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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   2256 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for May 22, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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This isn't fun but it's fun related:

Did Google find a new way to hinder users of alternative (ad free) apps for viewing YT videos? What's new right now is that none of the channels display any videos. You can still enter and view videos from search results and playlists or direct video URLs, but the main channel content is gone from listing in Newpipe and Freetube.

NewPipe broke for a few days, but the latest update fixed it for me.

NewPipe still works for me on Android.

NewPipe started working again for me too but FreeTube still can't load any channel videos

The RSS workaround doesn't work for you? It's not 100% reliable, it seems to break every day but once it gets going, it seems to work fine for the rest of the day.

It does work for the "subscriptions" overview. But if I enter a channel it's empty, requiring me to go via a playlist to find anything.

Ah yeah, that's a separate bug. They're quite a bit slower with fixing these latest issues, than they nirmally are.

Vanced worked on my android phone until 2023. Seems it stopped getting updated. I guess Google's lawyers killed it.

They changed something in how they format the data. This happens every once in a while and usually gets fixed within a few days.

There's a workaround for Freetube. Settings > Subscription > turn on RSS. The thumbnails will lack the runtime and some other minor things but it's better than nothing.

That works quite well, thanks!

Did Google find a new way to hinder users of alternative (ad free) apps for viewing YT videos?

I don't know about those apps specifically, but my assumption is yes. I'm no longer able to watch videos in Firefox browser in private mode--the video won't play unless I sign in. Watching videos in Brave browser still works, but they take longer than they previously did to load and play, especially if it's part of a playlist.

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