getting up to speed with Chromium.
wow. very nice. Great tip Stijn!
I ‘ve followed step by step what to do and it worked!! thank you so much I was going mad!!!C
heers dude!!
Excellent. Glad it worked. Thanks for the feedback!