Video Not Showing on YouTube: Causes and How to Fix It

When your favorite video doesn’t show up on YouTube, you may not know where to start troubleshooting. Google has its own recommended fixes when a YouTube video fails to play.

The YouTube app recommends checking for a strong internet connection. Restarting the app or your device can also be helpful. If these fail, updating your browser (or the YouTube app) might solve it too. Rebooting the TV device frequently seems to work as well.

You can determine whether your internet speed is sufficient by comparing what YouTube requires. That’s how fast a video will stream, depending on the resolution. Try lowering the resolution if your upload speed isn’t meeting YouTube’s minimum requirements.

It appears that there are two conditions that affect a video page load. The first is when a page loads with all metadata elements missing. The second condition affects uploaded videos that haven’t finished processing, which won’t appear fully on a channel. Sign-in state can prevent some users from viewing certain videos, as a community-protection measure.

YouTube recommends these steps in order of increasing severity. You can attempt them in reverse, however, and still achieve good results. The YouTube app recommends this sequence:

Check internet speed and data usage

Try to download the video again (i.e., press the refresh button or click an error message)

Update your browser

Restart the YouTube app

Power cycle the TV device

Reboot the device

Update firmware or system software

Update the YouTube app

Some steps seem more effective than others. For example, many users say they had success simply power cycling their TV, while others have reported being able to watch videos after downloading them using the YouTube app.

Internet speed and playback issues

If none of those steps fix your issue, then you can take another look at the video itself. Are you attempting to view a video on YouTube that was recently uploaded? Or perhaps one that just went live?

YouTube requires different speeds, based upon the video’s resolution. If your connection is slower than what YouTube requires, then you’ll get either a loading screen indefinitely or a message like “An error has occurred.” Try changing your video quality settings to something lower-resolution. YouTube recommends the following upload speeds, based upon the resolution you want to stream:

4K: 20 Mbps

HD 1080p: 5 Mbps

HD 720p: 2.5 Mbps

SD 480p: 1.1 Mbps

SD 360p: 0.7 Mbps

When the page loads without video details

Sometimes, though, it’s not the resolution but rather the page itself. We’ve encountered problems where the homepage loads normally but an individual video page doesn’t load properly. What do we mean by that? A normal video page includes things like the title, recommendations, a description, and comments. Sometimes, those don’t show. Instead, you’re left with only part of the page, such as the YouTube logo, but nothing else. In effect, the rest of the page didn’t load or rendered correctly.

This doesn’t mean that YouTube isn’t working. Instead, you may be suffering from a partial outage, or perhaps an outage in your local area. This doesn’t seem to be a problem related to the content provider or even your network.

Uploaded videos not showing fully

If this is the case, you may have no choice but to wait. But what about uploading videos that appear to partially process? Occasionally, when we’ve created a new YouTube channel, our uploaded videos appear incomplete, with titles and descriptions appearing, but without the video itself.

According to YouTube, any video that is processed successfully shows the status “Processed.” If it says “Processing,” then the video likely hasn’t been completely processed yet, so it’s possible that other videos may not display properly.

Sign-in state and restricted visibility

Finally, sometimes sign-in state determines whether certain videos appear. For example, a video featuring minors may require you to be signed in to watch. Similarly, if you’ve attempted to download a video to watch offline, then signing in may be necessary. Otherwise, the video may appear as unavailable.

These conditions may be a protective mechanism used by YouTube. According to YouTube, if you are unable to view a video, it could be due to several conditions:

YouTube may be blocking you because you are not signed in

You are attempting to download material for offline use, but haven’t been given permission

You are viewing content that features minors

A community-protection measure

You can check to see if this applies by signing out of YouTube and trying to view the video.