7 ms·

YouTube in Android introduces UI bugs

22 points by samanator 2y ago

samanator 2y ago
I thought it was only me, but when I went to update the app I saw that the most recent reviews all describe serious UI bugs and have thousands of likes.
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe
superkuh 2y ago
Youtube is pretty much a monopoly at this point. It has no significant competition. So they can afford to have plenty of bugs and indeed their fight against general purpose computation and preventing people from watching youtube outside of their prescribed web applications and smartphone apps has lead to the introduction of many bugs even in the browser. I used to use youtube in a browser because it just worked. It had lots of nice features compared to youtube-dl/yt-dlp. But since they've worked so hard to prevent the use of such tools even my browser based youtube is regularly freezing the video for ~5-10 second periods many times during a play now (on multiple computers/firefox, via multiple IPs). Youtube tightening their grip has made the youtube.com website so bad that yt-dlp is now actually a better experience. Rather than just an awkward way to preserve things.
panki27 2y ago
I just wish they hadn't killed Invidious :( There seems to be no way anymore to keep a public instance working.
- treyd 2y ago
  I don't understand this, NewPipe has continued to work.
  - SushiHippie 2y ago
    NewPipe has it's own library NewPipeExtractor and does the work on your device, so IP bans aren't really a problem compared to a hosted instances where multiple clients access youtube through the IP of the instance. https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipeExtractor https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipeExtractor Piped is an alternative to Invidious which uses the NewPipeExtractor library: https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped But instances with high traffic or 'suspicious IP Adresses' can still be banned very quickly.
jchw 2y ago
I recommend ReVanced if you're going to use YouTube on Android device. https://revanced.app/ https://revanced.app/ This should also leave you on a slightly older version of the app, too, which might bypass any recent issues with updates. But, it has a ton of useful builtin features, like bring-back-dislikes and sponsorblock.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- yellow_lead 2y ago
  And ad blocking!
- phoronixrly 2y ago
  Bold of you to risk your Google account by accessing it through a patched client... No amount of complaining on HN will bring it back when Google decides to banhammer all people who break their TOS in such a stupid way.
  - wasteduniverse 2y ago
    [dead]
  - thelastparadise 2y ago
    YouTube no longer has a monopoly on internet video distribution. If you notice, all the major platforms now have good support for direct posting of videos. Further, it's now easier than ever to decouple one's online life from google and so anyone not doing so is taking unnecessary risk.
    - deely3 2y ago
      TLDR: its you own problem if you Google account become permabanned.
  - ocular-rockular 2y ago
    Or you could just use a burner account and avoid this.
teaearlgraycold 2y ago
I've noticed minor UI bugs on iOS as well. When you skip an ad playing in landscape mode it will restore the video stream into the upper left corner. You need to leave and re-enter fullscreen to fix it. Not the worst bug but it's been around for a few weeks and is a surprising issue for such a common event on a major platform from one of the world's richest companies.
- Twirrim 2y ago
  The last year-ish on Android has been a steady progression of UX bug after UX bug. It's bizarre to the point of convincing me that those with decision making authority clearly do not use their own app.
ChrisArchitect 2y ago
Why is this a link to the play store? what are you trying to show us here OP?
- samanator 2y ago
  The two top comments since the November 7th updatee have thousands of upvotes because of affected users. Comments: ThSAWistheLAW WC (11/7/24) "I like this app but it is not functioning correctly at the moment. If your video that you're viewing must be interrupted by a message notification or if you simply turn your phone right side up to read the messages or comments the video will stop playing and it will not start no matter how many times you hit the play button. Other than that it's a fine app." --- michael. jacqui (11/8/24) "New update is awful. It no longer saves where you left off on a video. If you swipe down and leave the video going to search for a new one it automatically paused the video. When you go back to play the video it cannot play unless you select a new video and then have to reselect the video you want to watch to get it to play. The app is horrible and extremely frustrating."
ravedave5 2y ago
This is why I have auto update turned off. It sucks but it's the only way to ensure that you continue to have a good experience with apps. I had an issue for several months while watching youtube fullscreen I'd do some gesture/interaction and suddenly it would be locked whole screen and I couldn't exit, switch apps or do anything. Only a reboot would solve it. No other apps had this issue. I finally tried an update and it's far less frequent. There is no way in heck am I upgrading again until absolutely forced.
patwolf 2y ago
The UI issues I've noticed aren't really bugs as much as they're intentional UI changes that happen to be poorly thought out. I'm used to Google randomly changing the UI for seemingly no benefit, but these changes are especially egregious considering how much of my youtube interaction is muscle memory. For example, you used to be able to double tap just about anywhere on the screen to fast forward or rewind 10 seconds. Now on the first tap the bottom half of the screen becomes an overlay with a bunch of action buttons, causing the second tap to inadvertently engage one of the buttons.
- oleksii88 2y ago
  >Now on the first tap the bottom half of the screen becomes an overlay with a bunch of action buttons, causing the second tap to inadvertently engage one of the buttons. Thank you for saying this. I thought I was going crazy as I suddenly started to skip to the next video when I just want to forward it. I'm still not sure if this is an intentional change or a bug
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
miah_ 2y ago
This is why I only watch Youtube via Firefox mobile, plus I can use a adblocker with that. Google is garbage at this point. Every employee there is simply promotion farming and has no concept of what a backbone is. Everything they do is utter trash and only about feeding their algorithm or collecting your data.

