HomeFusion Blocking Youtube Videos?

[CrazyBear]

The past week or so I have been unable to play YouTube video's on any of my home PC's. Video's on all kinds of other sites are fine, and the webpage for YouTube video's are instant loaders, but hit play, and NOTHING. Seems only the video feed from YouTube is blocked. It seems rather convenient that this only started happening after youtube won that lawsuit to censor the internet for personal profit.
I did see another page that mentioned Verizon FiOS and problem with youtube, Verizon tried to claim it wasn't their fault (Right,...) but that blocking certain IP's would fix it, well, I blocked those IP ranges and still doesn't work.

Anyone know how to get around Verizon's blocking of youtube content?

[scott21]

I am on HF and youtube working fine.

[rcschnoor]

I am on Verizon Fios and able to watch Youtube videos just fine, too. I don't think it has anything to do with Verizon as I have done nothing special to "get around" any attempt at blocking of Youtube videos by Verizon.

[John_Getzke]

First of all, YouTube didn't sue anyone for anything.  Verizon recently won a case that said the FCC does not have the right to regulate ISPs as a Common Carrier/Phone Company.  That means any ISP can choose to regulate its network however it wants....for now.

I suggest you investigate a little more to find out why YouTube is not working on your machines.  Try updating your Flash Players and browsers to make sure the block is not an application failure.  You can also try swapping out your DNS to use a free open one instead. 

Let's collect some more info.  Are there any error messages or screenshots you can post for us to review?  What happens if you setup a simple monitoring application like Fiddler or Networx?  Any bad packets or network level error messages?  What happens if you install something like Microsoft Process Monitor?  ProcMon should be able to show you an application level problem on one of the machines if you have it monitor your web browser while navigating out to YouTube.

[wtfranklin]

I'm having the same problem. Youtube will not play videos. Started Wednesday last week, but only affected my laptop (Win7). Friday, my Linux desktop stopped. Yesterday my Win7 desktop. Today, my wife's laptop. Took my laptop to the McDonalds down the road and the SAME videos play fine on their WIFI. Same thing at the coffee shop I frequent. My verizon phone plays them fine UNTIL I connect to my HF WIFI. Then, they stall. When I disconnect from my WIFI and go back to my phone's 4G, they start up again.

Looks pretty suspicious to me. Maybe HF customers are the guinea pigs in verizon's experiments with throttling bandwidth. Pretty small customer base to piss off as opposed to FIOS or verizon DSL users.

I just tested the following video sites, and ALL worked flawlessly on my laptop that refuses to play youtube videos:

ted.com

bigthink.com

atom.com

blip.tv

on.aol.com

wwitv.com

hulu.com

vimeo.com

ustream.tv

comedycentral.com

nbc.com/video

nbcnews.com

abc.go.com

They all use flash. Most use v 10..x.x.xx. Some use 12.x.x.xx. I have 12.0.0.43 on my laptop.

[wtfranklin]

I've downloaded ProcMan. What exactly should I be looking for?

Thanks.

[John_Getzke]

ProcMon is a high level troubleshooting tool.  It will show you everything on a local machine while it is running which can be a lot to filter through as a first time user.  You will need to setup filters to monitor both your web browser and the Adobe/Flash application.  Proper filters should help you narrow down the results.

There are lots of great guides and tutorials on ProcMon online.  I suggest you look up a few and get familiar with the product before you try to analyze your current problem.

Here is how I suggest you proceed:

1. Start ProcMon

2. Navigate to Youtube and attempt to view a video

3. Stop ProcMon

4. Review the log and search for errors, timeouts or buffer issues

5. Repeat the test a few times to see if the problem is consistent

6. Search the internet for the errors that you found and see if there are any solutions

The quicker you can execute the test the better your results will be.  All you need to capture is the moment of the failure and nothing more.

[John_Getzke]

The details of your first post suggest that perhaps the problem is with the HF Router as opposed to the HF Service or VZW network.  The same computers that have problems at home work fine when not connected to the HF router.  Even the VZW phone can view the videos until it is connected to the HF Router.  That suggests that it is not the local VZW network blocking you but something on the hardware of the HF Router that is causing a problem.

We also have a testimony that a different HF user is working fine.  That would suggest the problem is isolated to your area or a common resource you and the OP share like a DNS service that may be different for other HF users.  You could try swapping the DNS on one of your machines as a simple test.  You could also try to VPN connect to a free VPN server somewhere and see if the traffic can make it through.

You might want to check in with VZW on this one and see what they have to say.  I'm not aware of any active blocking efforts by VZW so I would assume there is some kind of hardware problem on the HF Router that is not delivering the traffic to your computers.  Perhaps your HF router needs a reset, update or should be swapped out under the warranty.

[captain_freddie]

Here's another clue... While on Verizon HF wifi, youtube will not play. My cell phone provider is AT&T and when I turn off HF wifi, youtube works quite well! I plan to do more testing with my wife's phone tonight.

[johnnusko]

I am having connectivity issues since Wednesday's firmware upgrade to the cantanna, but YouTube videos are working fine on HF when my connection is up.