Youtube video's cause freeze in steam client

[Wobb the Great and Terrible!!!!!]

Whenever I try to view a youtube video in steam, like in community hub for a game or something, steam freezes. I can access my library, but nothing internet related, like community, store or profile.
All I see is the page with a youtube window, all black and a loading icon in top right.
This started a few days ago, and while it doesn't do it every time, it is most times. And when it happens I have to restart steam to get it working again


Edit:

Things such as Deleting cookies in client browser options, using task manager to close steamwebhelper.exe and of course the old standard "use a web browser not the client" have all been put forward throughout this thread, to limited success.

Deleting cookies will work until steam is restarted.

Stopping the steamwebhelper process will close the frozen window and so is a good workaround that stops you from having to restart steam each time it happens.

Using a web browser instead of steam client is of course a way of playing youtube video's, but that's not really the point. The point is that it should work in the client, and it DID work in the client.

People have mentioned deleting and/or reinstalling adobe flash, switching to/from NPAPI/PPAPI, but I haven't had any success with that, and don't know anyone else who has either.

[Spaaaaace!]

i mostly hae the problem in dota and source because i donot have the strongest pc and on loading it stops working and this problem affects not 1 or 2 users it affects 10%. why valve cant find out the issue or what is happening or atleast give a chance to see a error report
edit
It is mostly with source games....
it unfreezes after a very long time but still bugged when video ends..

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Silicon Vampire:

It depends on the computer. I've seen bad hard drives, crappy network drivers, other (misc.) device driver updates, AV and firewall software all cause this issue but I do admit is is generally a very long, difficult process to determine what is the actual culprit. Sometimes, it is a specific combination of things.

Most people these days do not want to put in the effort nor do they have the time for their computers to be down while diagnosing it.

I'll also admit that I *may* have just been extremely lucky that I haven't run across a machine that I couldn't fix the issue.

Seriously, that's pretty unlikely since I couldn't even begin to tell you how many boxes I work on in a month, let alone since Steam has been around and this is about all I do anymore.

In a perfect world, computers would just work. It's never going to be a perfect world.

EDIT ____________________

Also, it is possible that I have had a machine that would have exhibited this issue without having anything wrong but either didn't have a chance to test it, it was never going to be used as a Steam gaming box or this particular issue was not prevalent at the time I was working on it...

Every system I put Steam Client does this. You simply can't view Flash stuff within the Client anymore. But using Steam within a web browser it's fine.

[Silicon Vampire]

OK, can someone tell me how to duplicate this? I also may not be understanding things correctly. I'll do a bit of troubleshooting here... show me a sure-fire way to make it happen, I'll try it on every machine I have available to me at this moment. I have a half dozen here right now and probably twice that accessible to me through the Internet. I can also have real life friends try it and report back... (I take care of all of their computers)

[Spaaaaace!]

How to reproduce:
start cs go
open steam overlay.
go to google.
click Gmail (you need to be logged in.. top right corner)
then top right corner again youtube. it opens a new window
play a video (works best with ads in the video)
go back to cs go
join a server and during loading screen open and close the steam overlay with shift + tab 2 times
result: mouse stops working but using tab and spacebar worksw... after five minutes or more mouse works again for no reason
have fun reproducing it

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Steam Overlay nothing; it just does it in Steam Client, period.
Like a YouTube video posted in a Forum Thread for example; if try to click/load it within Steam Client, it locks up the entire Client, I have to force-close all the WebHelper.exe for Steam in Task Manager to get the Client to un-lock again.

Not of this has anything to do with Browser Plugins, Flash, etc. and I don't have blocking AV/Firewall stuff. And not just one machine here; every machine w/ Steam Client it does this.

[Wobb the Great and Terrible!!!!!]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Silicon Vampire:

OK, can someone tell me how to duplicate this? I also may not be understanding things correctly. I'll do a bit of troubleshooting here... show me a sure-fire way to make it happen, I'll try it on every machine I have available to me at this moment. I have a half dozen here right now and probably twice that accessible to me through the Internet. I can also have real life friends try it and report back... (I take care of all of their computers)

Go to a community hub for any game, go to video's, and watch one from there. In the client, not in a browser.

Just because it might work on every machine you can get access to doesn't mean there is a problem with the systems of people having the issue. It would most likely be down to some kind of conflict with a driver, stick of RAM or even HDD model that a certain update for steam has suddenly had a problem with.
It could even be down to a conflict between a certain make/model of RAM and another component combined, not showing the problem unless the system has exactly those two pieces of hardware.
Same with software.

There is no explaining PC's sometimes, but this is definitely a steam-side problem, not a user-side problem. I guarantee it. No problems on my machine, I built and maintain it myself.

[Silicon Vampire]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Blackpanther:

How to reproduce:
start cs go
open steam overlay.
go to google.
click Gmail (you need to be logged in.. top right corner)
then top right corner again youtube. it opens a new window
play a video (works best with ads in the video)
go back to cs go
join a server and during loading screen open and close the steam overlay with shift + tab 2 times
result: mouse stops working but using tab and spacebar worksw... after five minutes or more mouse works again for no reason
have fun reproducing it

that's just silly...

I don't play that game so I think I'll pass.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Bad-Motha:

Steam Overlay nothing; it just does it in Steam Client, period.
Like a YouTube video posted in a Forum Thread for example; if try to click/load it within Steam Client, it locks up the entire Client, I have to force-close all the WebHelper.exe for Steam in Task Manager to get the Client to un-lock again.

