Cannot play videos on any browser

[Howard Davis]

Running Win 7, which still works fine for me. YouTube videos now cannot play whether through a Facebook link or directly from YouTube. 

Troubleshooting advice would be greatly appreciated. 

[Howard Davis]

Additional information: 

The computer is becoming unusable. Among the many issues are:

 

Upon bootup or putting something into the recycle bin, I get a pop-up saying "An attempt by Explorer.EXE to modify a backup file" was blocked by Acronis. F:\$recyclebin\S1 - - - .tib  I always click "ignore." F is an external hard drive used for Acronis backups.

 

Cannot play videos from YouTube, but other videos have played OK.

 

I've had to repair Microsoft Office several times recently, and the fix doesn't last long. Usually Outlook goes bad first - stops working, freezes up, etc. 

 

"Search programs and files" sometimes does not bring up what it should, if anything.

 

Sometimes the computer will not shut down and I must kill power. Next time I try to boot up I may still get "shutting down," and must kill power again. Finally I've been able to get it working, but it appears to be getting worse and is becoming unusable. 

[farmeunit]

Works fine for you, but have a ton of issues, lol.

 

Sorry, but that's funny.  Whenever an OS goes unsupported, you're bound to start having issue from lack of compatibility and security (malware, etc.).  

 

Probably just to just reformat at the point you're having this many issues.  If you're backup, you should have tried restoring from one of those early on in these incidents.

 

You would be best served to move to Windows 10 and learn to use it.  It's honestly much the same as Windows 7;, anyway, other than the basic looks of it.

 

There are lots of things you can do and none of them will fix your issue.

 

This is a pretty automated way to fixing and checking things.  https://www.reddit.com/r/TronScript/comments/u0jfpd/tron_v1202_20220328_minor_definition_updates_bug/

 

 

[eddman]

Try these:

 

1. Might be a malware infection. Do a virus scan.

2. Maybe windows is corrupted. Run the system file checker. https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html

3. Since you mentioned shutdown issues, it might be video driver related. Uninstall and install the latest version.

[jnelsoninjax]

From an elevated command prompt run SFC/Scannow

That will check for any system files that are damaged and attempts to repair them

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

On 24/06/2022 at 18:38, Howard Davis said:

Running Win 7, which still works fine for me.

 

On 25/06/2022 at 18:44, Howard Davis said:

Additional information: 

The computer is becoming unusable. Among the many issues

I mean... those two comments seem to be somewhat at odds with each other.

[+Warwagon MVC]

First thing i would do is check the smart data on the hard drive to see if the hard drive is reporting any health issues. https://osdn.net/projects/crystaldiskinfo/downloads/77469/CrystalDiskInfo8_17_2.exe/

 

Do you have any adblock or any other extensions in your browser? Have you tried different browsers? Which browser is causing the issue? When you try playing a YouTube video what errors do you get, or do you just get a black box?

[techbeck]

 

 

Ruling out any hardware issues first, then I would recommend a data backup and a clean install on Win7.    Unless you have the time and patience to fix each individual issue, would probably be faster to do a clean install.   

 

If I have time, and if these issues are consistent across multiple devices, I would take time to troubleshoot and narrow down the issue in case it comes up again.  But for one offs, IMO and especially at work, it is a waste of time to spent hours troubleshooting a one off issue when I can do a clean install in a fraction of the time.

[+Good Bot, Bad Bot Subscriber¹]

Quote

Running Win 7, which still works fine for me.

You then listed a bunch of serious and unusual issues you are having on your PC. Ummmm

 

You didn't really give us enough information to troubleshoot.  What browsers (and version) are you using that you can't watch YouTube videos would be step one.

 

Warwagon was right about doing a SMART diag of your drive to see if any issues.

 

Personally, I would take this as a good opportunity to upgrade to a SSD if still using a HDD and do a clean install of Windows 10. Continuing on with Windows 7 that is out of support doesn't really make sense.

Edited June 25, 2022 by Good Bot, Bad Bot

[Howard Davis]

Thank you all for replying - great bunch of people here.

 

I still get Win 7 updates so it apparently is still supported. It's been running fine for years. I have Malwarebytes and other antivirus so I doubt there is malware behind this. I will not (at least at my level of expertise or lack thereof) mess with it. The issues I have change - now YouTube does play. The issues when they occur are with all browsers I've tried. 

 

I've contacted a good tech that has helped me in the past and am willing to pay him to troubleshoot and fix. 

[+Nik Louch Subscriber²]

On 26/06/2022 at 18:43, Howard Davis said:

I still get Win 7 updates so it apparently is still supported.

Nope. EOL Jan 2020.

[Gerowen]

On 25/06/2022 at 15:28, warwagon said:

First thing i would do is check the smart data on the hard drive to see if the hard drive is reporting any health issues. https://osdn.net/projects/crystaldiskinfo/downloads/77469/CrystalDiskInfo8_17_2.exe/

 

Do you have any adblock or any other extensions in your browser? Have you tried different browsers? Which browser is causing the issue? When you try playing a YouTube video what errors do you get, or do you just get a black box?

+1 on checking your hard drive for problems.  Random, seemingly unrelated problems like this can often be chalked up to malware or failing hardware, so use something like Windows scandisk to check the drive, or Crystal Disk Info to quickly get a reading on the current SMART status of your boot drive.

[+Warwagon MVC]

You might also want to try disabling hardware acceleration in your web browser and see if it improves.

[inactive]

I suggest updating your Windows 7 to Windows 10 using the Media Creation Tool from Microsoft as the last I knew it still worked on updating to Windows 10 for free. so basically use the Media Creation Tool, update to Win10, confirm it's activated, then use the Windows 10 ISO to wipe your hard drive and install it from scratch and your pretty much all set.

 

but if going to Windows 10 is out of the question (like your hardware don't support it etc), then you pretty much got two options...

 

Option 1)Switch to Linux (I suggest Linux Mint), which is what I suggest. basically this is a solid option if you don't need a ton of windows specific software.

 

or (as a option, but I don't really recommend it unless absolutely needed)...

 

Option 2)Try clean installing Windows 7 from a updated ISO and then there is something else you can do so it still receives extended security updates since they officially dropped support of it to the common person in Jan 2020. basically 'Integrate 7 script' (by wkeller) over on the MyDigitalLife forums will create you a updated ISO as of April 2022 (it even has some stuff removed so it's a bit more striped down as it tells you what it does in the topic there). it's too large to fit onto a standard 4.7GB DVD though so you will have to boot it from a USB stick. then on the bottom of that post in the "PS" section it links you to a thing so you can receive future updates.

 

p.s. I never tried the 'future updates thing' myself but I did try the updated ISO and it installed fine on my old computer a while ago. but I have only Linux Mint on it currently even though I kept that Win7 image for rare use as Win10 64bit simply wont install on it due to lack of nx-bit and the 32bit version installs but it's unstable. Win7 and Linux are perfectly stable though on that hardware (which is pretty much a high-end board in 2005, early 2006).

Edited July 6, 2022 by ThaCrip