Solved: YouTube Videos Won’t Play on MacBook Pro

‘My MacBook Pro keeps crashing when watching YouTube videos not playing. Sometimes the screen freezes or behaves abruptly forcing to restart the system. Is there any solution to fix YouTube videos won’t play on macbook problem?’

Whether Olympic highlights, live NBA games, TV shows, movies, or tutorials, unable to watch your favourite programs on YouTube can be really annoying. This becomes even more frustrating when you try to view the online videos, the Mac system crashes. You either have to restart or completely shut down your MacBook to work again.

While trying to watch YouTube or other online videos, you face issues like MacBook crashing, Safari unable to play YouTube, slow downloading, or interruption during buffering etc. Most of the time, it is difficult to find the actual cause of the problem. It may be possible your macOS or browser version is outdated. Or else, you are trying to play 4K high-resolution videos of the VP9 format in Safari which only supports H.265 videos.  Sometimes it can be just the faulty network connection that leads to online videos not playing on MacBook Pro.

How to Fix the Problem of YouTube Videos Not Playing on MacBook Pro?

You can always repair and playback corrupt videos saved on Mac, SD card, or any other storage media using video repair applications like Stellar Repair for Video , but when YouTube or other websites videos do not play on MacBook Pro, it requires a completely different approach to fix the problem.

 

To begin with, you should be aware of the three basic requirements to play any YouTube video:

• Latest browser version
• Updated Adobe Player
• A continuous high-speed internet connection

All the fixes to resolve YouTube videos not playing issues are spun around the above three necessities.

Ways to Fix YouTube Videos Not Playing on MacBook Pro 1: Fix your internet connection 2: Reinstall Adobe Player 3: Disable Plugins in Safari or the browser you are using 4: Update Safari to the latest version 5: Repair Disk Permissions 6:  Enable JavaScript in Safari

There are some other simple hacks too shared later in this post that you can try to fix the issue of online Youtube videos not playing on MacBook.

Way 1: Fix your internet connection

A slow internet connection or unstable network can prevent high-quality YouTube videos to play smoothly. Some YouTube videos such as TV shows, live events, and movies require high-speed internet connection with 1+ Mbps for streaming. To watch other smaller online video clips, make sure your internet connection is at least over 500 Kbps.

Alternatively, you can also choose to watch videos in lower quality. To do so, follow the below steps:

1. Open the YouTube video
2. Click on the Settings gear icon at the bottom right corner of the video 
3. Tap on the Quality and select your desired low-quality view like 360p to 480p

Read more on methods to fix bad quality videos

Way 2: Reinstall Adobe Player

Although YouTube has moved away from Flash to HTML5 player, but some users try to the play videos using Flash Player in their browser. Suggest to update the flash player might resolve the problem.

Try by first uninstalling the Adobe Player on your MacBook Pro followed by reinstallation.

To uninstall, follow the steps in the below link:

https://helpx.adobe.com/flash-player/kb/uninstall-flash-player-mac-os.html

Enable Flash Player in your browser via Safari > Preferences > Websites > Plugins > Adobe Flash Player (click the checkbox). The steps are applicable for Mac OS X 10.11, macOS 10.12, High Sierra 10.13, macOS Mojave 10.14 and macOS Catalina & above.

Next, to reinstall Adobe Player, follow the given link: https://get.adobe.com/flashplayer/otherversions/

Way 3: Disable Plugins in Safari or the browser you are using

In case your YouTube videos are not playing on Safari, try disabling the Plugins in your browser.

Steps to disable Plugins in Safari

1. Go to Safari > Preferences > Security.
2. Deselect Allow Plugins (Turns off all plug-ins for all websites) 

 

Please note that you should only remove the unnecessary plugins.

Way 4: Update Safari to the latest version

To update to the latest Safari version, install the latest macOS from Mac App store. Make sure your MacBook Pro meets the prerequisites for the latest OS version. For instance, if you are upgrading to High Sierra, it will require at least 2 GB memory and 14.3 GB of storage space.

Way 5: Repair Disk Permissions

The Repair Disk Permissions repairs permissions by checking if the files and folders on MacBook Pro drive are correct. In case of any discrepancies, it changes permissions to the expected settings.

Steps to Repair Disk Permissions:

• Choose Go > Utilities > Double-click Disk Utility
• Select the desired disk from the left pane for which you want to repair permissions.
• Click First Aid
• Click Repair Disk Permissions

Way 6:  Enable JavaScript in Safari

To enable JavaScript in Safari follow the below steps:

• Go to Settings > Show Advanced Settings > Privacy section > Content Settings
• In JavaScript Section, select Allow sites to run JavaScript
• Click OK and refresh your Safari

Other hacks to get by the online Youtube video not playing issue   Close all browser windows when viewing YouTube video Remove all history, caches, cookies & temp. files on Mac Play in another browser like Chrome, Mozilla, Opera Log in your MacBook Pro as a Guest user, and try watching YouTube video in Safe Mode Instead of wireless network connection, try once through a wired internet connection. Refresh your browser window by clicking on F5 key or Command + R key Allow sites to run JavaScript, by clicking on the settings icon > Show Advanced Settings > Privacy section > Content Settings

To Wrap-up

By updating your Mac browser, MacOS, and flash player you can solve the MacBook crash issue while playing YouTube videos. However, it is recommended to attempt the above mentioned simple hacks too before moving to rigorous upgrading process. Who knows, your YouTube videos start playing with least efforts!