YouTube Playback error on Safari

Youtube playback error (safari) issue over past couple of weeks "An error occurred"

So over the past couple of weeks I have had issues using YouTube, I keep getting the following error after a couple minutes of watching, on every video:



I am currently running macOS Big Sur Beta. Could this be causing the issue? I have no adblocker extension. I am running anti virus software but extensions have been turned off. The videos are generating this error immediately though they run fine on Chrome.


Anyone else having this issue and has a fix?


Thanks in advance.

Posted on Oct 16, 2020 1:56 PM

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5 replies

Oct 17, 2020 8:56 AM in response to Russ4668

I´m still running Mojave and started having this exact problem in YouTube after Safari was updated to 14.0. The only work-around I have found is simply to refresh the page using Command-R, or clicking on the curved arrow symbol on the right of Safari´s URL address bar. I think this is a problem with Safari 14.0, and nothing to do with macOS Big Sur Beta! BTW, the general consensus here (search this forum!) is that unless you're on a network with Windows PCs you don't need any anti virus software! macOS looks after itself. Try de-installing this software, which apart from possibly slowing down your Mac can cause other problems. Hope this helps you! Regards, Ian.

Oct 17, 2020 10:27 AM in response to Ian Leckie

Good morning Ian,


I agree. I think the playback error for Youtube is attributed to Safari 14.0 which I updated to in the last beta update of MacOS Big Sur a few days ago. I suspect the only way to remedy this for now would be to downgrade to MacOS Catalina which would require a fair amount of effort and I would likely upgrade back to MacOS Big Sur in the coming months. My hope is that Apple has recognized this as a bug in Safari 14.0 and will fix it in their next beta release. In the meantime I was running Bitdefender on my MacBook and uninstalled as per your recommendation, I also installed a number of unnecessary apps and I've certainly seen a better performance with my MacBook as well loess RAM being used. Thanks for the tip.

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YouTube Playback error on Safari

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