Why Does YouTube's throughput suck so bad?

[+BudMan MVC]

drop the /16 and put in the mask 255.255.0.0 = same thing

[ANON86364]

REJECT/DROP 173.194.55.0/24

REJECT/DROP 206.111.0.0/16

(for the uninformed, /16 and /24 is not a range, but a subnet class) ie, 206.111.0.0 - 206.111.255.255 = /16)

Problem solved, was posted on reddit just this week. I did it myself and everything loads instantly now on my 85mbit FiOS line vs before laggy as ever. This affects all the feeds on youtube/vimeo, so all will be well. It can be confirmed by adding and removing with tests before after and then removed after again.

Time Warner and Verizon have this issue, no one is quite sure the absolute cause, but those servers your blocking are google and vimeo servers that most likely handle content throttling. When they are blocked you download directly from the source, ie; google data center.

Use caution as you are blocking a wide range of ip address locations. No one has reported any adverse effects yet.

Linux commands below; (Advanced Firewall on Windows Vista or higher can handle this also)

sudo ipfw add reject src-ip 173.194.55.0/24 in

sudo ipfw add reject src-ip 206.111.0.0/16 in

Source; http://www.reddit.co...50w8x?context=1

I would like to know how they came up with these subnets from their ISPs and what exactly is meant by the REJECT/DROP. This would helpful to those trying to figure out why their own YouTube browsing is slow on a different ISP.

[+BudMan MVC]

Well real quick if you resolve

o-o---preferred---sn-mv-p5qe---v17---lscache1.c.youtube.com

You get 206.111.9.12, well thats what I got, which is just cname, etc. But yeah not sure how they determined to block the whole /16 block..

[ANON86364]

When resolving that I get 208.117.251.13. But still, it leaves too many questions for me. Where did you get that cname from? Who is to say that YouTube doesn't use other caches referred to by cname depending on location. It would seem it's far too difficult to find out YouTube's structure for providing videos to make one suggestion work uniformly. Hence, the method is imperative.

[+BudMan MVC]

Its its quite possible the cache(s) reside on lots of different networks.. I would not block such networks unless you were having a specific issue with that specific cache, etc..

I would do your own analysis of where your pulling your youtube videos from.

The reddit link is the guy was doing experiments and posted what he found, not sure blocking it is the correct solution - but others seemed to have jumped on that plan. Does not mean its a fix for anyone having youtube issues.

[AJerman]

I have never ever ever ever EVER been able to stream video from YouTube at a decent pace, and I have... big surprise, Time Warner as my ISP. I've always known they were involved in the issue. I have 20 Mbps internet with them and no issue with any speed test ever, just actually playing the videos. Glad to hear people figuring out more info about the cache servers. I'll definitely have to try that when I get home. YouTube still streams like it's 1995 for me.

[Vourdex]

I have Time Warner Roadrunner and I was also having issues with YouTube buffering. I added the entry to my Windows Firewall and now it streams so fast and perfect like it should. I don't know why this works but it definitely does for me. It is so lame we have to do this just to get good YouTube speeds.

[JustGeorge]

http://www.dslreports.com/shownews/Why-Is-Everyone-Having-YouTube-Streaming-Issues-123282

[theyarecomingforyou]

It's pathetic that ISPs are messing with the experience and screwing up people's ability to use the internet connection they paid for. Network caches should only ever be used if the improve performance, not as a way to reduce the ISP's running costs. And it's no surprise to see that American ISPs are responsible for the bulk of the issues, given the issues with broadband competition over there. There's no incentive to offer a better service if users don't have a decent alternative.

[tsupersonic]

Not sure it works...I have Roadrunner 20/2 package. On my desktop, I made the change the change to Windows Firewall, I'm getting 10,000-20,000 kbps download on youtube. On my laptop, where I didn't make any changes to Windows Firewall, I'm getting roughly the same download speed on the same exact video at the same resolution...

[Growled Member]

Use BellSouth here and I've never had any problems.

