Videos Keep Freezing Browser

If you have a Windows XP computer or Windows 7 you might find YouTube frequently causes the computer to crash or your computer freezes.  Sometimes the video continues playing but the browser freezes.  You might ask yourself "Why does my computer freeze?"  Well I was having this problem and I found out why my computer freezes!

Image by Andreas Tille

Strictly speaking it was only the browser and not the computer that was locking up and not responding.  It was happening more and more as I used YouTube.  I searched the internet for a solution but found endless "problem pages" with hundreds of people asking why their computers locked up or froze when watching videos but no useful answers.  I hate these "forum like" sites that elicit questions from users only to offer no answers but hundreds of adverts.

But I persisted and I came across a useful bit of software provided by Microsoft which analyses the codecs on your cvomputer to inform you of any possible clashes or problems.  Codecs are bits of software that facilitate digital video streaming in Windows and various media players.  The software executable is called MicrosoftFixit.Codec.Run.exe and you can download it from: http://support.microsoft.com/mats/video_freezes_or_crashes/en-us.  The reason I mention this is because you don't always know if you can trust downloads nowadays and I have checked this out extensively and used it on my own computer with complete success.

The software checks all the codecs and informs you of any clashes.  You then get the option to disable ones with a problem.  This is always a bit worrying since you don't usually know enough about what is going on inside your machine to feel confident about disabling or deleting system stuff.  But the information I got from the software was pretty straightforward.  It told me there was a conflict problem with a particular codec installed by RealPlayer.  Given that RealPlayer are getting more pushy I don't use their software if I can help it so I was happy to let this software disable RealPlayer's codec.  I have had no more freezing videos.  Problem solved!  That easy once you have a reliable source.

So if your videos keep freezing your browser causing it to hang up you might want to visit http://support.microsoft.com/mats/video_freezes_or_crashes/en-us and download the MicrosoftFixit.Codec.Run.exe program.  Running it to see if anything is wrong doesn't change anything on your computer and you always get the option to fix the problem only if you want.