YouTube confirms ongoing issue with streaming quality affects large section of users

Have you noticed a weird issue with streaming videos and shorts on YouTube recently wherein the video quality is lower than usual? And when you try changing to higher quality streaming, you bump into constant buffering? Well, if the answer is yes, then find solace in the fact that this poor streaming quality problem doesn’t lie with your Internet connection.

A lot of users have been complaining about this recently, and it has come to a point that YouTube has officially acknowledged the problem. A Google employee, Camila, took to the company’s official support forum a few hours ago to reveal that they are very much aware of the problem, and are looking into it.

Here’s exactly what they shared:

We’re aware some of you are experiencing lower than usual video quality when trying to watch Videos and Shorts.

Here’s what you might be seeing:

– YouTube streaming at 144p or 360p despite strong internet connection
– Buffering when changing to higher quality
– Video quality could be impacted on IOS mobile, desktop, or Smart TV

Rest assured, we’re actively looking into this!

Interestingly, as you’d have noticed in the post above, the impacted list of devices doesn’t include Android. This could explain a slow build up of complaints on social media and platforms like Reddit, instead of a sudden uproar. The following screenshot shows consistent complaints regarding this bad streaming quality issue on Reddit in the last one month:

Anyway, it’s good to see that YouTube is already on it, and here’s hoping they sort this issue out sooner than later. Meanwhile, if you managed to find a workaround for this streaming video quality issue, do share in the comments below for the benefit of others.