YouTube 'Experiencing interruptions?'

Brave Browser Ad-Blocking
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1

Edit: In the meantime I’m using AdGuard which seems to reliably remove the buffering for now.

Description of the issue: When Shields is up, YouTube videos are buffering for ~5 seconds until they start.

Exact URL of the website in question: https://www.youtube.com/

Screenshot of the ad as it appears in Brave:

Screenshot_1721
Screenshot_17211745×1301 70.4 KB

Did the issue present with default Shields settings? (yes/no)

yes.

Does the site function as expected when Shields are turned off?

yes.

Brave version (check About Brave): 1.92.134 Chromium: 150.0.7871.63 (Official Build) (64-bit)

I also created a ticket on GitHub: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser/issues/56852

Miscellaneous information:

I’m using the default Shields settings globally, with no custom filter lists added.

Tried ‘Experimental ad blocker’, didn’t make it any better.

My filter lists are updated.

‘Brave Default Adblock Filters’ in brave://components is on version: 1.0.20682

No other ad-blocking extensions installed - I rely 100% on Brave Shields for ad-blocking.

Deleted YouTube’s cookies, site data and cache, closed the tab, closed Brave and restarted it.

No VPN or DNS in use.

Restarted and reset my internet router.

2

Thanks for the detailed report. I’m experiencing the exact same behavior.

The issue doesn’t appear to be isolated to your setup. There have been multiple reports from Brave users over the past few months describing the same “Experiencing interruptions?” message along with a 5–10 second delay before YouTube videos begin playing when Brave Shields are enabled. It also appears to affect some users on other browsers with ad blockers, suggesting this may be related to YouTube’s ongoing anti-adblock experiments rather than a networking issue or local browser configuration.

Since you’ve already verified the following:

  • Default Shields settings
  • Updated filter lists
  • No third-party ad blockers
  • Cleared cache/cookies
  • No VPN or custom DNS
  • Videos load normally when Shields are disabled

…it doesn’t seem like there’s much else to troubleshoot on the client side.

For anyone following this issue, these discussions may be useful:

Hopefully the Brave team can identify whether this is a new YouTube detection technique and update Shields accordingly. Thanks for opening the GitHub issue and providing detailed reproduction steps—it should help with investigation.

3

This here removed the buffering for me entirely for the past 5 hours watching roughly 20 videos without a single one buffering:

Quick update here - @BrendanEich had made a discovery:
https://x.com/BrendanEich/status/2052113707405324389

I was experiencing this issue so I tried those steps.

This seems to have fixed the issue for me. I cannot reproduce the issue anymore