YouTube Buffering and Slow Loading on BT Full Fibre 900 – Possible Routing/Peering Issue

[Azileo]

Still experiencing exactly the same issue here.

Despite multiple reports from customers and several detailed posts outlining the symptoms, there still hasn't been any response from BT's network team or any acknowledgement that the issue is even being investigated.

The problem remains isolated to YouTube, while the rest of the connection performs perfectly. Using a VPN continues to resolve the issue immediately, which strongly suggests this is not a customer-side fault.

It would be helpful if someone from BT could at least confirm whether these reports have been passed to the relevant network engineers and whether any investigation is underway. At the moment, there appears to be no communication from BT regarding the issue at all.

[Anonymous]

Perhaps in the grand scheme of things waiting a little longer for funny cat videos to load isn't a priority to BT...just a thought 

[Azileo]

Just to be clear, YouTube is the biggest video platform in the world, and I’m paying BT for a service that’s supposed to handle exactly that kind of traffic properly. So if the largest video platform on the planet doesn’t work reliably on one of the biggest ISPs, then yes—that is absolutely an issue, regardless of how you try to dismiss it with ‘grumpy cat videos’. That comment really doesn’t add anything useful to the discussion.

[garybs29]

Probably tempting fate here but I'm certainly not experiencing any issues so as it's not a total widespread issue it may take longer to resolve

[licquorice]

It's a minor irritation, the world hasn't stop revolving.

[Kamek]

I'd like to withdraw my comment that the word has stopped revolving, I can only apologise for the overreaction.

Instead, please allow me to humbly express that YouTube is borderline unwatchable due to constant stutter, as the buffer health collapses quickly no matter how long you let it build or how fast your connection.

Again, I, and I'm sure others here, would beg forgiveness for complaining that it's the end of the world, rather than something we're paying for not working correctly.

Hang on, when did we-

[tyencyu]

Observations from today are that for the majority of the day the issue seemed to be marginally reduced, but as we've transitioned back into the evening / as people get back from home the issue's back again, understandably this has been raised, I'll also try and raise it to plusnet as they're my ISP, although same network.

Same behaviour as yesterday, only youtube affected, noticeably worse with streams as they rely on a constant speed, switch a VPN on and the problem instantly mitigates 

[Azileo]

Calling it a ‘minor irritation’ is just dismissive and completely misses the point. BT is one of the biggest ISPs in the country, and YouTube is the biggest video platform in the world—this isn’t some niche service. People aren’t paying for a connection that kind of works most of the time, they’re paying for something that should reliably handle the most common, mainstream services without issue. It’s not just about being able to watch YouTube—it’s that it should just work. If it doesn’t, that’s a problem with the service, not something to brush off.

[Kimberlin]

@tyencyu  I'm still not experiencing this on Plusnet. I've just spent the last half hour loading videos off YouTube and it's been snap, snap, snap, no buffering, no stuttering, just immediate loading every time. I've been looking at YT stuff all day, not a single issue.

For clarity, I'm using a TP-Link GX90 router, a bit of a monster compared to the kit ISP's dish out. On WiFi6 using Quad9 DNS through Brave browser, 500mbps FTTP.

[tyencyu]

@Kimberlin 

Appreciate that, there's also plenty of EE and BT users that aren't also experiencing it to any major degree. I've had a couple of friends run tests on their respective networks and although they're seeing a diminished speed, it's not to as great a degree

That being said, I've raised it with plusnet who have seemed to hint that they've heard rumblings and they've passed it to the relevant team their side. They ran tests on my actual line and there isn't any issues they can identify with the actual connection to my house, which I already knew as every other service I'm getting 900+. 

Like I mentioned, the issue is across multiple devices and instantly goes away the second I connect to a VPN (on both devices). This wasn't an issue a week ago so unless they've pushed some cooked firmware to the router, I can't imagine it being an issue with anything in the house at this point.

For reference, I'm connected to the standard ISP hub, Hardwired ethernet, FTTP 900mbps down. Which when accessing youtube, ends up correlating to a YT connection speed of 9,000kbps

As soon as I turn on the VPN, I scream back up

Interestingly this has happened before

Digging through my browsers network it seems I have the most issues on rr5---sn-cu-cime7.googlevideo.com

When accessing via the VPN it pops me over to rr3---sn-cu-cime7.googlevideo.com where I have no issues