Login to youtube to watch videos

I don't believe anyone mentioned this yet so... here goes nothing, there is a suspicion that this is due to A/B testing

This is a bug report from the Invidious project; this is back in June 6 (so four months ago), but the hoster of a fairly large instance noted a very bizarre error message on the Invidious project...

Conclusion is that Youtube is very likely rolling out A/B testing of requiring all clients to login before viewing videos

Refreshing will probably work considering this is most likely result of an A/B test, but unfortunately I don't see a way of this problem going away

12

Invidious public instances have been completely blocked by this, it's no longer AB testing. IDK exactly what triggers it but, too many requests from the same ip is going to show this now... maybe OP vpn exits with an ip shared by too many...

1

I get why I got downvoted for having posted a YouTube link on !oshi_no_ko@lemmy.ml

2

Sometimes I get that prompt while on vpn. After refreshing the page, I'm able to see the video.

1

YouTube doesn't like VPNs. Harder to track you (and sell/monetize your data) if they can't tell who you are.

98

I desperately want a viable alternative to come along. There’s a lot of great content on YouTube, but the platform is increasingly being enshitified.

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- Pornhub.
  
  They have the technology and many of the features in place.
  
  45
- I agree. We just haven't gotten to the point quite yet. Where the creators revolt. But that stage should appear somewhat shortly.
  
  12
- It's a gigantic money sink, it's going to be extremely hard to come up with a profitable (or break even) alternative.
  
  12
- There's platforms like Nebula that noticed the decline and also wanted to give creators the freedom to create without needing to deal with an ever changing algorithm
  
  9
- Third party app without an account maybe? Freetube on the desktop and newpipe on the phone is what I like to use. There's stuff like grayjay, tubearchivist, and pinchflat as well. Or just go straight yt-dlp.
  
  4
- Youtube does a ton of evil stuff, but this one is more tame. I suspect the VPN was used to bot and got banned, so the sign-in is required to better target where the traffic is allowed to go, instead of blanket banning everybody using the service.
  
  1
I go the other way. My youtube account is used across my family. My recommendation is a fucking mess.

4
- My wife and I have our own. We use hers for the kid and mine for the dog. So, hers is beauty gurus and baby shark, and mine is Sarah Boone coverage, old computers, and 10 hour videos of squirrels.
  
  1
- So, the home page includes Peppa pig videos alongside with gruesome skateboarding accident compilations. Something for everyone!
  
  7
You're on Android use NewPipe and it's forks, personally I prefer Tubular and PipePipe.

Periodically YouTube will break, but both of those forks, as well as new pipe prime, update fairly quickly.

GrayJay it's interesting. It has different feel and feature set than newpipe, but it's worth using. I will say I get more login errors with GrayJay, but closing the app and reopening it resolves it.

All the piped apps will be in f-droid/droidify, you can download GrayJay directly, or just scan the QR to add the repo to a FOSS repo manager.

-2

This helps protect our ~~community~~ revenue.

66

"Protecting our community" isn't even a good excuse, you can't leave comments without an account...

53

Protecting our ~~community~~ profits

22

Try Freetube, it still works well, even with videos that are age limited.

20

This is the result of them blocking invidious. They targeted large Datacenter nodes and check for the number of requests from those datacenters that aren't logged in, and block them until that number meets a certain threshold. This also causes people with VPNs to get this message. The solution is to connect to smaller self-hosted invidious instances or using proxies hosted on normal residential ips.

14

This has always gone away for me when I change my location in my vpn.

13

Try clicking the sign in button, then navigating back to the video without actually signing in. Seems to work every time I've tried it so far.

12

Yea, been having this BIGTIME. Even occurs on grayjay, and pipe apps (newpipe, etc.) Its aggravating. Can't even download vids either, and the ones u have downloaded are held ransom until u turn it off too 😂 at least in my case. Fuck google.

11

Have you considered trying out NewPipe or its fork Tubular (with SponsorBlocck built in)?

9

Tubular works like a charm like 98% of the time (which is way more than YouTube apps, LOL).

8
- Yeah when google breaks something newpipe and its forks usually get updated within a day or two. I really gotta donate to them again.
  
  3
Unfortunately NewPipe will not help with that. I get this message in a browser and in NewPipe.

3
- Have you tried if yt-dlp works? Cuz if that also doesnt, then maybe they actually temporarily blocked your IP?
  
  I have never gotten this message on yt so cant test it.
  
  3

Been seeing that a fair bit too lately. Freetube, Grayjay, and Newpipe seem so sometimes get around it, even if the error is in the browser the video will sometimes load in those apps from the same IP. If you get lucky and find a working invidious/piped instance that might work too.

Otherwise, turning on a VPN and switching between servers will usually eventually lead to a working one. That, and if you're up for it, check to see if your favorite creators are on places like Peertube, Odysee, or Rumble that don't block IPs like YouTube does.

7

Yeah. Our work endpoint is in AWS. YouTube hates that. So does reddit.

6

Oh that's how they broke invidious

5

It's a VPN thing. I have a work VPN that gives me the same error on piped API front ends like piped.video

If I use my regular device without a VPN the alt front ends work fine.

4

This can be a soft limit where Youtube limits the connection rate so that artificially inflating view count becomes more costly. There are inexpensive 'services' especially in India or Pakistan where you can buy human (like a whole internet cafe) view times to your scam video to make it float in suggestions and to promote a channel.

I don't work for youtube so it is just a guess.

4

As much as it isn't preferred, I can usually bypass the sign in shenanigans by going directly to the website to watch something without signing in. I usually only get the login prompt when going through my browser or a search engine.

3

I got it on an embedded video for a news site. VPN on of course.

1
I get it on reddit :/

1
- Redlib is a handy accountless frontend for reddit that still works
  
  2
- That's what I mean though, trying to watch any YT video embedded anywhere without being signed in will yield that error, but I usually don't have that problem on YT's direct website, even without login. Still ridiculous, but so is Google
  
  2

SmartTube, my go-to way to watch, is having issues again today too. I presume it is to make people subscribe to YouTube premium but my first thought was to use Nebula instead.

3

You're on Android use NewPipe and it's forks, personally I prefer Tubular and PipePipe.

Periodically YouTube will break, but both of those forks, as well as new pipe prime, update fairly quickly.

GrayJay is interesting... It has different feel and feature set than newpipe, but it's worth using. I will say I get more login errors with GrayJay, but closing the app and reopening it resolves them immediately.

All the piped apps will be in f-droid/droidify, you can download GrayJay directly, or just scan the QR to add the repo to a FOSS repo manager.

-1

You will have the same issue with NewPipe.

1
- I use both of them everyday. I'm using one of them right now.
  
  Haven't had that issue.
  
  1