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The Xbox 360 YouTube App is Garbage!


On 02/21/2012 at 12:57 PM by Esteban Cuevas

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Okay I hope I get some responses on this one. How many of you have trouble with the YouTube app on the Xbox 360? I know I do.

Leading up to the new Xbox dashboard, the one thing I was looking forward to was the YouTube app. It always puzzled me why something like this didn't exist already or at least something this accessible. YouTube is basically TV to me. I watch videos on YouTube more than I do television but prolonged viewing on a desk chair in front of a monitor isn't ideal. I've tried other options, including an addon to Windows Media Center (Macrotube) that worked to an extent but it wouldn't let you access your playlists or any playlists for that matter. Also it seems like it would stop working whenever it felt like it. Needless to say, it wasn't really stable so I was looking forward to this app. Hi Def videos, playlists, search features, it all sounded good. So when the new dashboard update launched, I was disappointed. No YouTube app. No, I would have to wait a week. So I did. The next week comes and I download the YouTube app.

At first, I loved it. I could search for any video I want, I could log in to my YouTube account, access all my playlists, other people's playlists and all my subscriptions were there. I actually still like that and all the features that should be there are there. Sure, there's no Kinect intergration and copyrighted videos aren't available but I don't have a Kinect so it doesn't bother me and it's expected for the licensed videos to be unavailable. They're trying to sell you the music videos and whatnot on the Zune marketplace. Anyways, I'm using the YouTube app and going through my subscriptions, watching G4 clips and Classic Game Room reviews and I'm about to check for any new Foamy episodes I may have missed and I select the illwillpress channel and the screen freezes. I wait for a moment, thinking maybe the network is experiencing a high volume of users since this app is brand new. After a minute or so, the screen goes black and returns to the main videos tab on the dashboard.

The YouTube app just crashed.

I've never been kicked out of anything on the Xbox 360 so that took me by surprise. I've had games freeze on me but that required a system restart. The Xbox just basically said, "I can't handle this. Screw it!" So I start the app all over again and when I try to get back to my subscriptions again, the app won't load them. From that point on, I realized that this app was not going to be my perminant solution to my YouTube viewing.

Ironically, I think after watching this welcome video for the YouTube app, it crashed.

It has been a couple of months or so since the release of the YouTube app and I've learned tricks to get the damn thing to work. Whenever I enter any sub menu, I have to wait until it completely loads everything, the number of videos, the number of likes, the screenshots everything. If I don't, the next menu probably won't load at all. It doesn't list anything in any kind of discernible order either so I also need to take my time going through my listings or else something will not load at all, meaning the next sub menu won't load either. Also, when I select a video and I plan to watch the next several videos, like in a playlist or something, after a few videos, I have to go back to the menu or else the video will get stuck and just not load. I then have to go back to the menu, go to that video, and select it that way. If I don't do all of this, there's a chance the app will crash and I'll have to start all over, if I can muster the will to do so.

I actually bitched about this on Twitter and got a response from Xbox support and they tried to walk me though several ways to fix my problems. I tried erasing the system cache, uninstalling and re-installing the YouTube app, and signing in and out of my profile but to no avail. After an update to the app appeared about a month ago, I though my problems were solved. I thought, "They caught their mistakes (whoever 'they' is) and fixed them." Nope. Aside from crashing slightly less than it did before, I saw no difference. I still use the app because its still better than nothing but especially with me having my new PC, my search for a stable YouTube viewer continues.

Has anyone else had this much trouble with the YouTube app? Does anyone have no problem with it? Comment and let me know. Also, if anyone knows of an actual fix for the issues I'm having, please tell me. I'd be much appreciative.


 

Comments

Anonymous

02/27/2012 at 12:45 AM

Hate it!

I have one playlist that won't ever load anymore. It used to. It is my account's oldest and most listened to playlist (on xbox live) and then it just dissapeared. I tried deleting playlists. I went through and made sure that all my videos were functioning. I uninstalled and reinstalled the youtube app. I signed in and out of my profile.

NOTHTING!

Just that one stupid playlist that one load.

Hate it!

Anonymous

09/28/2012 at 06:21 AM

Its bullshit, I'm mean its free but XBL aint, so its bullshit.

Half the time it says its "not available at this time" or else it loads but wants me to "et started!" ...again to access my account. OR I get about half ways through a video and get an "application error" message.

Bullshit.

