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When I play a video the screen is black. Why?

First we recommend checking to see if it's all videos on our site, or just one video.

If it's all videos, we also recommend trying to visit the PBS.org site in another web browser. Our officially supported browsers are Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Microsoft Edge, and Safari.

Please also double-check that your browser is up-to-date. Over time, older browser versions will not support the PBS site, and may cause issues when browsing the site or watching videos.

Another possibility is that you have installed an extension on your browser which blocks video content from being played. These extensions are referred to as "adblockers," and popular ones include, AdBlock Plus, AdBlock Pro, and uBlock. If you have an adblocker installed, it may prevent the video from playing properly. To fix this, you can:

  • turn off the extension 
  • exclude PBS.org pages from being affected by the extension

How to fix it

  • To turn off the extension click the menu in the upper right side of the page and click Pause [Extension]
  • To exclude pages on PBS.org click the menu in the upper right side and click either Don't run on this page or Don't run on pages on this domain.