PooToob Menus Illegible -> RESOLVED

[monkey man]

I've Poogled it, trying every poo-mutation and combination of key words I could think of, and the lack of successful hits is, I suspect, due to the fact that "PooToob" has to be part of the string. The search engine "interprets" the inclusion of said word as being a request for viewing a video of whatever issue it deems the remaining terms to constitute.

I'm frankly amazed that the first page of results wasn't overrun with posts from others experiencing the same thing... unless I'm somehow only one of very few. To be clear: I'm talking about the pop-up menus for setting resolution and so on; I've only ever used the res one to save bandwidth so I've no idea what the other options are.

After banging my head against this brick wall and putting up with said menus' being almost uniformly black for at least a month, I've reached the point where I feel compelled to ask the Unicorn Collective™ what the heck is goin' on here.

Er, so... was sup wit' dis, homies?

[bayswater]

I thought it was a Yosemite thing, but you're not using Yosemite. Sometimes I can see what the popup menus and their values from the bottom right of a YT screen, but more and more they are so transparent as to be invisible. Like you, I can't find any mention of it via google, or in the Apple support pages.

If you use questions like "why does..." or "how to ..." in searches, that will often overcome the problem of any search with the term youtube leading to a video.

[monkey man]

Tried that too, Stoivo.

Thank you so much for confirming that I'm not alone on this one. It defies belief that if it's an issue for many, it's still there, IMHO.

You'd think it'd be a quick code fix, unless it's an issue on our end. If the latter were the case, 'though, that mightn't explain why sometimes, as you suggested, the menus are indeed visible in the usual way, proving that any necessary assets / fonts or whatever aren't missing from our machines.

Hopefully someone else is able to help us out here...

[bayswater]

The 10.10.5 update didn't fix it. The popup menus are still very difficult to see.

In Chrome the menus are much more visible. I'd be tempted to speculate that Google has purposely made them difficult to see in Safari, or Apple has purposely made them difficult to see because they are mostly Flash Player videos. But they are even more legible in Firefox than they are in Chrome, and it's not as if Apple has some competing product.

On the bright side, most of what I want to see can be had in places other than Youtube. As an alternative you can follow James' tip and use ClipGrab. Put the URL from Youtube in its search box and you can select the lowest resolution, and download the clip. Takes no more bandwidth than streaming.

[monkey man]

Hey, I thought ClipGrab was my tip, Stoiv. Been using and recommending it for years (from the git-go). I do remember James' saying that early this year, 'though, to be fair; your memory hasn't failed you in this instance.

The thing is, I like to "needle-drop" music videos at the menu's lowest-res option (240p), and then use ClipGrab only when suitably impressed. It's a time-and-bandwidth thing. This res-setting exercise is to this day the only adjustment I've ever made in PooToob's menus.

S'pose I'd better learn the exact location of the option and go from memory as one can still see the lists' separating-lines...

[bayswater]

So it was you?? OK.

I can see the resolution options if I take my glasses off and get right up to the screen. Or use Firefox.

[billf]

Nicky,

Are you referring to this menu?

[bayswater]

That would be Firefox?

[billf]

That would be Firefox?

It's the Waterfox browser. Is that the menu you guys are discussing?

[bayswater]

I've never heard of Waterfox. I was using Safari and it can't see the menus. One Firefox, the Youtube menus look the same as those you posted.

[billf]

Waterfox is a mozilla fork of Firefox, and is more efficient. More info on that here https://www.waterfoxproject.org/

Regarding Safari, is it playing the videos using Flash or is it using HTML5?

[bayswater]

I d/l'd Waterfox and I'm running it now. It sets up well, automatically adds your bookmarks, but can't say it's any faster than Safari for me.

I have a plugin in Safari to use HTML5 when possible, but it doesn't tell you whether it's using FlashPlayer and when it's using HTML5. But the the Youtube videos are playing ok. It's only the menus that are not displaying properly.

[monkey man]

... even in WaterFox, Stoiv?

Nicky,

Are you referring to this menu?

Yeah, Billy.

So it was you?? OK.

I can see the resolution options if I take my glasses off and get right up to the screen. Or use Firefox.

Even "right up to the screen" I can't see 'em. Could be 'cause I've always run my monitors and telly with less power-hungry settings.

[cuttime]

I always run YouTube in HTML5 mode and I never have this problem.

[bayswater]

I always run YouTube in HTML5 mode and I never have this problem.

Just looked, and I do too, at least in Safari. I see this when I click on the setting popup menu (with Firefox I see what billf posted):