Not of this has anything to do with Browser Plugins, Flash, etc. and I don't have blocking AV/Firewall stuff. And not just one machine here; every machine w/ Steam Client it does this.

Have not seen any issues at all.

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από wobbler:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Silicon Vampire:

OK, can someone tell me how to duplicate this? I also may not be understanding things correctly. I'll do a bit of troubleshooting here... show me a sure-fire way to make it happen, I'll try it on every machine I have available to me at this moment. I have a half dozen here right now and probably twice that accessible to me through the Internet. I can also have real life friends try it and report back... (I take care of all of their computers)

Go to a community hub for any game, go to video's, and watch one from there. In the client, not in a browser.

Just because it might work on every machine you can get access to doesn't mean there is a problem with the systems of people having the issue. It would most likely be down to some kind of conflict with a driver, stick of RAM or even HDD model that a certain update for steam has suddenly had a problem with.
It could even be down to a conflict between a certain make/model of RAM and another component combined, not showing the problem unless the system has exactly those two pieces of hardware.
Same with software.

There is no explaining PC's sometimes, but this is definitely a steam-side problem, not a user-side problem. I guarantee it. No problems on my machine, I built and maintain it myself.

Again, not any issues. Had three running in separate tabs in the client.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Ok I cleared it on my end; another confirmed bug in the Beta Client u can add then

[Wobb the Great and Terrible!!!!!]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Bad-Motha:

Ok I cleared it on my end; another confirmed bug in the Beta Client u can add then

Not for me, I don't use beta client

[Coco]

There are endless possibilities for the actual cause: It could be some specific Antivirus software, the presence of alternative browsers, a plugin, a specific driver or whatever. And maybe it just happens with certain CPUs, graphics cards, RAM chips, etc.

Maybe just a certain combination is causing it and most people don't have it. But still, this doesn't mean that the OS installation is mangled somehow. It's also possible that it is in fact a Steam bug, which just shows under certain cirucumstances.

The worst about it is that it doesn't always happen. I would say the chances are about 80% for me. All you need to do to make it happen is to click a video link someone posted in a forum post, in the friends' activity overvier or even in a review.

Just let me post a trailer here as a test case:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKWIJ-H-WxI
I'll test it myself after posting this and will report again afterwards.

Note: IF it happens, it happens even before you see the first image of the movie.

[Coco]

Ok, I've tried it twice: It worked first, then I closed the Steam client and started it again. When I tried now, the complete client froze.

The video content was still black and I just saw the first 2 dots of the "busy circle" appear, that normally animates while the player buffers a few seconds at the beginning. Nothing more happened and I could neither scroll the page, nor click anything. Complete freeze.

[Spaaaaace!]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Silicon Vampire:

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Blackpanther:

How to reproduce:
start cs go
open steam overlay.
go to google.
click Gmail (you need to be logged in.. top right corner)
then top right corner again youtube. it opens a new window
play a video (works best with ads in the video)
go back to cs go
join a server and during loading screen open and close the steam overlay with shift + tab 2 times
result: mouse stops working but using tab and spacebar worksw... after five minutes or more mouse works again for no reason
have fun reproducing it

that's just silly...

I don't play that game so I think I'll pass.

i gave a way that works 1000% accurate and you say you wont try it because u dont like the game? (you just need to connect to a server not even play it) why even ask for a way when u dont try it. it is the 1 way i can reproduce it every time.. other ways are not accurate and do not work every time.

[Wobb the Great and Terrible!!!!!]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Coco:

There are endless possibilities for the actual cause: It could be some specific Antivirus software, the presence of alternative browsers, a plugin, a specific driver or whatever. And maybe it just happens with certain CPUs, graphics cards, RAM chips, etc.

Maybe just a certain combination is causing it and most people don't have it. But still, this doesn't mean that the OS installation is mangled somehow. It's also possible that it is in fact a Steam bug, which just shows under certain cirucumstances.

The worst about it is that it doesn't always happen. I would say the chances are about 80% for me. All you need to do to make it happen is to click a video link someone posted in a forum post, in the friends' activity overvier or even in a review.

Just let me post a trailer here as a test case:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKWIJ-H-WxI
I'll test it myself after posting this and will report again afterwards.

Note: IF it happens, it happens even before you see the first image of the movie.

Yes it's about 80% or so for me as well, and also true, you don't even see an image of the video before it freezes. I see the circle saying it's loading the stream, then it freezes in less than a second and that's it, total lockout of all use except library in the steam client.

[Wobb the Great and Terrible!!!!!]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από Blackpanther:

i gave a way that works 1000% accurate and you say you wont try it because u dont like the game? (you just need to connect to a server not even play it) why even ask for a way when u dont try it. it is the 1 way i can reproduce it every time.. other ways are not accurate and do not work every time.

WTF is this about?

What game? What server? What the BLEEP are you on about?

[Coco]

Αναρτήθηκε αρχικά από wobbler:

Yes it's about 80% or so for me as well, and also true, you don't even see an image of the video before it freezes. I see the circle saying it's loading the stream, then it freezes in less than a second and that's it, total lockout of all use except library in the steam client.

Ok, looks like it's 100% the same as for me. It's also in less than 1 second here.