If you’re struggling to watch anything on YouTube at the moment you’re not alone. The service has been up and down over the past few days in South Africa resulting in buffering issues and at times, videos not loading at all. Usually, you would automatically refresh the page or restart your modem thinking your internet is having a cadenza but this time it isn’t your fault. In fact, it is Google’s problem and they are apparently “working on it”.
From my experience with this, it seems the problem is widespread across the Android, iOS, TV and gaming console apps as well as the web browser version too.
On Twitter, users are ranting about the issues with YouTube in South Africa. Many of them complain about the speed at which videos are loading. Others say that some videos don’t even load. There’s just a black screen that sits there for a few minutes.
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I had issues with some videos buffering and stuttering as a result of the connection. Some videos loaded at 480p and still buffered as they played.
On Reddit, it is the same story. Users claim that videos take over thirty seconds to load. A post on the r/SouthAfrica community highlights some of the frustrations South Africans are experiencing at the moment.
Since the post went live, users have discovered that these issues don’t only stem from YouTube. In fact, many of them are complaining about Google services in general. This includes installing Android apps, updating apps on your Android devices and even downloading and viewing files on your Google Drive. However, it isn’t confirmed to be as widespread as the YouTube problems.
The South African YouTube Downdetector page shows many reports from users. The reports slowed down overnight but this morning they started to spike again.
At the moment there doesn’t seem to be an exact fix. Some users claim that installing an ad blocker helps with the issues as the videos aren’t loading the ads properly which results in the hanging. Some users also say a VPN helps with the problem.
Internet provider VOX claims that Google engineers are working on the fault. The issues seem to be related to the Google Global Cache system. However, Google hasn’t been very open with regard to an ETA for a fix. According to MyBB The company says that ISPs that make use of their own cache system are affected even more by the ongoing issues.
We don’t know how long it will take to fix but it has been affecting users since 26 December so we hope it gets fixed soon.