Anonymous

02/29/2012 at 04:21 AM

The youtube app crashes out if I take longer than 3 seconds to choose a playlist and will return me to the xbox video home.

Pretty damn annoying when you have 10 playlists. 

Anonymous

03/05/2012 at 02:09 PM

I get the same problem as above dude.  Crashes from the playlist menu all the time.  I use youtube a lot and I have a ton of playlist for everything fro music genres to cooking videos to gaming series.  It also refuses to load my subscriptions in any decent amount of time as I have about 300 of them.  I still use it for music and the odd video, but Its nowhere near as good as the actual site.  Also it annoys me beyond compare how it shows reccomended videos instead of recent uploads by my subscriptions on the main page.  The recommendation system is total BS on youtube.

Anonymous

03/27/2012 at 01:16 AM

My you tube hasn't crashed, but the videos have a hard time loading, either they wont start or they just freeze every few seconds. Really hopethey fix the problems.

Anonymous

04/02/2012 at 06:16 PM

Every-single-thing you said has happened to me multiple amounts of time, and just like you, I found that by letting everything load(which takes time), it seems to do
"better", but in no way would I say this app is stable. Probabaly the worst thing I have ever seen on the 360 or the older XBOX1. 

I hear there is a youtube app coming out for PS3 soon, and I'm sure it'll run much better on there, as does most media based apps/devices on the PS3.

Anonymous

04/03/2012 at 09:53 AM

All the same for me as well. So nothing on a solution or work around from the attempt with support personel? Have 'they' acknowedged that it is in fact a problem and are working to correct it? 

Anonymous

05/24/2012 at 02:38 PM

I have been have SO many problems with it.  The most annoying is how it repeats all my playlists, and the cloned playlist won't have any videos in them.  So if I click on a fake playlist I'll have to go back to the playlists screen, but when I do the app just crashes.  Also, it is very unstable in playing videos.  I'll watch a 20 minute full HD vid, and then go and try to watch a 3 second SD vid and it won't load it.  Sometimes videos will just keep buffering and never stop.

Anonymous

04/09/2012 at 02:23 PM

I am in Canada and have the same issue as the first post. My playlists appear, but when I select one, it does not load the videos from said list...ALL of my playlists used to work, prior to the most recentupdate to the app. The app is now useless to me..

Jason Ross Senior Editor

04/09/2012 at 08:05 PM

I'm loving this anonymous responder chain we've got going here. Any of you care to make an account so your posts can be a little more recognizable?

Mandrake981

04/12/2012 at 03:20 PM

Yep, I couldn't agree more. I have a brand new XBox 360 with a 320GB hard drive, and it seems like every time I open the Youtube app it takes less than a minute to take the whole system down (the TV screen goes black, and then displays "No Input", and the XBox has to be turned off at the console to get it to come back up). It's a total mess, and while it was a cool idea, the XBox 360 just doesn't handle this well. I don't know if it's the new XBox 360 or the app (my last XBox 360 worked like a charm - never had a problem with it, but wanted to upgrade to something larger than a 20GB hard drive), but either way, the XBox 360 fails to deliver.

Maybe the PS3 version will be better. It already handles media much better than the 360, so I'm hoping the app has enough of the bells and whistles so that I don't even have to turn the 360 back on unless I'm going to play a game...

SanAndreas

02/26/2013 at 11:16 PM

The PS3 Youtube app is pretty good. I have never had problems with it.

Anonymous

04/12/2012 at 04:17 PM

when trying to watch videos near the begining it just goes into buffer mode forever..
i guess 15mb/s isn't enough to stream non-HD videos for M$

Anonymous

04/18/2012 at 11:17 AM

Well at least I know I'm not alone.

1.) My Youtube takes FOREVER to load up. seriously, it's like the internet in the early 90's. But to be fair, once it's running it seems to go OK. It's been like this ever since the first update, second one made no difference. Pre-update it ran smoothly.

2.) Youtube seems to crash anytime I move backwards in my playlists. Forward OK, back not OK.

Anonymous

05/29/2012 at 07:21 AM

Sometimes youtube app will never start the video, you have to back out and restart the video.
Before the recent update if you selected a playlist/channel before its thumbnail loaded you just got a blank list, this seams to be fixed now, but;
Sometimes selecting a list or video, it looks like it will load, but then blanks the screen and if you're lucky will return to the previous screen, if not it returns to dashboard.

