Youtube unresponsiveness and interrupted playback

[coltson]

When entering a youtube's page, the video starts playing normally, but soon the system shows a lot of unresponsiveness and the playback usually is interrupted with the error message: "Something went wrong. Refresh or try again latter". during this stage.

The error console shows this error message countless times:

Code: Select all

Error: too much recursion
Source File: https://www.youtube.com/s/_/ytmainappweb/_/js/k=ytmainappweb.kevlar_base.en_US.TfGgm6-Cpog.es5.O/am=AAAAAAIAQABACA/d=1/br=1/rs=AGKMywHJ1cglMPSgY0sspMNbN4LxR9s0tA/m=kevlar_base_module,kevlar_main_module,kevlar_base_sync_mod_chunk
Line: 11075

And warning messages such as this

Code: Select all

Timestamp: 06/19/2026 03:08:23 PM
Warning: unreachable code after return statement
Source File: https://www.google.com/js/th/mgWi-v0llvQATRICeM5vcCzU2Hg2w9kgBkYKiTFQ4gg.js line 2 > eval
Line: 2500, Column: 27263
Source Code:
return"array";for(undefined;v instanceof Object;0){return K;if(true)break}U=Object.prototype.toString.call(v);for(![]!=( 

also multiple times.

Note that the video playback interruptions does not always happen. Sometimes it continues to play, and after some time, the unresponsiveness goes away, if a switch away from youtube to another tab

[andyprough]

When entering a youtube's page, the video starts playing normally, but soon the system shows a lot of unresponsiveness and the playback usually is interrupted with the error message: "Something went wrong. Refresh or try again latter". during this stage.

It would probably help if we could see a bit about how your system and your version of Pale Moon are set up. In Pale Moon could you go to Help - Troubleshooting Information, and click the button there "Copy text to clipboard", and come here and paste it in code tags?

[Gemmaugr]

This actually happened once to me too today. It's something that occurs very rarely for me. A blinking timer happens more often, but that's seldom too. Most of the time a simple refresh will fix it for me, but I also have a host of uBO, eMatrix, and GreaseMonkey scripts to deal with youtube. A good Troubleshooting post would help indeed. Then we might go over my setup and see if it helps you too. That said, it seems like youtube is constantly tinkering with itself every day, doing backend and frontend A/B testing changes (to discriminate against other browsers, like with badly muxed VP9 formats, deprecated shadowdom versions and useragent slowdowns and get people to stop using content-blockers)..

[KlarkKentThe3rd]

"Nice" to know this is happening to others. With me more often cause of old hardware and OS, but at least YT slowness and bugginess on PM is common.

[dinosaur]

Yeah, Youtube can be a PITA, sometimes most often.

I'd recommend using uBlock origin and refreshing its "built-in" filters lists whenever Youtube starts behaving annoyingly again (attempting to force ads down your throat).

Also, increasing the network buffers (which are especially small by default with PM) helps a lot to avoid "freezes" (buffering delays) while YT videos are playing: in about:config, you can increase network.buffer.cache.size and network.buffer.cache.count to whatever value you need for YT to stop pausing amid 4K video playbacks. I'm using respectively 268435456 (256MB) and 64 for these settings.

[Gemmaugr]

Seems youtube has broken something fundamental today. Comments won't load. Infinite loading won't show any more "extra" side-feed recommendations or channel videos beyond what initially loaded.

[Night Wing]

@ Gemmaugr

I am not having any problems with YouTube. I have been on TY for the past two hours too. I am not running into any infinite loading for any video. There are other videos to the right of the main video and the comment for this video is appearing. To make my point, below is a link to one of my sleep videos. If there is something else which you see, but I do not in my screenshot, it is because I have made it not show according to my preferences on YouTube.

Keep in mind I am now using, at the time of this post, 64 bit (GTK3) linux Pale Moon 34.3.1 running in 64 bit MX Linux 25.2 (Infinity) Xfce. Also, I do not have a YT account. And uBlock Origin 1.16.6.1 is enabled for YT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg4niYQCCVc

And below the video are the comments which are seen in my screen shot. And my linux Panel at the far right shows the time, day and date when I made this screenshot.

