Fix Mac Safari YouTube Black Screen Blank Players

A common problem with Mac computers and the Safari internet browser is that sometimes the YouTube video does not display correctly: just a black screen or a black player window.

Luckily, if YouTube videos are not loading correctly, the solution is pretty simple. These next two steps should get you started watching videos again in no time. Note that this issue is very rare these days because most YouTube videos use HTML 5 instead of Flash to play videos.

1. Change Safari settings

The easiest and easiest way to fix this YouTube error is to change some simple preferences in Safari. Navigate to the following path: Finder – Applications. Scroll down the list of apps until you find the Safari icon. Right-click the Safari icon and select Get Info from the context menu.

Select the “Open in 32-bit mode” checkbox. Close and exit the Safari Info window. Please note that you will only see this option on OS X 10.8 (Mountain Lion) or earlier. If you use anything above 10.8, this option no longer exists.

Launch Safari and go to Safari – Reset Safari – Reset to reset Safari. If you are using Safari 8 or 9 or higher, the reset option no longer exists. Instead, you need to clear history, clear caches, and manually disable extensions. Go to Safari, then to Preferences and click Advanced.

Select the Show design menu in menu bar check box. Close the preferences window, then click “Develop” and click “Clear caches”. Click Development again and then click Disable Extensions.

Finally, click on History and select Clear History at the bottom. Restart Safari and hopefully YouTube videos will play again.

2. Uninstall and reinstall Flash

If the above solution did not fix YouTube problems, you should try uninstalling and reinstalling Flash Player. This is very easy to do.

Go to this web page and it will automatically detect your operating system and Flash version. Towards the middle of the page, you will see links to download the Flash Player removal utility. Run the utility and uninstall Flash Player.

After completely uninstalling Flash Player, go to Adobe, download and install the latest Flash Player.

Once you have installed the latest Flash Player, go to Finder – Applications – Utilities – Disk Utility. Select your hard drive from the list and restore disk permissions.

Reboot your computer and the YouTube videos should work.

Note. The above two steps will solve YouTube problems in most cases. If YouTube still doesn’t work, try using a different browser like Firefox or Chrome. This way, you can check if YouTube works with your computer, but with a different browser. If it works with Firefox, review the Safari settings and check if there are any incorrect settings.

For more Mac tips, visit our Mac, iPhone, iPad, and everything else Apple-related site, Switch to Mac.

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