[n_K]

From what I remember, youtube implemented small buffering within the last 2 years which means it will buffer a certain amount or percent of the video (not sure which or what the parameter is) and then as you get nearer to the end of that buffer point, load more data from youtube.

You think it's annoying that it does that, especially if you're on a flakey wireless connection but it actually does make sense, how many people on youtube are just browing random videos or stop listening/watching things part the way through? Saves YT a lot of resources and bandwidth to not stream the whole files to everyone if they're not gonna use it, plus it allows them to monitor and slow down connections when they detect people downloading videos en masse.

[ANON86364]

I wanted to add a bit of interesting information. On any YouTube video you can right click and show video info. This will display the speed at which you are downloading the video. I've gone to a few and some are maxing out my pipe but some more popular videos are throttled down to less than 1Mbps. This would seem to suggest that there is in fact a cache somewhere affecting me. What is the best way for me to determine from where I am downloading a particular video? I'm not too familiar with this level of investigation.

From what I remember, youtube implemented small buffering within the last 2 years which means it will buffer a certain amount or percent of the video (not sure which or what the parameter is) and then as you get nearer to the end of that buffer point, load more data from youtube.

You think it's annoying that it does that, especially if you're on a flakey wireless connection but it actually does make sense, how many people on youtube are just browing random videos or stop listening/watching things part the way through? Saves YT a lot of resources and bandwidth to not stream the whole files to everyone if they're not gonna use it, plus it allows them to monitor and slow down connections when they detect people downloading videos en masse.

There is more of a problem than simple buffering that people are having issue with. I have a 25Mbps connection. If I were streaming videos at that speed, I wouldn't care how little my buffer is. The problem is that either YouTube or ISPs are using caching servers which can't handle the load of their customers. It seems as though some people are finding success in ignoring certain IPs/subnets in which incompetent cache servers reside. That is where this conversation should be heading in my opinion: Helping find a method for each person to apply to their situation.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

Someone linked to a good guide the other day, but I'm not able to find it at this time.

You need to go into your advanced firewall for windows, create a outbound rule, choose custom, all programs, all ports, tcp for protocol, enter address lines as 206.111.0.0/16 etc, and finish.

It should look like below for 206.111.0.0/16 in your advanced firewall if done right.

The 173 subnet class c is for vimeo if I read correctly, I just used google in the above example. And its 206.111 not 206.x

And IpTables wise, routers like the Actiontec supplied by FiOS allows for GUI Web Access for advanced filtering.

i think it needs to be an inbound rule, not an outbound, right?

i followed this guide yesterday that i found linked on the Reddit site

http://www.studyblog.net/2011/10/block-ip-address-or-ip-range-in-windows-server-2008-by-windows-firewall/

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

i can confirm that this fix works. I am doing the Youtube speed test right now, downloading their 720p test video. The site shows that my avg speed over the last month was 4Mbps. Right now it's downloading that video at 20-27Mbps.

[SuperKid]

Nope never had issue one with youtube bandwidth

Do you have a specific video your having issues with you can link too? Some of the major ISP use their own caching server for youtube, that could be your problem?

I would rightclick on a video and get the info, what speed are you getting. I would also again from rightclick on video to a speedtest - what does that show?

Virgin Media here in the UK use caching server for popular YouTube videos and its really really slow :(

[mattmatik]

i can confirm that this fix works. I am doing the Youtube speed test right now, downloading their 720p test video. The site shows that my avg speed over the last month was 4Mbps. Right now it's downloading that video at 20-27Mbps.

Yup, fix works for me as well. I was pulling my hair out today trying to figure this out. Was resorting to 240p! Using U-Verse here.

[mattmatik]

Well, the issue is back. Last for about an hour then I went to load another video in 720p and it only plays 5 seconds or so before it has to buffer again. What a PoS. I use youtube a lot for game mods, lets plays, etc and this is just annoying. Swear this was working fine not even 4 days ago.

edit: Yeah, I can't explain it. Went in and re-added the firewall rule and it wasn't getting above 360p without stopping. Went to do the youtube speed test and the damn thing loaded up fine. Went back to the original video I was trying to watch and its working fine again. Who knows.