[Gemmaugr]

@ Gemmaugr

I am not having any problems with YouTube. I have been on TY for the past two hours too. I am not running into any infinite loading for any video. There are other videos to the right of the main video and the comment for this video is appearing. To make my point, below is a link to one of my sleep videos. If there is something else which you see, but I do not in my screenshot, it is because I have made it not show according to my preferences on YouTube.

Keep in mind I am now using, at the time of this post, 64 bit (GTK3) linux Pale Moon 34.3.1 running in 64 bit MX Linux 25.2 (Infinity) Xfce. Also, I do not have a YT account. And uBlock Origin 1.16.6.1 is enabled for YT.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eg4niYQCCVc

And below the video are the comments which are seen in my screen shot. And my linux Panel at the far right shows the time, day and date when I made this screenshot.

The videos themselves load fine, but not additional side-feed recommendations or comments. It worked yesterday (actually 02:00 today, but before sleep/previous session), but not today, and I've made no changes to my setup. I'm using PureURL, eMatrix and uBO 1.16.6.1 too, with various uBO content block filters and some greasemonkey scripts as usual.

I tried creating screenshots, but whenever I try loading comments or the extra sidefeed vids, the page slows the browser down to a 1fps crawl. As long as I don't scroll down at all, from the video I'm watching, it works as normal. Well, "normal", with YT's infamous daily A/B testing..

[Night Wing]

I'm using PureURL, eMatrix and uBO 1.16.6.1 too, with various uBO content block filters and some greasemonkey scripts as usual.

I do "not" use PureURL. I do "not" use eMatrix. I do "not" use any greasemonkey scripts. What I "do" use is the standard UBO 1.16.6.1 stock filers which come with UBO. I do "not" add any customized filters to UBO concerning YT.

And I do "not" see any YT advertisements (ads) either. If you look at my screenshot (attachment) in my previous post, in the far upper right hand corner, you will see the red colored UBO button where it was blocking 25 ads.

To sum up. The problem you are having with YT is on your end some place. Take it from me. I basically "live" on YT everyday, day and night and the problem is not on my end.

And I could give you many more video links on a variety of subjects where I have no problem with the videos and can see comments as long as the uploader for the video allows comments.

But to slightly shift gears, try an experiment. Do you have any problems viewing a Vimeo video? I have no problems viewing Vimeo videos either. See if the link below showing Josie Prendergast surfing waves on her custom made McTavish "Sugar" 10'8" surfing glider (board).

And if you scroll on down the page below the video, you should see other featured videos. BTW, there were no comments for this video since glider surfboards are considered "niche" (not popular) with the surfing community when this video was uploaded 5 years ago.

https://vimeo.com/473724227?fl=pl&fe=vl

[Gemmaugr]

I'm using PureURL, eMatrix and uBO 1.16.6.1 too, with various uBO content block filters and some greasemonkey scripts as usual.

To sum up. The problem you are having with YT is on your end some place. Take it from me. I basically "live" on YT everyday, day and night and the problem is not on my end.

But to sightly shift gears, try an experiment. Do you have any problems viewing a Vimeo video? I have no problems viewing Vimeo videos either. See if the link below showing Josie Prendergast surfing waves on her custom made McTavish "Sugar" 10'8" surfing glider (board).

And if you scroll on down the page below the video, you should see other featured videos. BTW, there were no comments for this video since glider surfboards are considered "niche" (not popular) with the surfing community when this video was uploaded 5 years ago.

I also live on YT basically every day, and rarely have issues. I guess I'll have to start experimenting, which is always a bother. The greasemonkey scripts are for age verification bypass, downvotes, fixing subscription feed to list and fixing side-feed to smaller thumbnails. What I remove with uBO My Filters;

Code: Select all

www.youtube.com##ytd-reel-shelf-renderer.ytd-item-section-renderer.style-scope
www.youtube.com###items > ytd-reel-shelf-renderer.ytd-structured-description-content-renderer.style-scope
www.youtube.com##.ytp-cards-teaser
www.youtube.com###fulfilled-layout > .ytd-ad-slot-renderer.style-scope
www.youtube.com###donation-shelf
www.youtube.com##ytd-merch-shelf-renderer.ytd-watch-flexy.style-scope
www.youtube.com###middle-row > .ytd-watch-metadata.style-scope
www.youtube.com##.ytd-watch-flexy.style-scope > .ytd-info-panel-container-renderer.style-scope

I've already updated uBO lists, but I could try disabling PureURL and then removing the last two uBO My Filters.

