Unable to play some YouTube videos (but they play in Chrome)

Raindrops1

This is one example video that does not play at all, even if I refresh the screen several times.

I had found several such videos over time, but unfortunately I closed them without investigating. Only this time around did I try it in Chrome, and found that it works.

YouTube does not allow ad blocker: If Vivaldi's built-in Content Blocker is set to block, YT does not play the video, and shows a message to disable the ad blocker. So I had to set the Content Blocker to "no blocking".

But I have used the following addons, such as-

I added them experimentally, and some of them did not block the YT ads. So I ended up keeping them all.

The Chrome is plain vanilla installation (without any addons).

What could be the reason?

mib2berlin

@Raindrops1
Hi, I test your link with uBlock Origin Lite, video play, no ad's.
Vivaldi ad blocker, video play, get ad's.
Are you logged in to YT?
Independent of the blocker the video should always play if you disable the ad blocker.
YT try hard to get all the user blocked in some way it they use an ad blocker specially the last few month.
And it will not getting any better the next month.
To my knowledge it is not good to use multiple blockers at the same time, uBlock should work, at least for some time.

Raindrops1

@mib2berlin Yes, I have logged in YT.

I disabled all the previous ad blockers, and installed the uBlock Lite.
It works (at least, for now).

Thanks for the tip!

I have not yet come across ads, so I am unaware how uBlock handles them.
Even if uBlock can silence the ads instead of skipping them, I would be content. (The YT ads are too loud and jarring).

mib2berlin

@Raindrops1
The lite version is not as powerful as uBlock, I have installed lite for testing, this is a Manifest V3 extension, uBlock is V2.
Google will kick all V2 extensions in the next few month and YT try to kick all user with ad blocker.
There is a big thread about:
https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/98631/manifest-v3-update-vivaldi-is-future-proofed-with-its-built-in-functionality?page=1

Cheers, mib

ianhski

Hi, I am here because I too have that issue, not every day and not all videos but these are the screen grabs

And oddly, I just noticed that I don't see the security icon to be able to change the block options.

I can't justify YouTube premium to get rid of the ads and if I can't fix this, I guess I will be using YT less as now they are swamping you with ads to wear you down into subscribing!

DoctorG

@ianhski Sometime your adblocker wins, sometime Youtube with ads.

Try extension uBlockOrigin, that works for me mostly.

Catweazle

@ianhski, yes, this appers sometimes with the Vivaldi blocker, but you can watch this video easy, without ads, editing the Video URL, if you don't want to use an extra extension

from

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxxxxxxxx

to

https://www.youtube.com/embed/xxxxxxxxx

This works on all videos, except those which have desctivated the permission to watch it outsite of YT, luckily only few. In this case you can search the video with Andisearch and watch it in the search result, clicking on the video.

ianhski

@Catweazle That's a superb hack, thanks very much. YouTube is driving me nuts with their ads, I use Newpipe on my Android phone which works well for me, you may have sorted laptop (I will also add uBlockOrigin) , that just leaves Firestick if anyone knows a way to fix that?

Many thanks
Ian

Raindrops1

@Catweazle said in Unable to play some YouTube videos (but they play in Chrome):

you can search the video with Andisearch and watch it in the search result, clicking on the video.

Wow!

I had not even heard of this AI search engine!
Thanks for this tip!

Catweazle

@Raindrops1, it was the first AI search, long before all others, and the most trustworth and private IMHO, also now in the Chrome store as extension.