FIXED: YouTube Freezes on Chrome and Edge in Windows 10

Chrome crashes when you play YouTube videos? Well, you can fix your browsers – Google Chrome and Microsoft Edge – by trying out the following four simple methods.

These simple methods can fix the “YouTube freezes on Google Chrome” and “YouTube freezes on Microsoft Edge” issues for Windows 10 users.

Quick Links:

1. Get Rid of Unwanted Extensions & Plug-ins

There are several reasons why Microsoft Edge or Google Chrome keeps freezing when YouTube videos are played.

Unwanted plug-ins and extensions on Chrome and Edge are among the main reasons causing this issue.

To disable such extensions on Microsoft Edge:

Open the Microsoft Edge browser on Windows 10
Click on the three dots at the right-side top corner of the window

To disable such extensions on Microsoft Edge:

A drop-down menu opens
Click on the Extensions option

Look for suspicious and unwanted plug-ins
Click on them to disable them by turning them ‘ Off ’

In Google Chrome, you can disable extensions as follows:

Open the Google Chrome browser on Windows 10
Type – chrome://extensions/ - in the address bar

In Google Chrome, you can disable extensions as follows:

Press the Enter key
A new page opens up
Locate the unwanted extensions
Click on them to turn them off

Now that you’ve disabled the extensions, see if YouTube still freezes on Edge or Chrome.

2. Turn Hardware Acceleration Off

When you disable hardware acceleration of any browser, you can surf several websites smoothly.

Many Windows 10 users have fixed the ‘YouTube freezes on Google Chrome’ problem with this solution.

Open the Google Chrome browser on your Windows 10 computer
At the right-side top corner, you’ll find three dots
Click on them to open the drop-down menu
Click on the Settings option (at the bottom of the menu)

A new page gets loaded on the browser
Scroll to the bottom of this page
Click on the option – Show advanced settings
Scroll further to the bottom of the page
Uncheck or toggle off the box that says “ User hardware acceleration when available ”

Now, you have disabled Google Chrome’s hardware acceleration. Log in to the YouTube website and see if Chrome freezes when YouTube videos are played.

3. Update Graphics Drivers

Microsoft Edge, Google Chrome and several other web browsers start freezing when your computer drivers aren’t updated.

When a YouTube video freezes but audio continues, Chrome is telling you that you need to update your drivers.

Click on Start menu
Type ‘ Run ’ in the search box
Select the program ‘Run’ to open a dialog box
Type the following in the dialog box

devmgmt.msc

Click on OK
This opens the Device Manager window
Check all the drivers by right-clicking on them
Select the Update Driver option from the drop-down menus

Select “ Search automatically for updates ”

Windows 10 will install the driver updates for you

Once you complete this process for every driver, particularly the graphics driver, in that list, restart your computer to put the change into effect.

4. (UPDATE) Increase Disk Cache Size

If YouTube on your Google Chrome keeps freezing even after trying out the above mentioned steps, the solution given below might help you. In this method, you have to increase the default number of disk cache size in Chrome. The default disk cache size is set to 300MB which you can change up to 8GB.

Let’s see how to increase the disk cache size in Google Chrome to fix YouTube freezing issue.

Add a Google Chrome shortcut icon on your desktop - ignore this step if it’s already on the desktop
Right-click on the Google Chrome desktop icon and select Properties

Go to Shortcut tab
Now, in the Target field, add the following code at the end of the link

--disk-cache-size=1073741824

So the Target field will look like:

“C:\Program Files (x86)\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe” -disk-cache-size=1073741824

Now click on Apply and Ok, and you’re done. You’ve successfully changed the cache disk size to 1GB. You can change the number in the 4th step to increase or decrease the size accordingly.

Note: If you heavily use Chrome for browsing, keep clearing your Chrome’s browsing data every couple of days in order to make sure Chrome doesn’t run out of the disk cache size.