Did YouTube just disable video playback for people using UBlock or is it just me?
from TinyLittlePuni@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 10 Jun 12:37
https://lemmy.world/post/31134474
from TinyLittlePuni@lemmy.world to nostupidquestions@lemmy.world on 10 Jun 12:37
https://lemmy.world/post/31134474
I have UBlock installed on Firefox and what is pictured here is what has been happening for every video that I’m clicking on. Panning doesn’t make the video play either. I tried that. It’s not my internet connection since the videos and ads that you can’t even skip and pause when you tab out play just fine on Chrome. In the days before this happened I got several popups from YouTube saying that adblockers aren’t allowed after months of browsing YouTube ad-free without issue
#nostupidquestions
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I’ve had this happen when using VPN. I also tried disabling ublock, but I get this behavior for 5-10 seconds before the video loads. I get no such behavior on Chrome.
This is probably another attempt at Google degrading the experience for people not using Chrome.
Happens to me on Chrome (with uBlock).
I use Firefox and uBlock Origin and for the last week or more every Youtube video I open takes about 10 or so seconds to open, just sitting there spinning.
Try using the extension that can spoof what browser you’re using. Last year, Firefox was being hindered by YouTube until I downloaded that and made it think I was using a Chrome browser.
Sure would be nice if we had net neutrality back and they couldn’t pull this bullshit
addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/…/chrome-mask/
Sometimes I wonder if Firefox actually has low market share, of if this sort of shit just skews the statistics.
I, for one, refuse to spoof my browser because I want them to know Chrome is not as dominant as they think.
That’s not the reason for low market share. Most people just don’t use ff
How do you know? Statistics reported by websites… which are recording user agent strings?
If you randomly stopped people in the streets and asked them what a user agent was, you’d get a certain percentage of folks that give you the correct answer. That percentage is the upper ceiling for any possible error margin that websites recording user agent strings have in attributing those strings to actual browsers, since nobody unaware of that term will know how or be interested in changing their user agent.
Do you think it likely that this percentage is going to be in any way, shape or form… impactful, considering that most people won’t be able to tell you what a browser is? 😜
That’s my reasoning as well
Same here. It’s not even that annoying, but noticable.
everything’s been working normally on my end
Still works for me (Chrome + uBlock), though I have beeing seeing the “Experiencing interruptions?” pop-up and slow initial loading a lot since 2 days ago (and it’s not on my end).
It happens every so often. Give it some time and it start working again.
They're probably a/b testing it at the moment
Yep, both that one and another adblocker I use for a few days now. I tried yet another plug-in called something like Ad Block for YouTube that works with blocking the non-video ads but I’ve still been getting video ads with it that only play the ad’s audio with a plain black video screen for the length of the ad; spamming refresh on the page tends to bypass the video ad. Hopefully the plug-ins will adapt soon.
They periodically update the back-end code to try new things, and they A-B test, so that some users get an update and others don't. Then they monitor their logs, and maybe even social media, to try to determine who's seeing what and when, and if anyone's having trouble.
They may even generate a pop-up asking you if you're having trouble, and especially to tell you that you have to watch ads.
Anything that works in their favour will be rolled out to everyone. And then the good people (person?) at UBlock Origin (which is the one you should use if you're going to use UBlock) work their butts off to find a way around it, in a never-ending arms race.
Anecdotally, I recently noticed that one of my accounts/profiles that has UBo wasn't able to load more than 2 seconds of 360p video. I thought that was it for my viewing. Was getting a "null" tooltip on the settings cog and everything. Then I force-reloaded the tab and everything was alright again. They'd clearly changed something on the back-end for me and I was using an outdated interface (a day old! the humanity!) that couldn't handle it any more.
But back to the topic of ads: One day they might find a way to completely lock out ad-blockers. That is the day you learn to use the stats for nerds right-click menu on an ad video. From there you can learn the video ID of the ad and visit it directly. That way you can find the advertiser's account if not also the comment section, where you can leave a comment telling them exactly what you thought of their ad. Maybe also give it a thumbs down.
Eventually the cowards will turn off their comment sections, or else YouTube will prevent people from finding specific ad video IDs, but that's what other social media is for.
Got a turboencabulator ad in the middle of your Elsa vs Spiderman binge? Let Encabulator Inc. feel your wrath.
Be sure to include something like "as a result of seeing this ad when I didn't want to, I will not be buying or recommending your products for the period of <however long>" and then do your best to follow through on that.
They can make us watch the ads on their platform, but they can't make us like it.
How long did you wait when this came up? I believe it might be just blocking the video playback until the expected (by youtube) length of the (blocked) ad has finished, after which the video starts playing as usual.
Right-click the link and open it in a private tab, or copy the url and open a private tab, and paste it. You’ll have to re-enable your web extensions. Google is cracking down on ad blockers.
For some reason, though, I stopped having to do that. I have no idea what I did. I’m using multiple ad blockers. I’m using multiple extensions that alter YouTube. I have no idea why they suddenly stopped caring about my web extensions.
I also have other extensions that skip sponsors, add down votes, etc… those have been SUPER spotty recently.
Youtube is run like shit. I get frequently told to turn off my adblocker… when I don’t even have extensions installed. It’s already annoying as fuck dealing with ads but it’s some kafka-lite bullshit to be told you’re not watching them.
No trouble using FreeTube.
Me neither.
I click on a YouTube link and it opens in FreeTube, no ads.
Every now and then, videos won't play because of some change by Google, usually it's just a day or so until FreeTube releases an update that works again.
no problems at all for me because I pay for the shit I use
They’re testing something and you’re one of the lucky winners to be sampled. Usually it goes away in a day or until uBO catches up and deploys an update.
Yeah I read an article yesterday that they’re rolling out new stronger ad blocker detection.
When YouTube does anything weird I switch my VPN to a neighboring country that’s less popular. Suddenly YouTube loads everything without problem.
No issues on my end with ublock origin + Firefox
Don’t know if it’s related, but thus got posted yesterday
techspot.com/…/108232-youtube-shuts-down-ad-block…
It’s a cat and mouse game. They’re constantly doing this. Just wait a little while and ublock should find a way around the block.
It’s just you. I’m using Firefox 138.0.4 64-bit (linux) and uBO 1.64.0 and youtube works fine for me.
No issues for me with Firefox and uBlock Origin. Do you have origin or just uBlock?
uBlock Origin. YouTube videos are playing without issue now!
Now that I think about it, if I leave a video tab open overnight it sometimes has to be refreshed to play the next day. That is the one thing that I have run into with youtube.
seems to work for me rn but youtube’s web ui has been extremely slow for the past few years. videos take more than 15 secs to load and start… to the point where running a terminal and doing yt-dlp & mpv is much quicker/easier.
Yes. They did that years ago.
The ad-blockers are constantly working into evading the ban. You may need to update your ad-blocker of your browser.
It’s working for me now!
CTRL SHIFT R can help too, forced refresh of all cached data.
Works fine for me. Did you update the filters?
This happened for me on Brave. I deleted all cookies and logged in again. Worked fine after.
Then it happened after a week… Cat and mouse game.
You’re not alone. But since YouTube is such a shitshow anyway I’m kinda glad to be pushed away for being privacy and security conscious. Invidious instances are a good point of transition while adapting to Peertube and such. Sure, most video content is uploaded to YouTube, but that’s also part of the charm of using alternatives. There’s less garbage to filter and some geniunely good and passionate (not algorithm driven) creators to discover.