Hello again,

 

I have had real problems with Google Chrome web browser over the past 3 or 4 days not playing YouTube videos back properly. There was no audio, and the playback would freeze up after about 10 seconds. These same videos played back perfectly using Internet Explorer 9 or Firefox. I am posting this here on Avsim because I blew a ton of time discovering the 'fix' - and in the hopes of lessening someone else's pain - and wasted time. Some folks chose to "opt in" to the HTML5 player trial on YouTube, but any videos that had ADVERTISING EMBEDDED would NOT play back. Since I wanted to be able to view ALL YouTube content without interference, the HTML5 trial was a non-winning solution.

 

The problem has to do with Google Chrome using automatic Flash updates - the 'latest' (Aug 3rd) Adobe Flash Player update has a 'bug' where 5.1 and 7.2 speaker playback within Windows 7 causes the Adobe Flash Player to crash in Google Chrome (freeze up after 10 seconds, or play back with NO AUDIO heard).

 

The temp workaround is to go to your soundcard in Control Panel (properties) and change your sound card properties to STEREO SPEAKERS instead of 5.1 or 7.2 surround-sound speaker setup. Instantly, the 'troubles' are solved. I wouldn't want to bore anyone with all the troubleshooting I did (to no avail) prior to discovering this out on one of the Google Chrome forums. Let's just say as an IT manager, it was both nettlesome and embarrassing at the same moment.

 

If you don't use Chrome, or you don't watch Videos from Mimeo or YouTube or some other sites within Chrome, you're already gone from this post. If you DO use Chrome I can recommend this as a good temporary solution 'for now' until Google engineers have their way with Adobe (maker of Flash). Of course if you are running a big dog surround audio system on your PC, you may not wish to forfeit that benefit for the sake of 'fixing' Chrome. In my case it was a non-issue, I only have stereo speakers and a subwoofer.

 

For the record, I am a big fan of Chrome, partly because the 'sandbox' technology that Google employs within Chrome to protect against hackers is appealing to me. All things considered, I have been satisfied with Chrome for quite some time, though I also have IE and Firefox on my PC. Until this problem occurred, I regarded Chrome as 'bulletproof'. Sigh.

Robert,

 

You don't use AdBlock, do you? That has caused lots of problems for me, so I got rid of it.

Same problem in IE. Sound plays but video stays still.

Robert,

 

You don't use AdBlock, do you? That has caused lots of problems for me, so I got rid of it.

 

No, Diego, I don't use AdBlock. Norton 360 is about it, plus a hardware firewall. I have resolved my issue though... at least THAT issue... (sigh)

 

Same problem in IE. Sound plays but video stays still.

 

I was actually having the problem where NO SOUND as well as freezing video. Have you tried disabling surround sound in Windows 7 and selecting 2-channel stereo instead for you sound card properties in Control Panel?

Hmmm..., that's weird. I do get Adobe Flash Player updates when I start my computer, which is something that I hate because it means that Adobe has something on my computer that starts up to check for updates.

Yup..Flash update did the trick. Should have known.

I had a similar issue, but it was working fine in IE.

 

What i ended up doing was going to

 

chrome://plugins/

 

this opened up the plugins enabled in google chrome. I actually had like 3 shockwave players enabled. By trial and error i found out which one to keep enabled and the solution fixed its self. You see the different ones by clicking the details button on the right side the + button and it will reveal different shock wave players.

 

Only one you wanted to enable is something along the lines of:

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash\NPSWF32_11_3_300_270.dll

 

Make sure sure if u have two others similar to

C:\Users\(name)\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\21.0.1180.60\gcswf32.dll

 

C:\Users\(name)\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\21.0.1180.60\PepperFlash\pepflashplayer.dll

to disable them.

I had a similar issue, but it was working fine in IE.

 

What i ended up doing was going to

 

chrome://plugins/

 

this opened up the plugins enabled in google chrome. I actually had like 3 shockwave players enabled. By trial and error i found out which one to keep enabled and the solution fixed its self. You see the different ones by clicking the details button on the right side the + button and it will reveal different shock wave players.

 

Only one you wanted to enable is something along the lines of:

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\Macromed\Flash\NPSWF32_11_3_300_270.dll

 

Make sure sure if u have two others similar to

C:\Users\(name)\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\21.0.1180.60\gcswf32.dll

 

C:\Users\(name)\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\Application\21.0.1180.60\PepperFlash\pepflashplayer.dll

to disable them.

 

I too read of such a possible solution as you detailed here. FWIW, Google themselves announced the 'temp workaround' that I detailed at the beginning of this thread as the suggested fix. And it was the ONLY thing that actually worked for me - switching Windows Sound Card properties to 2-channel Stereo from 5.x or 7.x surround sound. Again - I put this up only in hopes of sparing someone ELSE from blowing hours on an annoying and nettlesome problem. It only affected my CHROME browser, IE and Firefox played YouTube videos just fine. Enabling the YouTube HTML5 trial (opt-in) also works, but any YouTube video with advertising embedded will crash. No fan of advertising, but still I want to see EVERYTHING on YouTube, without limitation.