22 points by samanator 2y ago

I thought it was only me, but when I went to update the app I saw that the most recent reviews all describe serious UI bugs and have thousands of likes.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago

https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe

superkuh 2y ago

Youtube is pretty much a monopoly at this point. It has no significant competition. So they can afford to have plenty of bugs and indeed their fight against general purpose computation and preventing people from watching youtube outside of their prescribed web applications and smartphone apps has lead to the introduction of many bugs even in the browser. I used to use youtube in a browser because it just worked. It had lots of nice features compared to youtube-dl/yt-dlp. But since they've worked so hard to prevent the use of such tools even my browser based youtube is regularly freezing the video for ~5-10 second periods many times during a play now (on multiple computers/firefox, via multiple IPs). Youtube tightening their grip has made the youtube.com website so bad that yt-dlp is now actually a better experience. Rather than just an awkward way to preserve things.

panki27 2y ago

I just wish they hadn't killed Invidious :( There seems to be no way anymore to keep a public instance working.

treyd 2y ago
I don't understand this, NewPipe has continued to work.
- SushiHippie 2y ago
  NewPipe has it's own library NewPipeExtractor and does the work on your device, so IP bans aren't really a problem compared to a hosted instances where multiple clients access youtube through the IP of the instance. https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipeExtractor https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipeExtractor Piped is an alternative to Invidious which uses the NewPipeExtractor library: https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped https://github.com/TeamPiped/Piped But instances with high traffic or 'suspicious IP Adresses' can still be banned very quickly.

jchw 2y ago

I recommend ReVanced if you're going to use YouTube on Android device. https://revanced.app/ https://revanced.app/ This should also leave you on a slightly older version of the app, too, which might bypass any recent issues with updates. But, it has a ton of useful builtin features, like bring-back-dislikes and sponsorblock.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
yellow_lead 2y ago
And ad blocking!
phoronixrly 2y ago
Bold of you to risk your Google account by accessing it through a patched client... No amount of complaining on HN will bring it back when Google decides to banhammer all people who break their TOS in such a stupid way.
- wasteduniverse 2y ago
  [dead]
- thelastparadise 2y ago
  YouTube no longer has a monopoly on internet video distribution. If you notice, all the major platforms now have good support for direct posting of videos. Further, it's now easier than ever to decouple one's online life from google and so anyone not doing so is taking unnecessary risk.
  - deely3 2y ago
    TLDR: its you own problem if you Google account become permabanned.
- ocular-rockular 2y ago
  Or you could just use a burner account and avoid this.

teaearlgraycold 2y ago

I've noticed minor UI bugs on iOS as well. When you skip an ad playing in landscape mode it will restore the video stream into the upper left corner. You need to leave and re-enter fullscreen to fix it. Not the worst bug but it's been around for a few weeks and is a surprising issue for such a common event on a major platform from one of the world's richest companies.

Twirrim 2y ago
The last year-ish on Android has been a steady progression of UX bug after UX bug. It's bizarre to the point of convincing me that those with decision making authority clearly do not use their own app.

ChrisArchitect 2y ago

Why is this a link to the play store? what are you trying to show us here OP?

samanator 2y ago
The two top comments since the November 7th updatee have thousands of upvotes because of affected users. Comments: ThSAWistheLAW WC (11/7/24) "I like this app but it is not functioning correctly at the moment. If your video that you're viewing must be interrupted by a message notification or if you simply turn your phone right side up to read the messages or comments the video will stop playing and it will not start no matter how many times you hit the play button. Other than that it's a fine app." --- michael. jacqui (11/8/24) "New update is awful. It no longer saves where you left off on a video. If you swipe down and leave the video going to search for a new one it automatically paused the video. When you go back to play the video it cannot play unless you select a new video and then have to reselect the video you want to watch to get it to play. The app is horrible and extremely frustrating."

ravedave5 2y ago

This is why I have auto update turned off. It sucks but it's the only way to ensure that you continue to have a good experience with apps. I had an issue for several months while watching youtube fullscreen I'd do some gesture/interaction and suddenly it would be locked whole screen and I couldn't exit, switch apps or do anything. Only a reboot would solve it. No other apps had this issue. I finally tried an update and it's far less frequent. There is no way in heck am I upgrading again until absolutely forced.

patwolf 2y ago

The UI issues I've noticed aren't really bugs as much as they're intentional UI changes that happen to be poorly thought out. I'm used to Google randomly changing the UI for seemingly no benefit, but these changes are especially egregious considering how much of my youtube interaction is muscle memory. For example, you used to be able to double tap just about anywhere on the screen to fast forward or rewind 10 seconds. Now on the first tap the bottom half of the screen becomes an overlay with a bunch of action buttons, causing the second tap to inadvertently engage one of the buttons.

oleksii88 2y ago
>Now on the first tap the bottom half of the screen becomes an overlay with a bunch of action buttons, causing the second tap to inadvertently engage one of the buttons. Thank you for saying this. I thought I was going crazy as I suddenly started to skip to the next video when I just want to forward it. I'm still not sure if this is an intentional change or a bug

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

miah_ 2y ago

This is why I only watch Youtube via Firefox mobile, plus I can use a adblocker with that. Google is garbage at this point. Every employee there is simply promotion farming and has no concept of what a backbone is. Everything they do is utter trash and only about feeding their algorithm or collecting your data.