A video is not loading or working
If a video is not loading for you, it is usually due to a conflict with your browser or device. Sometimes just refreshing or reloading the page will help the video load.
Some of our videos are hosted through YouTube. Due to a recent change in how YouTube verifies embedded videos combined with Apple's built-in privacy protections in Safari — which also power every browser app on iPhone and iPad, including Chrome and Firefox — a small number of these videos may fail to load on those devices (often showing an "Error 153" message). Unfortunately, these videos cannot be viewed with an iPhone or iPad (or using Safari on a laptop).
If a video does not load and you see a brief error message with a “Watch video on YouTube” button or link, please follow the troubleshooting steps below or contact us for assistance.
Do not watch the video directly on YouTube. The YouTube version does not include the embedded questions and other interactions required to complete the activity, and we cannot track your progress or record your completion if you watch the video on YouTube.
Other videos are hosted through Vimeo and are typically more reliable, but they can also get blocked by aggressive ad blockers or browser settings.
Videos also require certain cookies to be accepted, as described below.
Some troubleshooting tips for a video that is not loading correctly:
- Try just refreshing/reloading the current page. Sometimes a video will get stuck during initial page load and a simple refresh will resolve the problem.
- Videos served from Vimeo require that you accept "Statistics" cookies on our site. Videos served from YouTube require that you accept "Marketing" cookies on our site. If you have opted out of these categories of cookies, the video may not load at all. You can check or change your settings for these on our cookie preferences page.
- Try accessing our site using a different browser (e.g., Firefox, Safari, Chrome or any of hundreds of others!) or device. Some videos from YouTube cannot be viewed on an iPhone or iPad or with the Safari browser on a laptop.
- If you prefer to use your current browser, try opening a window or tab in private or incognito mode (see https://www.wikihow.com/Activate-Incognito-Mode for instructions on how to do this) and then accessing the video. Private or incognito mode typically disables most of your browser extensions or add-ons, so if the video loads you'll know it is likely an extension or add-on blocking the video.
- Try clearing your current browser's cache (see https://bit.ly/foxyclearcache for instructions) and reloading the video.
- If you're using a VPN, try disabling it while visiting our site.
There can be other causes for a video not loading, so if none of those solutions work for you, feel free to contact us and we can help troubleshoot the problem!