ASMR Interrupted?

Why does YouTube pause your video and ask if you want to “Continue Watching”?

YouTube asks, “Continue watching?” to protect your watch history and save internet data. When

Autoplay is on, YouTube tracks your viewing activity. After a specific duration (around 30 minutes on

mobile, 60 minutes on  the web, and 180 minutes on TV), it shows the message “Video paused.

Continue watching?” This protects your watch history for personalized recommendations and

avoids wasting data.  It also prevents accidental video consumption, ensuring an accurate watch

history. This helps YouTube to suggest content for you that is more relevant. It also conserves data

by pausing videos when you’re not actively watching, saving data for users with limited data

plans.  This is for watch history protection, data efficiency, and a better personalized viewing

experience.  However, there is an even more important reason.  While YouTube itself might be free,

thanks to ads, they need you to watch those ads in order to get revenue.  It’s vitally important for

YouTube that free users watch mid-video ads.  If YouTube thinks you’re not actively watching the

video anymore, it won’t pay the creator as much. YouTube asks “Are you still watching?” as a way to

check if you’re actually still watching the video, or if you’ve just left it playing in the background.

Here’s what YouTube says about it, in their own words, on “YouTube Help”:

Here are some examples of circumstances under which a video might auto pause:

YouTube Default Settings
YouTube may pause your video because the Auto-Pause feature is set by default. This feature is designed to pause a video if there is no activity on the device for a while to prevent you from missing anything in the video.

 
Network Issues
Your video may pause if you experience a network disruption.
 

Browser Issues
Some browsers can cause YouTube to pause videos.  A glitch caused by cookies, cache files, or extensions may disrupt the loading of the video.

YouTube Issues
YouTube is not immune to technical faults, bugs, or glitches. You might want to check out YouTube’s Help Center or the Known Issues page for any possible current problems they are experiencing.

“Remind Me to Take a Break” Is Set To On
If you use the “Remind Me to Take a Break” feature, it may be the reason why your video paused.

Headphones Issue
Sometimes, if the YouTube app thinks you disconnected your earbuds, maybe because you’re moving, or your wireless headphones have low battery, YouTube will pause.

 
Your PC Goes Into Sleep Mode
Sleep mode might trigger the “Continue Watching” prompt. When your computer enters sleep mode, that is a period of inactivity.  YouTube interprets this as a pause in your viewing session.  When you wake up your PC, you may see the prompt.
 

Can You Stop YouTube From Auto Pausing?
The short answer is maybe.  Let’s go over our options.

                                                                   Browser Extensions                                                                        Perhaps the best way to deal with this issue if it occurs on a PC while using a browser.  Unfortunately, it’s not even possible to disable the feature through YouTube’s settings. To stop YouTube from automatically pausing your videos you will probably need to install a browser extension.   These function by making it seem like you are active.  There are extensions like “AutoTube – YouTube nonstop”, for example, available for Chrome and Firefox, that will click on the “Yes” prompt as many times as it pops up, continuing the stream without any pause.
The interruptions are less likely to happen with “live” videos, but not all content is available in that format, and even live streams can end abruptly.

Here are some other possible methods to avoid the “Continue Watching” prompt:

Incognito
By using the incognito or private browsing mode offered by most web browsers, your browsing history and cookies are not stored, which means YouTube won’t be able to track your viewing activity.

Disable Your Antivirus
Third-party apps or extensions can conflict with your YouTube service. If your antivirus software or other app perceives YouTube as a threat, it can prevent you from finishing the video. Shut down any software you believe may interfere with your YouTube experience, especially the antivirus program.

Update the App
Does your YouTube app keep pausing videos even after you cleared the cache and rebooted the app? Make sure you’re running YouTube’s latest version. Just find YouTube under the “Apps” section in your phone settings and check if there’s an update available.

(Mobile App Only)
YouTube has a Data Saver feature that uses lower video quality and aims to reserve your mobile data to keep users from going over their mobile data allotment.  If YouTube keeps pausing, try disabling the Data Saver feature.  You should be able to play YouTube videos without any pause on your Android mobile with an APK.First, clear the cache on the YouTube appt by going to the app settings.  Then just install the ‘DON’T PAUSE‘ APK on your Android mobile.  This is primarily for listening to music without interruptions, but it might work for longer videos too.

(ROKU TV Only)
Disabling Roku’s Bandwidth Saver might help.  Open your Roku TV’s Settings and select Network. Then select Bandwidth Saver, and turn it off.

YouTube Premium
Last but not least is the option of signing up for YouTube Premium.  Since the primary reason for the auto-pause is so that there is always someone watching the ads, you might think that YouTube Premium will solve the problem, however that is not the only reason, as stated above.  Therefore YouTube Premium may not completely resolve the issue, however it will most likely reduce the frequency of interruptions since there are no ads.  Still, getting YouTube Premium might be the best and most legit way to go in order to lessen interruptions of all kinds and to have the best experience on YouTube.