Other times it will freeze with a buffering icon, sometimes it will continue to play after a minute or two, but usually it wont. Theres no option to force SD quality, to see if this may help, even though i have no problem what so ever watching other streaming video like 'inside xbox' and others, and Crackle etc.
If i find a video that i like and want to check out the authors channel, there is no way to goto that channel unless you are on the search screen, in which case the current video disapears.
All in all slightly better than initial release, and better than watching it on my 8year old laptop, but still unstable, with no configuration, no traversing channels, and no displaying on screen anotations. However has just started displaying adverts :)

Anonymous

06/05/2012 at 07:57 PM

If while watching a video I bring up the small red menu and choose MORE ACTIONS the second larger red menu bar and info pain pop up.If i do not exit this menu by pressing the B button,every button on the controller becomes unresponsive EXCEPT the xbox guide button.The videos will continue to play and will play the next vid automatically but i can not raise the red menu bar i can not stop, fast forward, rewind, search, return home ,nothing.I have to exit to the xbox dashboard and reload youtube app then all is well.This happens EVERY TIME,always has every.....single....time.....

Anonymous

07/17/2012 at 11:28 AM

This happens to me as well. This is SO annoying. It sucks because the menu disappearedd before I could even get a chance to perform the action I wanted, so not only did I not get a chance to perform the action, I couldn't even exit the video I was watching. A 5 year old could make a better app than this garbage.

Anonymous

08/03/2012 at 12:07 AM

Absolute garbage app. It apparently "automatically" plays in HD if your xbox is set to HD settings... Well that is a blatant lie. I can watch videos in 1080p all day on my laptop, but when I switch to my xbox youtube app its 360. Just awful.

Anonymous

08/15/2012 at 10:52 PM
YouTube on my Xbox fails to load 90% of the time! You would think such a giant corporation would have a half decent, working app

Anonymous

10/24/2012 at 05:24 AM

its actually gotten worse since the patch. every other video crashes the app. except for official trendy sponsored channels of course. they block/crash most anti-nwo content on purpose. so the app works perfectly the way its designed to. internet 2.0 style. forget researching the recent royal weddings occult origins or viewing vice magazines ground zero syria doc. those dont officially exist

 

 

Anonymous

12/10/2012 at 07:42 AM

I am glad I am not the only one. YouTube app is fine at launching and running, its the buffering of shows, or that some do not run at all. I tire of the new Xbox spinning rings. No, its not my internet (I am on wired, to +100Mbs FiOS. My speedtest is spot on (if not higher). No one is using my bandwidth other than I. Its not my cache as I've emptied it several times. I've deleted and re-installed my app. I just want to watch youtube vids on my xbox. Here's the irony: so I quit and shutdown the xbox. I fire up my PS3, and watch you tube on it (app came out late this summer). No buffering issue. Although some channels seems to be unavailable. (to that comment above about being anonymous...seriously? You search for problems on the net, and fine common issues on 50 blogs and sites, and you want me to register with all of them to basically affirm that others are having same issue? really...) So what is Xbox LIVE monkeys doing?

Anonymous

12/13/2012 at 02:16 PM

It must be the coding of the app.

Anonymous

02/24/2013 at 05:37 AM

it starts crashing at the end of a video. this all started after being forced to download the latest update and before, i never had this problem. i really hate the stupid updates cuz they just take up  memory and cause  problems

Anonymous

02/26/2013 at 10:21 PM

I hate this app soooooooo much! it buffers for hours on friday I fell asleep from 12 till 3 (I have problems with sleeping) when it started buffering I wake up I activate the controller and ITS STILL BUFFERING IN TH SAME PLACE IT WAS!!!!!!! and xbox support doesn't do anything plus the newest update screwed me over bad I personally think youtube just wants to screw us over and use the bad app to promote advertisements when they know they can screw us over! btw if you change your personal picture and gamer picture it will load (May have been patched) if anyone has a solution PLEASE TELL ME btw I don't have a PS3 so don't suggest I use one

Anonymous

03/05/2013 at 08:04 AM

lmfao i think the people on this forum like to be anonymous lol but then again i am to oh s**t

Dragon1989

03/05/2013 at 10:48 AM

I never had a problem with the PS3 youtube works fine.

Anonymous

05/12/2013 at 08:45 AM

i cant change the f**king video quality to HD, it always plays them in 360p or so, with my wifi connection of 6 mb/sec D:

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