YouTube Not Working on LG Smart TV: 12 Simple Fixes

YouTube’s streaming service has too much binge-worthy content for you to get stuck dealing with a broken app. In this article, we’ll detail the easiest fixes for when YouTube is not working on LG smart TVs.

1. Make Sure Your LG TV Is Compatible With YouTube

The Youtube app works with all LG smart TV models from 2016 or later. Just make sure the TV is running webOS 3.0 or a later version.

If your TV can’t run YouTube natively, you can your only real options are to replace the TV or add a streaming stick. Obviously, a streaming stick is a cheaper and easier option.

You can play YouTube on any TV (smart or otherwise) by adding a Fire TV Stick or a Roku streaming stick. Both are easy to use and have all of the major streaming apps. Unless you already have a preference, I’d go with Fire TV largely for the Fire Stick Alexa voice controls.

2. Power Cycle Your LG TV

Often, app problems are caused by random TV software glitches. As with most software problems, the best solution is to turn it off and back on again.

The easiest way to restart LG TV apps is to restart the entire TV. However, when you hit the power button on your remote, it doesn’t actually turn off the TV. Instead, it sends it into standby mode, which won’t force a restart of your active app.

1. Unplug your TV from the power outlet.
2. Hold down the power button on your TV (not on the remote) for at least 60 seconds.
3. Plug your TV back into the wall outlet.

Now try the YouTube app again. You may want to keep these instructions handy; a good restart solves a lot of TV bugs.

3. Check Your Internet Speed

Slow internet can often cause buffering issues with Youtube and other video and streaming apps. In extreme cases, your internet may be too slow or unreliable to even connect to the YouTube servers.

You can do an internet speed test on your computer or phone. Make sure the device you are using is on the same network as your TV. For your phone, that also means turning off mobile data and connecting only to Wi-Fi.

You’re going to need speeds of at least 3–4 Mbps for standard streaming and 5–8 Mbps for HD. If your speeds are slower than that, you’ll need to:

• Check for sources of interferences (e.g., too many walls between your router and your TV).
• Restart your router (see the next section).
• Contact your internet provider to see whether there are network problems or whether you need an upgrade.

4. Restart Your Router

Often, the problem is with your local Wi-Fi network rather than your TV or the YouTube app.

Rather than try to debug every potential network problem, it’s easier to just restart your entire network to see if that sorts everything out. You’ll generally want to do this once a month or so anyway to keep your network functioning at its best.

Before proceeding, make sure that nobody in your home is actively using the internet. This process will shut down all network and internet connections for roughly five minutes during the reboot.

Okay, let’s get started.

1. Unplug the power cable from your router and modem.
2. Wait 30 seconds.
3. Plug the power cables back in.
4. Wait a few minutes for the modem and router to boot up.

Once your TV connects to the network again, try to run the Youtube app. If your network speeds were slow when you tested them, this is also a good time to run another test. Restarting your router will often boost your speeds for a short while, but it won’t fix every underlying problem.

5. Update Your LG TV Firmware

Just like app updates, firmware updates will often fix your TV app problems for you.

LG smart TVs have an auto-update feature, but you can also manually force a firmware update. This shouldn’t be necessary, but it is nice to have in case the automatic update is turned off or fails without telling you.

1. Press the Settings button on your remote.
2. Go to All Settings.
3. Open the General tab.
4. Select About this TV.
5. Click Check for updates.
6. Once the update is installed, power cycle your TV following the instructions above.

Once the firmware is updated, try the Youtube app again.

6. Reinstall the YouTube App

Reinstalling the app will clear its data, fixing many app-specific issues. You could clear the cache manually, but this method is easier on LG TVs.

To reinstall YouTube, you’re going to need to delete the app and then reinstall it.

How to delete the YouTube app

1. Press the Home button on your remote.
2. Navigate to the YouTube app.
3. Select and hold the app icon.
4. Click the trash bin icon above the app.
5. Press Yes in the pop-up to confirm.

How to reinstall the YouTube app

1. Press the Home button on your LG TV remote.
2. Navigate to and select the LG Content Store.
3. Select the search icon (magnifying glass) in the top right of the screen.
4. Enter Youtube in the search box.
5. Select Youtube from the search results.
6. Press the Install button.

Now try the YouTube app again. You’ll need to enter your log-in information, as it won’t carry over from the previous install.

7. Accept LG’s User Agreements

Some of LG’s features and apps don’t work until you accept all of the license agreements.

1. Press the Settings button on your remote.
2. Go to All Settings.
3. Open the General tab.
4. Select About this TV.
5. Click User Agreements.
6. Make sure Accept All has been selected.

8. Check Your TV Location Settings

Most streaming content and some whole streaming apps are restricted by where you are in the country or world.

YouTube and other streaming apps have their own ways of checking your location. However, they sometimes verify that info with your TV, and LG TVs have their own location setting.

1. Press the Settings button on your remote.
2. Go to All Settings.
3. Open the General tab.
4. Select System.
5. Click Location.
6. Change the zip code to your current location if it’s not correct.

9. Turn Off Your VPN

Those of you that don’t use a virtual private network (VPN) can ignore this step. If you don’t know what a VPN is, you’re probably not using one.

Most video apps and streaming services try to block VPN traffic. If you’re running a VPN that Youtube has managed to block, you likely won’t have access to your streaming content. The easiest way to test this is to turn off the VPN and try the connection again.

10. Try YouTube on Another Device

We’ve covered nearly everything we can try on your TV itself. Before resorting to our most drastic option, let’s see how widespread the problem is. Try opening Youtube on your computer or any other device on your network.

If YouTube works on your other devices but not your TV, it’s time to contact LG support.

But if YouTube isn’t working on any of your devices, the problem may be with your YouTube account or with YouTube’s servers.

11. Check YouTube Server Status

You can use Downdetector to check whether other users in your area are having problems with Youtube. Most of the time, YouTube outages are local and quickly fixed.

If you can’t find anything on Downdetector, it’s probably time to contact YouTube support for more info. They’ll have more up-to-date information than I can provide in this article.

12. Factory Reset Your TV

Since we’ve tried all of the easy fixes, it’s time to try one last option: a factory reset. This will erase all of your TV settings, including those for your Youtube app. By erasing all of the settings and app data, though, it might fix your streaming app problems.

1. Press the Settings button on your remote.
2. Go to All Settings.
3. Open the General tab.
4. Select Reset to Initial Settings.
5. Click OK to confirm.

Now, try running the YouTube app one more time. This should have fixed nearly any software or firmware issue that could have been preventing YouTube from running on your LG TV.

What’s Next?

LG’s webOS offers a lot of control over your streaming apps, which is great when Youtube or Apple TV stops working on LG TVs. When YouTube doesn’t work on Vizio TVs, there’s very little that you can do. But extra power, as always, comes with extra problems.

LG TVs have a lot of advanced features that I love, but they also have their share of bugs. Aside from app-specific issues, sometimes the LG TVs disconnect from Wi-Fi. But that’s a problem for another day.