Regarding Vimeo, just unblocking Third Party (?) vimeo and vimeoncdn makes it play (YT vids also play btw, so that's not the issue). However, even unblocking everything else in both eMatrix and uBO and disabling PureURL didn't show any recommended vids under the Vimeo vid.

[Gemmaugr]

I tried turning PureURL off, changing eMatrix/uBO allows (including my filters), changing VPN server, and even going back to a previous PM version, and nothing worked.
In desperation, I tried a Private window, and so while logged out, comments and such work, even with the usual normal eMatrix/uBO & PureURL stuff enabled. So this only happens while logged in!?

[Shadow]

Also get the "Something went wrong" using the Mobile domain. Other annoying quirks to, but since it's for Mobile, won't complain. Hardly use it anymore anyway, only to see geo restricted videos.

For those not in the know, it's been discovered that using UBO filters helps to uniquely profile you. A geeky ad-blocker talk on Techlore revealed it. Can't remember which one because it was about a year ago. Can't bring myself to use any since after hearing about it.

[Gemmaugr]

For those not in the know, it's been discovered that using UBO filters helps to uniquely profile you. A geeky ad-blocker talk on Techlore revealed it. Can't remember which one because it was about a year ago. Can't bring myself to use any since after hearing about it.

That would most likely only be for browsers using google web extensions MV2 and MV3, and by the "look-like-everone-else-no-unique" kind of fingerprint resisting. Not for Pale Moon's "always-a-different-unique" kind of fingerprint resisting. Pale Moon randomizes the XUL addon order, and with Poison Canvas on it also randomizes canvas. I'm furthermore using a VPN which makes me have a different IP for different time-sessions. They can only see that it's my account that's logged in, and what that account is doing. Since I'm also blocking google scripts on other sites with eMatrix and uBO, and clean tracking parameters from links (like youtube's ?=si), they can't follow me around.

[Shadow]

Found what I was on about. Haven't found the exact part that was revealing to me though.

https://saiid.ch/publications/ (The Double-Edged Shield paper)
https://greptalks.ai/c/usenix-security-2025/usec25-342/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piQVAp0SiTQ

[UCyborg]

I gave up on stock YouTube well over 1,5+ years ago. UI is too damn sloooooow (and ugly...) to be usable and fucks up the browser's internal state. And the browser itself keeps getting slower with updates.

Better with Project VORAPIS, but, not aware of any SponsorBlock solution that works with it AND Pale Moon properly. The SponsorBlock web extension (this one) that's there for Chromiums and Firefoxes works fine on both stock and VORAPIS.

That sb.js thingy someone mentioned on this forum at least manages to show sponsor segments, even if it's only a tiny dot on the seek bar.

[Night Wing]

In desperation, I tried a Private window, and so while logged out, comments and such work, even with the usual normal eMatrix/uBO & PureURL stuff enabled. So this only happens while logged in!?

Looks like your problem is when you are logged in. In my first post to you in this thread I said I have no YouTube account so I am never logged in. If you are logged in with YouTube, it looks like you will have to do what YouTube wants unless you can find a way to get around what YT wants from you.

On a side note; with the slight adjustments I have made in my linux Pale Moon for YT, since I am never logged in, this is probably why I never see any ads (advertisements) either. Just a guess on my part.

[Gemmaugr]

Found what I was on about. Haven't found the exact part that was revealing to me though.

https://saiid.ch/publications/ (The Double-Edged Shield paper)
https://greptalks.ai/c/usenix-security-2025/usec25-342/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=piQVAp0SiTQ

Pale Moon doesn't have Lazy Loading (https://repo.palemoon.org/MoonchildProd ... ssues/3131), so only the CSS animation vector would be pertinent. Even then, since I'm constantly having a different order of addons, a different canvas, and a different IP, all they see is that different unique users use the same filter list blocks, with each new "unique user" (me) adding to the entropy that is the profiling attempt.