# Have links to YouTube been disabled? **URL:** \ **Category:** Site Feedback\ **Created:** [April 1, 2023, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958 "2023-04-01T01:35:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![peccavi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peccavi/32/388_2.png) [@peccavi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/peccavi)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/123 "2023-04-18T23:27:39Z")
> [@pjd](#): > > Still, at the end of the day (šŸ¤® ), we _can_ post videos, so iā€™m not going > to worry ! You just have to remember to proofread carefully before posting and make sure youā€™ve said everything you need to say, because there ainā€™t no going back! ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 18, 2023, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/124 "2023-04-18T23:34:58Z")
> [@puzzlegal](#): > > Huh, i guess mods get special privileges, including posting links to YouTube? Itā€™s possible, but I recall other posters being able to post YouTube videos with the standard [youtube.com](http://youtube.com) link. It seems to be sensitive to your precise OS+browser configuration. Most of us can manage to post most of the time with the youtu.be link and the appended slash, but even that fails to work some of the time, apparently at random. It really is a legitimate bug. > [@puzzlegal](#): > > Anyway, Ed has bumped the question to the Discourse people. Good to hear! > [@pjd](#): > > Still, at the end of the day (šŸ¤® ), we _can_ post videos, so iā€™m not going > to worry ! As noted above, the workaround tricks donā€™t always work. Itā€™s intermittent. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2023, 2:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/125 "2023-04-19T02:08:16Z")
> [@pjd](#): > > Still, at the end of the day (šŸ¤® ), we _can_ post videos, so iā€™m not going > to worry ! Iā€™ve found I can only post one at a time and have them playable. I get the error if I try to do more than one in a post. Which is a problem if I have a few videos to share in a thread and donā€™t want to run afoul of the ā€œno spammingā€ restriction by board software. And I have to use the youtu.be trick or I canā€™t even do one. ---
**Author:** ![Charlie\_Tan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/charlie_tan/32/12582_2.png) [@Charlie\_Tan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charlie_Tan)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2023, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/126 "2023-04-19T11:45:13Z")
[Snarky tangent] I remember the HORROR when the shift to Discourse1 was proposed because _We donā€™t want avatars and pictures and :gasp: videos on our pristine text only site. WORDS should be enough dangit!_ And look at us nowā€¦ šŸ˜ƒ 1Not that Discourse is a phenomenal MB software, as evidenced by this thread and many others. Itā€™s just that apart from a few holdouts we seem to have adopted well enough and the sky didnā€™t fall down. ---
**Author:** ![crowmanyclouds](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crowmanyclouds/32/19884_2.png) [@crowmanyclouds](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/crowmanyclouds)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2023, 2:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/127 "2023-04-19T14:19:31Z")
_Insert pressed like button here._ ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2023, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/128 "2023-04-19T15:06:02Z")
I posted a youtube link. Tried editing and it wouldnā€™t let me save. I enter text ā€œLinkā€ and then pasted the youtube link That worked. It does require people to click the link to load youtube. ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [April 19, 2023, 3:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/129 "2023-04-19T15:39:36Z")
Heck, I canā€™t even post a link to a .mp3 without getting this error. I had to put a space at the beginning to be able to post it. Using that method, I can edit it afterward. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2023, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/130 "2023-04-28T21:41:17Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > And I have to use the youtu.be trick or I canā€™t even do one. As of today, this is also broken. I canā€™t post a single video with a preview using any method. Itā€™s 100% broken. All I can post are bare links, and someone has to click on it and go to YouTube to watch it. I really think that this is a problem with the boardā€™s configuration, but without a real administrator to make changes weā€™re stuck with what we have I guess. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2023, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/131 "2023-04-28T22:54:48Z")
> [@Atamasama](#): > > > [@Atamasama](#): > > > > And I have to use the youtu.be trick or I canā€™t even do one. > > As of today, this is also broken. I canā€™t post a single video with a preview using any method. Itā€™s 100% broken. No, itā€™s just wildly inconsistent, as always. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/1pfjSb1Yj9o/maxresdefault.jpg "Quiet shelter dog finds a mommy of his dreams") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pfjSb1Yj9o) ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [April 28, 2023, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/132 "2023-04-28T23:01:00Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > No, itā€™s just wildly inconsistent, as always. It used to be. Now I canā€™t post anything from any browser using any method. I guess maybe itā€™s just not consistent from user to user. But itā€™s 100% broke for me now. ---
**Author:** ![LSLGuy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lslguy/32/5813_2.png) [@LSLGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LSLGuy)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2023, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/133 "2023-04-29T01:53:37Z")
Itā€™s been a few days since I tried but for me it seemed to run in spurts; total failure for a couple days, then intermittent success for a couple days, then ā€¦ Heck, for all we know thereā€™s something subtly different in how YouTube responds to Discourseā€™s queries to build the preview and whatā€™s actually wrong / different is at YouTube, not at your browser. ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2023, 2:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/134 "2023-04-30T02:58:02Z")
