First time this happens to me. With a German protonvpn server.

  • zlatiah@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 month ago

    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

  • bruhSoulz@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    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.

  • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
    0·
    1 month ago

    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.

      • bobs_monkey@lemm.ee
        0·
        1 month ago

        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

    • Rusty@lemmy.caEnglish
      0·
      1 month ago

      Unfortunately NewPipe will not help with that. I get this message in a browser and in NewPipe.

      • unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de
        0·
        1 month ago

        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.

        • Rusty@lemmy.caEnglish
          0·
          1 month ago

          Here’s the log from yt-dlp:

          [youtube] Extracting URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kR1buRTIKhk

          [youtube] kR1buRTIKhk: Downloading webpage

          [youtube] kR1buRTIKhk: Downloading ios player API JSON

          [youtube] kR1buRTIKhk: Downloading mweb player API JSON

          ERROR: [youtube] kR1buRTIKhk: Sign in to confirm you’re not a bot. This helps protect our community. Learn more

  • circuscritic@lemmy.ca
    0·
    1 month ago

    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.

        • blackris@discuss.tchncs.de
          0·
          1 month ago

          They are right. If you have that problem, the reason is that those fuckers at Google block your VPN. It will not help to use an alternative app.

          • Deckweiss@lemmy.world
            0·
            1 month ago

            Afaik grayjay has some blocking circumvention.

            And personally FreeTube worked from the same IP, when regular youtube wanted me to log in.

  • merthyr1831@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    1 month ago

    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.

  • disguised_doge@kbin.earth
    0·
    1 month ago

    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.

  • serenissi@lemmy.world
    0·
    1 month ago

    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.

  • StarlightDust@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    0·
    1 month ago

    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.