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YouTube TV confirms fix for freezing issue affecting NBA playoff games

If you turned to YouTube TV this week to watch NBA playoff games, you may have noticed some issues with ads “freezing” for an extended period of time. The issue happened twice, but Google has confirmed a fix is coming.

As we reported on Wednesday night, YouTube TV streams “froze” for many users in the midst of the Miami Heat vs. Boston Celtics game, the first game of the NBA Eastern Conference Finals. YouTube TV is often praised for its stability, so the issue certainly came with terrible timing for viewers invested in the game. For many affected viewers, YouTube TV simply got stuck in a loop of playing ads for Disney’s live-action Little Mermaid remake.

Then, during last night’s Lakers and Nuggets matchup, the same thing started to happen for many. Reports quickly came up through Reddit threads and Twitter, but it wasn’t nearly as widespread.

Still, it’s a worrying trend as the NBA Finals near.

Luckily, YouTube TV is aware of the issue, and has confirmed a fix for “freezing” ads. In a comment on Reddit, a confirmed YouTube TV engineer said that a fix is being implemented for the ads buffering/freezing issue. When the problem first came up, YouTube explained the problem as “elevated rebuffing rates.”

Hopefully, whatever fix YouTube has in store will be implemented quickly and, more importantly, actually work. Tests like these are just the beginning as YouTube TV’s subscriber numbers continue to grow, and as NFL Sunday Ticket games near.

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Avatar for Ben Schoon Ben Schoon

Ben is a Senior Editor for 9to5Google.

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