My current theory: it works if you do everything _quickly_. You know how it takes a second or two for the preview window to convert the raw link into the actual embedded window? I think it works if you hit the ā€œreplyā€ button before that conversion happens. The ideas about using a ā€œyoutu.beā€ link donā€™t work, but they _seem_ like they work because the user is pasting a new link, and sometimes they manage to submit it before the system has parsed it (causing the failure). ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2023, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/135 "2023-04-30T10:04:42Z")
Youtube: ā€œSorry, an error occuredā€¦ā€ Yewtube: > **[How to "quickly" make an Origami Magic Ball](https://yewtu.be/watch?v=tGhcTwIJ4Es)** > > As it is kind of criminal not to let you in on the fast track to the Magic Ball, I decided to make a new video showing in detail how to do the collapse/ crumpling bit and also using a much quicker precreasing method. So instead of 6 hours doing all... ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2023, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/136 "2023-04-30T14:58:54Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > My current theory: it works if you do everything _quickly_. You know how it takes a second or two for the preview window to convert the raw link into the actual embedded window? I think it works if you hit the ā€œreplyā€ button before that conversion happens. Thatā€™s not my experience. The preview window has always already been constructed when I post. What I find is that the YouTube URL from the address bar has never worked since this crap started happening over a month ago, while the youtu.be form may or may not work but can often be made to work using one or other of the methods in the bag-o-tricks discussed in this thread. And itā€™s the latter behaviour that is crazy inconsistent. @DPRK, thatā€™s just a Onebox link, not an embedded video. ---
**Author:** ![Atamasama](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atamasama/32/12961_2.png) [@Atamasama](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atamasama)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2023, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/137 "2023-04-30T17:34:18Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > thatā€™s just a Onebox link, not an embedded video. Itā€™s linking to a web site called ā€œyewtu.beā€, for real. šŸ˜† ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2023, 8:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/138 "2023-04-30T20:32:56Z")
Which is just an alternative front end to youtube, but @wolfpup is correct that Discourse did not embed the video. (Even with an ā€œembedā€ URL: [https://yewtu.be/embed/Lni3YbDRmpY](https://yewtu.be/embed/Lni3YbDRmpY) which also lacks a Onebox tag) ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2023, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/139 "2023-04-30T20:40:20Z")
However, by invoking the appropriate trick from the handy bag-o-tricks, the original YouTube video can (eventually, by trying different tricks) be embedded: [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/tGhcTwIJ4Es/hqdefault.jpg "How to "quickly" make an Origami Magic Ball") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGhcTwIJ4Es) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2023, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/140 "2023-04-30T20:42:25Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > And itā€™s the latter behaviour that is crazy inconsistent. I have had all the different types work at one point or another (since the breakage). [youtube.com](http://youtube.com) vs. youtu.be, trailing slashes vs. not, etc. None are reliable, but all work some of the time. All this inconsistency tells me that the URL format is a red herring. Thereā€™s some other process going on. Timing seemed like a good bet to me. It may not be the preview generation, exactly, but some other process related to that. It works if you post before that completes. Letā€™s see if these all work (they all use a different URL format): [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZeyUP4g3oAY/hqdefault.jpg "The Simpsons - Homer Appears From Bushes") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeyUP4g3oAY) > **[The Simpsons - Homer Appears From Bushes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeyUP4g3oAY%2F)** [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZeyUP4g3oAY/hqdefault.jpg "The Simpsons - Homer Appears From Bushes") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeyUP4g3oAY) [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZeyUP4g3oAY/hqdefault.jpg "The Simpsons - Homer Appears From Bushes") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeyUP4g3oAY) [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/ZeyUP4g3oAY/hqdefault.jpg "The Simpsons - Homer Appears From Bushes") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeyUP4g3oAY&t=1) ---
**Author:** ![Dr.Strangelove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dr.strangelove/32/6613_2.png) [@Dr.Strangelove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dr.Strangelove)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2023, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/141 "2023-04-30T20:43:56Z")
Ok, the only one that didnā€™t work was this: `https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeyUP4g3oAY/` Didnā€™t like the trailing slash. But no error, either. I pasted the links in and _immediately_ hit the reply button. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [April 30, 2023, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958/142 "2023-04-30T20:45:21Z")
I may have spoken too soon and you may have a point about the timing. Trying to post after a short delay ā€¦ [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/1pfjSb1Yj9o/maxresdefault.jpg "Quiet shelter dog finds a mommy of his dreams") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pfjSb1Yj9o) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958.md?page=6) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/have-links-to-youtube-been-disabled/981958.md?page=8)