"If you're not a YouTube Premium subscriber, chances are that you're using an ad blocker for the streaming platform to avoid its many ads. That ad blocker could be why YouTube hasn't loaded properly for you or many others today. Some users took to platforms like Reddit to share their YouTube outages (via 9to5Google). While DownDetector also showcased a notable spike, indicating YouTube is experiencing problems, the root cause appears to be with the use of ad blockers on the web, and not YouTube itself."
"Users who reported the issue have mentioned that their YouTube homepage went blank or YouTube just stopped working, in one case mid-video. In other cases, selected videos just didn't load. People had varying success with playing YouTube in a different browser, loading it in incognito mode, and in removing ad blockers. YouTube engineers had their hands full today as there was also a UI bug affecting YouTube Shorts."
"Using ad blockers with YouTube has caused a variety of issues for users in the past. YouTube started warning users about possible bans since 2023 over the use of ad block software. YouTube viewership has dropped significantly recently, with some creators reporting a 50% drop in views. YouTube itself has posited that ad blockers are at least partly to blame in all this."
Many viewers use ad blockers when not subscribed to YouTube Premium. Ad blockers on the web caused YouTube loading problems for many users today, producing blank homepages, stalled videos, and selected videos failing to load. Some users restored playback by switching browsers, using incognito mode, or removing ad blockers. A separate UI bug removed interaction buttons from YouTube Shorts, an issue that first appeared in September and seems unrelated to the ad blocker problem. YouTube has previously warned about ad blocker use since 2023 and links ad blockers to recent drops in creator viewership; subscribing to Premium or using third-party workarounds can address ad-blocker issues.
Read at Android Police
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