Youtube bug?

April 17, 2008 1:44 AM

Is anyone else hearing the sound from youtube videos played using the spiffy in-page viewer, but not actually seeing the video or player?

CSS layering issue, maybe? Just me? I know it used to work. Honest it did.

posted by maxwelton to Bugs at 1:44 AM (22 comments total)

It is just me, isn't it? *Sniff* I'll just get my things.
posted by maxwelton at 1:45 AM on April 17, 2008

I could view them on the main page but once I clicked on the thread I wasn't able to. I hit refresh a couple of times and that seemed to fix it.
posted by lilkeith07 at 2:09 AM on April 17, 2008

Huh, as it turns out, those are my symptoms exactly, and your cure works. I feel better but will wash my hands more diligently in the future.
posted by maxwelton at 3:19 AM on April 17, 2008

You are not alone, maxwelton. Same problem here. Weird.
posted by Locative at 4:22 AM on April 17, 2008

Me too. Vista, Firefox. I don't think it ever worked right for me, though.
posted by Pater Aletheias at 5:48 AM on April 17, 2008

Yep. I think it's FF-specific. Maddening as all hell, too. I stopped trying months ago.
posted by middleclasstool at 5:54 AM on April 17, 2008

same here, FF, Windows XP. Will try the refresh thing when I get a chance.
posted by desjardins at 6:05 AM on April 17, 2008

Me. I also can't see the podcast controls except for the very middle part. I'm thinking that's an adblock issue? I don't know.
posted by Stewriffic at 6:39 AM on April 17, 2008

That wasn't very clear. What I mean is that with the podcast page, the actual graphic where you can click on play, etc, only shows up partly. If I click on the right place, I can make it play.
posted by Stewriffic at 6:47 AM on April 17, 2008

Not Firefox specific. I'm having the same problem with Safari on OS X. I thought it may have been due to the Safari update released yesterday. Nice to know it's not.
posted by D.C. at 6:49 AM on April 17, 2008

To clarify (hey, I haven't gone to sleep yet), I'm seeing the problem when clicking through to a YouTube page, not the in-page viewer here (which I don't use). Sound, but white background where the video & controls should be.
posted by D.C. at 6:52 AM on April 17, 2008

I've been having this issue since the in-page viewer was created. I use Firefox on both Vista and XP, and the big problem is that the error is completely unpredictable. Sometimes it works perfectly, sometimes the in-page viewer only works on the main page, sometimes only on the thread, sometimes not at all. I think there have been several half-hearted MeTa attempts to shoot this trouble, but the random nature of it is frustrating.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:58 AM on April 17, 2008

Oh, and OSX, Firefox, Adblock.
Everything at work functions just fine. Firefox, XP, no adblock.
posted by Stewriffic at 7:08 AM on April 17, 2008

I've had that problem in the past, and mostly gave up on using those little icons to view the videos. The last few times It's worked fine though.

Also, why on earth are the video windows modal? Like, what's the point of making it so you can't scroll around or click other links on metafilter while viewing the videos? It's not like that's the default behavior of a website, you actually have to write extra code to disable those features.

So, why is it done?
posted by delmoi at 7:11 AM on April 17, 2008

I get this sometimes as well, and a refresh fixes it for me too. It's pretty strange.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:38 AM on April 17, 2008

My anecdata: on Windows XP, FF, the window will pop open but the video doesn't load - or, sometimes, the sound will, but not the video. On my laptop (powerbook g4 10.4.11, FF), the window rarely fails.

Haven't tried the refresh thing yet - will do so next time.
posted by rtha at 8:55 AM on April 17, 2008

I gave up trying to view them on MeFi because of the same problem awhile back. Now, even though the option is still checked in my preferences, I can't view them on MeFi at all ... no icon. Nothing.

ff2, xp, flash v.9
posted by squeak at 10:02 AM on April 17, 2008

So, why is it done?

I'll take a stab at it. The MeFi Youtube player isn't solely about efficiency. It's about the experience of watching a video. Why do some movie theaters still draw a curtain before the big show? Wouldn't it be more efficient to have no covering at all? Having the site dim in the background and the sole video appear focuses your attention on it. I know I don't want to be distracted by text while I watch Charlie the Unicorn.

We don't take anything away if you enable the YT player. You can still click the original link to open it in a new browser window/tab. You can still click and go directly to youtube to watch the video. The modal player window is an extra.

Now this argument breaks down if it's not working. Having it work intermittently or with a refresh is frustrating because it's hard to point to a specific problem keeping it from displaying.

squeak, the MeFi YT player is based on a cookie that's set in your browser. So you might need to click 'preferences' above and just re-save your profile to make sure the cookie is set. Especially if you haven't logged in for a while.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:42 AM on April 17, 2008

I've been getting this for a while as well in XP / FF2 / Adblock Plus / Flash 9, intermittently. For what it's worth, I haven't seen it occur in Firefox 3b5 yet, though I've only been using that for a week or so.
posted by whir at 11:18 AM on April 17, 2008

Thanks pb, that worked like a charm.
posted by squeak at 11:21 AM on April 17, 2008

I made some changes to the way the YT player writes out the Flash, and I found it more solid in FF/Win. Let me know if that helps. (You might need to reload the page you're clicking from to make sure you're getting the latest code.)
posted by pb (staff) at 1:34 PM on April 17, 2008

Thanks, pb! It works!

(If I could be at the Cambridge meetup, I would buy you a beer.)
posted by rtha at 2:31 PM on April 17, 2008