It seems there are tons of people out there who are getting the “an error has occurred, please try again later” error on Youtube. Various solutions have been suggested, from updating the flash player or clearing cache and temp files to uninstalling and reinstalling all Adobe software and Java. For some people, it seems nothing works. I had a friend with this issue, and she came to me for help.

Now, she had the problem with all Youtube videos, all the time. It was not an intermittent issue, or a problem with just a few videos. I scanned her computer for spyware, malware, adware, etc., and, though it found a couple things, they had nothing to do with this issue. I also uninstalled Flash, then reinstalled. Then I checked through her temp files, first looking for anything out of place, then intending to delete them. As I scrolled down, I noticed something strange – there were files created in the future! As soon as I saw that, I knew her computer’s calendar date was wrong, and that this was the likely culprit.

It’s not going to do any good to talk about why your computer’s date needs to be correct (or at least not set in the future) for Youtube’s videos to play. Just make sure your date’s set correctly. Hopefully this simple solution will help someone out there with this vexing Youtube issue. I know there are lots of people who use the Windows Clock and Calendar to check past and future dates (myself included), and it’s easy to accidentally save the incorrect date.