Watch2Gether now blocking almost every video

user_38b2c9583c4c21e · September 17, 2024, 3:54am

I’m seeing that sometimes videos will start playing and everything is fine and then immediately (as in… usually within 1s) switch to “unable to play” in W2G on desktop specifically. I can join the same room with my phone and everything is working fine while the desktop client refuses to play.

user_95f53b7185f71fb · September 17, 2024, 6:38am

Thanks for your bug report. What do you exactly with the “Unable to Play”. Is that a text message in the YouTube Player? Can you take a screenshot and post it here?

Do you have an adblocker installed? These kind of issues are often related to ad blockers trying to block YouTube Ads. Please try to disable your browser extensions and let me know if that makes a difference.

user_38b2c9583c4c21e · September 18, 2024, 5:52am

I mean it’s the same error message you get when a youtube video is region locked or otherwise disabled, except that it definitely isn’t because it starts out by playing just fine. I have tried it on several different browsers, with and without browser extensions installed.

user_95f53b7185f71fb · September 18, 2024, 6:56am

Can you reproduce this for specific videos? If yes it would be nice if you could post a link to video that always gives you this error.

Do you see the same issue on other sites that embed YouTube video? For example: https://listenonrepeat.com/

Another question: Are you using a VPN on your system? Does it make a difference if you disable it?

user_38b2c9583c4c21e · September 30, 2024, 11:30pm

No VPN.

I’ll do some tests and come back and post the specific video(s) when I come across them again, but as i remember it, it was reliable. No amount of refreshing solved this but other videos would play fine. I have never tried listenonrepeat, but I’ll do so when I fine an example video.

user_fc90bf5c246a546 · October 25, 2024, 4:23pm

with no vpn the same problem strated happening to me this week

user_95f53b7185f71fb · October 25, 2024, 4:56pm

Thanks for your feedback. Does it work with a different browser?

user_38b2c9583c4c21e · October 25, 2024, 7:10pm

Here’s one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvnYmWpD_T8. This works fine on desktop (chrome) for me but asks for the extension on mobile (also chrome).

user_38b2c9583c4c21e · October 25, 2024, 7:35pm

OK actually, no. I think any video can do this. It is clearly some kind of race. If things don’t connect properly it will erroneously think the video is blocked. I was just listening to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar48yzjn1PE and it said it was blocked on desktop, but after refreshing it worked fine.