Prevent Auto-Play & Prevent Auto-Buffering broken with HTML5 player as of yesterday

[Creat]

Hello,

I didn't see this reported yet and wanted to make sure it's known: Since roughly 12 hours ago (let's say 27th November, about 22:00 CET) both features no longer work at all when using the HTML5 player (in Chrome). Switching the player manually to "flash" works, but that has other issues for me so it's not an option unfortunately.

I assume YouTube just changed something again so this broke or something?

Chrome: 41.0.2224.3 dev-m, 32 bit YouTube Center: dev build 436

[YePpHa]

It seems as though the changes I made to prevent auto-play broke it for some I suppose. Related #1204.

[jasonycw]

Same situation, prevent auto play is very inconsistent this few days. When I open the page in the background tab, over 50% of the time, the prevent auto play is not working. And I need to switch to that tab, refresh and 70% of the time, prevent auto play works.

And sometime, the HTML5 player cannot be clicked to play when the prevent auto play works.

Chrome: stable 39.0.2171.71 m YouTube Center: Developer Version - Build #441

[Creat]

As an update: With Build 441 the "prevent autoplay" is still very inconsistent (as jasonycw reported above). For me it mostly doesn't work though (more or less only on reload, and even then only 50% of the time). But even if it does work, "prevent auto-buffering" never works.

This is a problem for someone like me who likes to keep quite a few youtube tabs open as a sort of "to be watched" list. When I start my browser, everything starts buffering and it takes many minutes for this to subside and I can actually use the internet for anything else...

Edit: still the same as described with Build 445 Edit: and with build 448 as well

[Fironet]

Not sure if it's the same problem as I'm experiencing, but in the last few days none of the buffering options have prevented Youtube from loading the entire video.

Normally the buffering only loads a segment then waits for the playback to catch up before loading some more, but now it just keeps loading on every video regardless of the settings.

[Lucatir]

@Fironet Did you check that you did not accidentally disable DASH Playback?

[Fironet]

It's enabled, but I just found the cause - checking 'Enable custom buffer' seems to have this effect.

Tried to reproduce this in private mode browsing in Firefox and the buffering worked correctly with 'Enable custom buffer' checked/un-checked, however then tried in non-private browsing mode and it's definitely related to the 'Enable custom buffer' being checked. Loads the entire video with it enabled even at the very lowest non-zero value on the slider.

[Creat]

Just to clarify that for me: I don't use "enable custom buffer", and I'm trying to disable buffering AND playback, so everything on the Player / Auto-Play page is ticked. While stopping playback works subjectively a little better with the current dev build of 449, every video still buffers. I'd say it buffers the normal amount, but in any case it still buffers.

Windows 7 x64, Chrome 41.0.2236.0 dev-m (32 bit)

[Fironet]

@Creat, yeah I realize since discovering the cause I've been experiencing a separate issue (although a few reports seem buffer related recently). Will probably write a new issue sometime.

[Creat]

Just to confirm: this is still an issue for me. I'm on build 459 by now (which should be the current dev build) and the situation was unchanged over the recent days/versions. Sometimes videos are stopped initially, sometimes they play. They are still always buffering, no matter what.

I haven't mentioned this yet, but it might make a difference: I have "Remove advertisement" unchecked (i.e. I want to see the ads). Just mentioned now for completeness sake (but showing an ad doesn't seem to correlate with weather or not the video is correctly stopped).