Playing YouTube video causes iTunes songs to freeze

[bizzwriter]

I've had a problem for the past couple of months where when I play a YouTube video (hard to avoid them nowadays -- many websites use YouTube to host videos), my iTunes songs freeze. I press PLAY and nothing happens. Then, when I try to play another YouTube video, it's frozen too. Basically, I'm unable to play any online video or audio track.

This occurs no matter what browser i use (Chrome, Firefox, Safari). If I switch to a different browser, it's frozen too. The only cure I've figured out is to restart my computer.

I've got an iMac 5k 27-inch, 2017 4.2 GHz Core i7 running High Sierra 10.13.3.

Anyone else run into this problem? If so, what did you do to cure it? I've done a bunch of searches and can't find any posts for anything like this.

Thanks!

 

[techwarrior]

I typically use USB headphones on my Macs. A\V freeze is a common thing for me, somehow the headphones are "forgotten" by my Mac. Without an audio path, the media freezes

To resolve, i simply unplug the US headset, then replug them and I am good to go.

This has been going on for a couple of years, at one time Apple claimed to fix this in one of the OS updates, only to have the problem come back later.

 

[bizzwriter]

Many thanks @techwarrior ! Now that you mention it, this new phenomenon coincides with my purchase of an Audioquest DragonFly Red USB DAC. I'll bet that's it. Next time this happens I'll unplug/replug the DAC and see if that works. THX

 

[bizzwriter]

Wow -- that was it. iTunes audio was frozen again just now. Unplugged my USB DAC, then replugged -- audio UNfrozen. Worked like a charm. MANY thanks, @techwarrior -- that was a pretty esoteric problem/fix!