YouTube has been a bit broken lately, with countless users complaining about extremely poor video quality. If you’ve noticed issues with videos on iOS, in YouTube Shorts, or while watching on a smart TV, you’re not alone. Thankfully, Google is aware of the problem.
According to YouTube, the company is busy looking into an issue that is causing “lower than usual video quality” across several platforms and devices. Initially, most complaints came from iOS users, but they were not the only ones experiencing the issue. For most, YouTube videos and shorts won’t exceed 144p or 360p resolution, which naturally doesn’t look very good on high-resolution phones, desktops, and 4K TVs. It’s not your new phone, internet connection, or carrier. It’s a YouTube problem!
Additionally, it sounds like when users try to manually go into video settings and increase the quality to 480p, 720p, 1080, or higher, they experience endless buffering and other issues. Essentially, YouTube, one of the most popular sites on the planet, is nearly unusable for many people.
Lately, countless users on Reddit have reported the problem, mentioning that the YouTube app is ignoring quality settings or adjustments and autoloading every single video at 144p, even on devices like the iPhone 16 Pro Max. One user said, “Even when I manually choose 720p, which my connection is completely capable of and has been, it refuses to go above 144p. It’s unwatchable.”
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Thankfully, we have some good news. A member of the YouTube support team is aware of the issue and confirmed a few of the glitches on the Google support forum. The person said that Google and YouTube are “actively looking into this!” and that they’ll update the thread with new information as soon as possible.
Basically, that means a fix is likely to come sooner rather than later. Considering that billions of people use YouTube daily, even for things like podcasts, it’s imperative that the company fix these issues.
While we’re unsure of just how widespread the issue is, the Google support page has nearly 4,000 replies and thousands of upvotes, meaning quite a lot of people are experiencing it. I’ve noticed this problem over the last 24 hours on a new 85-inch TV, which makes it look even worse when there are pixels everywhere on such a massive device.
However, it happened before I logged into my main account with YouTube Premium, which removes ads and enables higher bitrate streaming. YouTube Premium also enables background play, access to ad-free YouTube Music, and several other amazing features. I’m not saying to pay Google a monthly fee to fix this problem, but it disappeared once I logged in, and 1080p Premium played just fine.
Again, while YouTube’s video quality bug appears the most on iOS, you may experience it on a PC, Smart TV, or Android device. That said, reports from Android users have been few and far between.
For now, your best bet is to check for YouTube app updates on your phone or watch for updates on the Google support page mentioned above. The company will share additional details as soon as they’re available. Either way, rest assured that a fix is incoming. Let’s hope it’s sooner rather than later. Have you noticed your YouTube videos struggling?
Source: Android Police
