3380 upvotes, 29 direct replies (showing 25)
View submission: Found Reddit video player source code
This is exactly my experience, glad I'm not alone. Why is this?
Comment by satosat at 20/05/2022 at 05:42 UTC
1429 upvotes, 9 direct replies
reddit is actually banned in my country, so i have to always use vpn to open it. i thought video freezing was just because of the crappy vpn. glad (though probably shouldn't be) to know that it's actually an issue for others as well.
Comment by Chirimorin at 20/05/2022 at 07:32 UTC
128 upvotes, 2 direct replies
Because the Reddit video player is just garbage and it can't handle the one thing it was designed to do (playing video).
I've blocked v.redd.it posts through RES so I don't even see them anymore because each time I see such a post I'm just disappointed about being unable to watch it. If I was a subreddit mod I'd probably ban v.redd.it links just because they're such a waste of a post.
Comment by weird_dude_69_420 at 20/05/2022 at 03:19 UTC
138 upvotes, 2 direct replies
No idea. Happens to me all the time
Comment by Creator13 at 20/05/2022 at 06:44 UTC
20 upvotes, 2 direct replies
It's interesting because I use Sync for Reddit and I rarely have issues opening videos hosted on reddit's own servers. They have always been somewhat slower to load than videos hosted elsewhere, but my experience is nothing like the horrendous experience watching videos on the web page is.
Comment by anythingMuchShorter at 20/05/2022 at 08:45 UTC
48 upvotes, 5 direct replies
If the video is interesting more people are watching it. There are only so many tapes of each video so the server has to make you wait while someone else is watching.
Comment by jonr at 20/05/2022 at 08:21 UTC
9 upvotes, 1 direct replies
It ALWAYS freezes around the 1/3-1/2 in. Why?
Comment by Character_Building at 20/05/2022 at 08:04 UTC*
9 upvotes, 2 direct replies
From my observations, Reddit creates artificial technical complexity, like storing sound and video separately when they are traditionally part of the same file, to induce people into sharing comment pages rather than direct content. This adds maintenance costs on top of an already very complicated technical problem (huge video services) that's also very expensive.
Presumably, the hope is that it makes more people convert into users/keeps the site going, rather than people just 'ripping' content.
Edit: this may be a standard I wasn't familiar with, so this may not be the case
Comment by subject_deleted at 20/05/2022 at 05:22 UTC
24 upvotes, 4 direct replies
Reddit server is potato. Only explanation.
Comment by often_says_nice at 20/05/2022 at 07:06 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
My guess is that interesting videos have more people trying to play them at any given time. Perhaps there are a limited number of workers that handle video posts.
Comment by [deleted] at 20/05/2022 at 11:18 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
r/fuckvreddit
Comment by platonicgryphon at 20/05/2022 at 15:45 UTC
0 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Because you’re probably smart and don’t use the official app. The official app has always sucked and people just don’t get it.
Comment by SlasherKittyCat at 20/05/2022 at 08:27 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I've found it helps if I clear the app cache and check the video out again. Cache doesn't even have to be that full (500Mb) before it starts to freeze again.
Comment by drawkbox at 20/05/2022 at 09:17 UTC*
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
So much tracking...
I am always surprised how Reddit just rips video from all platforms, puts it in theirs and then enables tracking or "telemetry" and that is ok. Remember when Facebook was stealing Youtube videos and everyone was appalled? Yeah, that isn't happening with reddit stealing content.
Reddit video has the lames play buttons and controls as well.
Comment by velozmurcielagohindu at 20/05/2022 at 10:43 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Code actually specifies to freeze the videos randomly. The "is interesting" part is confirmation bias.
Comment by Mortimer452 at 20/05/2022 at 12:08 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It's been the top complaint on /r/beta for years
Comment by lethargy86 at 20/05/2022 at 12:10 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
If it freezes, just right click on it then left click on it (not any of the menu options)
Why does this work? Why does it freeze in the first place? I don’t even want to know
Comment by super_yu at 20/05/2022 at 12:11 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I honestly don't know...
It's as if they tasked their best experienced devs with implementing the 1001 awards system and threw the video API to the 3 new interns
Comment by elveszett at 20/05/2022 at 12:14 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Their video player sucks, that's it. It simply isn't made correctly.
I don't know why so many sites use custom video players when 90% of them are inferior to the standard HTML <video> element as rendered by browsers.
Comment by Cerg1998 at 20/05/2022 at 12:23 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It's something to do with the player within the app. I use an unofficial app and the problem is just not there. On an official app it's shit. In a browser on a desktop it's also alright.
Comment by LeSpatula at 20/05/2022 at 13:08 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Well, I use the videoplayer since it was introduced and I don't remember a single instance it made problems. However, I use old reddit and RIF on mobile.
Comment by [deleted] at 20/05/2022 at 13:12 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Because only one person can watch a video at a time in any given region.
Comment by Raznill at 20/05/2022 at 13:21 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I almost exclusively use narwhal client on iOS and have never had issues with videos playing.
Comment by whatiswronggwithyou at 20/05/2022 at 14:24 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
It’s an interesting video, so maybe more shares/views.
So probably a hot key scenario.
Ideally the data store that the video file streams from should have multiple distributed copies and have some sort of caching layer to accelerate retrieval during transient traffic spikes.
Comment by pokemonsta433 at 20/05/2022 at 14:27 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Probably just the interesting video servers have a lot of traffic :/
Reddit doesn't host the videos themselves afaik so it's just to do with the site the embedded player is connected to
Comment by Does_Not-Matter at 20/05/2022 at 14:30 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Look at the code, gawd!