Troubleshooting | How to Fix Video Streaming Problems
Last updated: 2/25/2023
What to do if you are experiencing difficulties…
If you are having issues watching one of our live webcasts, the information below will show you how to fix video streaming problems for typical scenarios, including webcasts from other providers.
Below is a series of steps (clickable tabs) to follow in chronological. This will help determine and correct any issues with your equipment that may be causing poor performance.
Refresh your browser (CTRL + F5 keys simultaneously) or close it and re-open again – Fixes video freezing and other irregular behavior.
The player controls are located at the bottom of the player window. Often the control bar is hidden until you hover the cursor over the bottom of the player window.
Play/Pause Button – Usually located on the lower left corner of the player bar, often times the stream won’t start unless you click the PLAY button.
Sound Level – Make sure to unmute the audio by clicking the speaker icon in the player control bar and raise the volume with this control as well.
Picture Options – Click on the the gear icon in the player control bar. Some broadcasts offer different quality levels. Choose higher numbers to increase picture quality. Choose lower numbers to reduce buffering.
Make sure you only have one browser window or tab open – otherwise you might have two instances of the webcast playing, which will cause an annoying echo.
Close unnecessary applications – Multiple apps running can slow down the video performance and hog bandwidth.
Reboot your computer – Helps to clear the browser cache and re-establish a connection with the streaming server.
Make sure your internet service is fast enough – Most of our broadcasts require that you have a broadband internet connection with at least a 700 kbps download throughput. If not, you may experience buffering delays. If you have a slow internet connection, try reducing the stream quality. This feature (if available for your particular webcast) is accessed by placing your mouse at the lower right-hand corner of the video window and selecting a lower resolution stream. You will typically see choices such as 1080, 720, 480, 360, 240, etc. The lower the number, the lower the quality but the less bandwidth (connection speed) needed, thus eliminating common buffering issues.
Update your browser – Best video performance is attained by using the most recent version of your web browser software. Chrome, Safari, and Firefox are the most compatable with live streaming platforms.
Follow this link to find out if you are up to date:
If not, follow the instructions to download and install a new version here:
Reboot your modem and router – Sometimes these devices can lock-up resulting in slow or non-existent internet throughput. Simply unplug each device, wait approximately one minute, then re-connect the power. Within a minute or two they should be back online again.
Clear the cache and cookies in your Browser – Your browser stores recently visited websites (or portions of it such as images and videos) in a temporary file called the cache. If refreshing your browser didn’t work, then forcing the browser to clear its cache is the next step.
In rare instances the problem may have nothing to do with your equipment. Sometimes the issue has to do with the stream delivery itself.
- The on-site broadcast location (very rare) – There may be a technical problem with equipment or a failure of the internet uplink connection that carries the video stream. In most cases, we can restore all or part of the broadcast functionality using redundant encoders and wireless LTE/5G internet modems.
- The Content Delivery Network – This includes the media server that handles the incoming and outgoing feeds, the web hosting platform where the viewer is embedded (this is the link you click on to watch the webcast) as well as the internet distribution system that carries the stream to your Internet Service Provider. If an outage occurs here, we will re-route to an alternate network and web page. Use the alternate link given to you or you can try one of our backup viewing portals below: