YouTube is a video sharing platform that is owned and managed by Google. Anyone can create a free account and upload their videos on this website. It is currently one of the most visited sites in the world today as it hosts a wide range of videos. Although accessing this website from a computer is easy there are cases when issues can occur. In this latest installment of our troubleshooting series we will tackle the YouTube videos will not play in windows 10 issue.
Before performing any of the recommended troubleshooting steps listed below it’s best to restart your computer first. This action refreshes the operating system and removes any corrupt temporary data that could be causing the problem.
There are several factors that can cause this particular problem ranging from a browser problem to an interference from the antivirus program. Listed below are the recommended troubleshooting steps you need to do to fix this problem.
Update your graphics card drivers
The first thing you will need to do in this case is to make sure that your computer has the latest graphics drivers installed. If you are using an outdated driver then there’s a chance that the YouTube videos won’t play in your PC.
If you have an NVIDIA graphics card then follow the steps listed below.
- Press Win+R (Windows logo key and R key) at the same time to invoke the Run box.
- Type msconfig and click OK. Then the System Configurations will open.
- When System Configuration opens, click the Boot tab. Under Boot options, check Safe boot then click OK.
- When you’re prompted to restart your computer to apply these changes, click Restart then you will boot into Safe Mode.
- Go to your local hard disk by clicking on This PC then Local Disk C. You should be able to see the NVIDIA folder right there. Right-click on it and choose Delete.
- Click Start and type Run. Select Run, the Run dialog box will appear.
- Type “devmgmt.msc” in the run box and click the OK button which should open the Device Manager Window.
- Expand the “Display Adapters” field. This will list all network adapters that the machine has installed. Right click on the Nvidia adapter you want to uninstall and select “Uninstall”.
- Click “OK” when prompted to uninstall the device. This will remove the adapter from the list and uninstall the driver.
- Press Win+R (Windows logo key and R key) at the same time to invoke the Run box.
- Type msconfig and click OK. Then the System Configurations will open.
- When System Configuration opens, click the Boot tab. Under Boot options, uncheck Safe boot then click OK.
- When you’re prompted to restart your computer to apply these changes, click Restart.
- Download the latest NVIDIA driver for your computer from here https://www.nvidia.com/Download/index.aspx.
- Run the setup file and follow the instructions which appear on screen. Choose the Custom installation option and check all the boxes in the custom install options windows. Also check the box which states “perform clean install”.
- Restart your computer
If you have an AMD graphics card then follow the steps listed below.
- Download the AMD Cleanup Utility from here https://www.amd.com/en/support/kb/faq/gpu-601.
- Locate the file where it was saved and double-click on the “AMDCleanupUtility.exe’ file.
- A dialogue box should appear stating AMD Cleanup Utility has detected the system is not in safe mode and provide an option to reboot the system to run the Utility in safe mode:
- Click “Yes” the system will be rebooted and AMD Cleanup Utility will run in safe mode.
- The next dialogue box provides a warning message stating that the AMD Cleanup Utility will remove all AMD driver and application components.
- Click “OK” to continue
- After clicking “OK” the Utility will be minimized to the notification area (system tray) and the progress will be displayed as a tool tip.
- The cleanup process will continue to run in the background. To check the progress, hover the mouse over the AMD icon in the notification area.
- Once the cleanup process is finished, a message is displayed stating it has successfully completed. Click “View Report” to see the list of components that were uninstalled, otherwise click “Finish” to exit the Utility.
- Reboot your computer.
Once the drivers have been uninstalled it’s time to install the latest driver update. You can do this with the help of the AMD Driver Auto-detect tool which you can download from https://www.amd.com/en/support.
- Visit the AMD Driver and Support page and see section Auto-Detect and Install Radeon Graphics Drivers for Windows.
- Click the DOWNLOAD NOW button to begin downloading the executable file for the tool.
- Once download is complete, run the file to launch the Installer.
- Click Install to extract the needed files.
- After file extraction is complete the tool should automatically launch.
- Review the End User License Agreement and information about the User Experience Improvement Program.
- Click Accept and Install to continue or close the window to exit the AMD Driver Auto-detect tool.
- After clicking Accept and Install, the tool will attempt to detect the installed AMD graphics product and operating system.
- Upon successful detection of your system configuration, the tool will display the latest Recommended and Optional driver packages that are compatible with your graphics product, as well as the currently installed driver version
- Select the desired version and choose Express installation.
- After the driver package has been downloaded, installation should begin automatically.
- Restart your computer
If you have an integrated graphics (Intel)
- Press the Windows Logo key + R to launch a Run
- Type devmgmt.msc into the Run dialog and press Enter to launch the Device Manager.
- In the Device Manager, expand the Display adapters
- Right-click on your graphics drivers, click on Uninstall and then go through the uninstallation wizard to uninstall the drivers.
- Restart your computer. Once your computer boots up, it should automatically reinstall the same version of the graphics drivers.
Once the graphics driver is updated try to check if the YouTube not playing issue still occurs.
Disable hardware acceleration in Chrome
When hardware acceleration is activated it will use your graphics card to help in rendering the graphics. Most of the time this can lead to a great performance however sometimes this can lead to certain problems especially if your computer does not have a powerful graphics card. To check if this is the culprit, you should try to turn off this setting.
- Open Google Chrome and click on the menu icon (three vertical dots) present at the top right side of the screen.
- Click on Settings present at the near end of the menu.
- Go to the very end and click on Advanced.
- Go to the end of the tab again until you find the subheading named as “System”. Under it, uncheck the option which says “Use hardware acceleration when available”
- Relaunch your browser
Check if the YouTube videos won’t load issue still occurs.
Clear the browser cache and data
There’s a possibility that a corrupted cached data in the browser is causing this problem. To eliminate this possibility you will need to clear the cache and data.
Google Chrome
- On your computer, open Chrome.
- At the top right, click More.
- Click More tools and then Clear browsing data.
- At the top, choose a time range. To delete everything, select All time.
- Next to “Cookies and other site data” and “Cached images and files,” check the boxes.
- Click Clear data.
Microsoft Edge
- In the top right hand corner you’ll see three dots in a horizontal line. Clicking here opens a drop down that reveals the settings option. Select “Settings”.
- Once in settings, select “Choose what to clear”.
- You’ll reach a screen that has you check off what you’d like to clear. It is recommended that you check off the first four boxes (Browsing History, Cookies and saved website data, Cached data and files, and Download history). Next, click “Clear”.
- Restart the browser
Mozilla Firefox
- Click on your tools bar.
- Click on Settings.
- On the menu to the right, select “Privacy”.
- Under the history option, there is a shortcut titled “clear your recent history” – click that.
- Select only the top four options and hit clear now.
- Close out of your browser for changes to take effect.
Safari
- Click on the Safari drop-down menu and select Preferences.
- Click the Advanced tab. Select the Show Develop menu in menu bar checkbox and close the Preferences window.
- Select the Develop drop-down menu. Click Empty Cache.
- You may want to also clear your browser history. Select the History drop-down, then Clear History.
Try to check if the YouTube videos won’t play issue still occurs.
Install Media Feature pack
Some versions of windows 10 will not have the required Media Feature Pack installed. This applies to the European and Korean versions of Windows 10. You can manually install the Media Feature Pack by downloading it from here https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=48231.