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YouTube now disabled in Wii U 'net browser?

OK, for me, by far the best feature of the Wii U's top shelf HTML5 browser has been playing YouTube videos. YouTube works like a BEAST in this thing. Or it did? Hopefully I'm wrong, but as of tonight it appears to be disabled in the browser because videos will pull up but there's no play button. Please, for the love of all that's good, tell me it hasn't been blocked in order to force us to use the actual YouTube channel which is choppy, slow, features no off-TV play and has a horrible interface. Because if so, someone at Google deserves to be backhanded.

And again, this is for YouTube in the INTERNET BROWSER, not the horribly designed YouTube APP in the main menu, hopefully that will prevent needless and endless corrections.
 

Robin64

Member
Saw this post and just had to test it to be sure.

Result: Doesn't work. No way to play a video now.

It was working 5 hours ago as that's when my housemates and I sat down to watch fail compilations.
 

Aeana

Member
Didn't they just change their player with the redesign? It's possible it's just an oversight and not something that was done deliberately.
 

Thraktor

Member
Didn't they just change their player with the redesign? It's possible it's just an oversight and not something that was done deliberately.

This is probably the case. Haven't there been other compatibility problems with the redesign?
 
If I'm not mistaken people in the Wii U thread were saying YouTube stopped working on other devices as well, so I wouldn't be surprised if it was a situation like what Aeana described.
 

Hiltz

Member
I read reports about this a few minutes ago. Man, Nintendo's gotta make you guys run out of room with all of these system updates.
 

Choc

Banned
Heres the test

open the wii u youtube app and see if you can view adult content

if not, theres your answer

and if so fuck you nintendo. This is not a kids toy
 

Alex

Member
Does the mobile YouTube site also not work?

Works on all the browsers I have on my Nexus 7. On Wii U it just draws a big black box for the video, though.

Apparently there's some work around with the embed URL, but no one is going to do that, but it does make it seem like it's just a glitch.
 

nickcv

Member
it's having some troubles with the user agent, it's not nintendo fault in any way.

from the release thread:

I just used spoofer-extension to view youtube in Chrome with the Wii U european user agent



It's loading in the Flash player now (which the Wii U Browser doesn't have). Curiously, with the default Chrome user agent, even though I have html5 enabled (at http://youtube.com/html5) I am still being served the Flash Player on my PC too

Something is screwy on the site

youtube is currently serving flash to a browser that does not have flash player.
that's the problem.

the only think we need to know if this is intentional or not.
 

Choc

Banned
Yeah, blame Nintendo.

i am taking a wild guess that they may not want adult content on their kids toy (they see it as a kids toy obviously the way they are going about things)

its entirely possible i am right. Could be wrong, but based on recent history? I reckon i am
 

Medalion

Banned
It may be Google's doing cuz of their neverending tweaking of Youtube's design in not just the computer site, but mobile versions
 

Chrom

Junior Member
Wii U YouTube app got an update today for improved performance.

If anything, this is most likely intentional from Google, not Nintendo.
 
i am taking a wild guess that they may not want adult content on their kids toy (they see it as a kids toy obviously the way they are going about things)

its entirely possible i am right. Could be wrong, but based on recent history? I reckon i am

It's a conspiracy!

Wii U YouTube app got an update today for improved performance.

If anything, this is most likely intentional from Google, not Nintendo.

Did it actually help? The videos were like unwatchable in the app before but ran perfectly in the browser.
 
Heres the test

open the wii u youtube app and see if you can view adult content

if not, theres your answer

and if so fuck you nintendo. This is not a kids toy

i am taking a wild guess that they may not want adult content on their kids toy (they see it as a kids toy obviously the way they are going about things)

its entirely possible i am right. Could be wrong, but based on recent history? I reckon i am

Presented without comment.
 
I've been discussing this in the other thread. There seems to be something screwy happening with the site for me, on both PC and Wii U.

unfortunately we don't have anything like that for the wii u (and unless someone will crack it we'll never have it).

I just used spoofer-extension to view youtube in Chrome with the Wii U european user agent

Mozilla/5.0 (Nintendo WiiU) AppleWebKit/534.52 (KHTML, like Gecko) NX/2.1.0.8.23 NintendoBrowser/1.1.0.7579.EU

It's loading in the Flash player now (which the Wii U Browser doesn't have). Curiously, with the default Chrome user agent, even though I have html5 enabled (at http://youtube.com/html5) I am still being served the Flash Player on my PC too

Something is screwy on the site

Using Chrome and I'm not having this issue.

I've managed to get it to change back to html5 once or twice in Chrome using the default agent, but for some reason it keeps failing to acknowledge my html5 settings for long, and reverts back to Flash Player.

Here's what I get using the default user agent:

dZIx0.jpg

Here's what I get using the Wii U user agent (same thing):

 

Chrom

Junior Member
It's a conspiracy!



Did it actually help? The videos were like unwatchable in the app before but ran perfectly in the browser.

Video playback was actually really fine for me before the update, and this update didn't change that for me as far as I can tell, but I can't speak for everyone about that. I'm like the only person who was apparently having my Wii U freeze whenever I returned to the Home Menu after watching a video, but this update fixed that for me and now it only lasts a few seconds.
 

Medalion

Banned
However, it is a good point... if Google and Nintendo knew more people were watching youtube through the browser and not the intended app created for the Wii-U os, what was the point? Of course they would do something to sabotage that so you were forced to watch it through the app
 
Edit: So hopefully it's just some site maintenance?

This is why we have PCs and things...

...which in your case is apparently being utilized for the sole purpose of trolling this thread with a completely stupid, vapid, and pointless reply that has nothing to do with the actual point of the subject at hand.
 

jooey

The Motorcycle That Wouldn't Slow Down
oh go fuck yourself

i put a theory forward for someone to test. Knob

By constantly calling a system a "kids toy?" Interesting method to present theories but most people just write an article or something.
 

Alex

Member
Even when it comes back the new Youtube site is a disaster, IMO. I'm usually not one to get up in arms about redesigns like a lot of folks do but man I really hate what they did with Youtube. So much wasted space, which makes you think maybe it's mobile centric but then they stuffed a weird scrolly bar in there for subscriptions that is a pain to use. Also managed to force recommendations back in there.

The only iteration of Youtube I am happy with right now is the Android tablet version, the black, 3Dish one. Love that app and I will never update it.
 

Eric C

Member
I was just using youtube on the Wii U browser just a few hours ago, let me check.

IT DOESN'T WORK ANYMORE :(

I don't want to use the youtube app!
 

Ath

Member
I hope Youtube fixes this soon. The one and only time I tried the Youtube app, it hardlocked my Wii U before even loading fully.
 
Just done the same tests on the Game CX video and I get HTML5 in Chrome and Flash on the spoofed Wii U user agent

Chrome



Wii U

That makes me think that YouTube doesn't recognize the Wii U's user agent and goes to the flash version by default. Maybe we should send and email to Google about this issue.
 
Embedded videos work.

Videos embedded with the <VIDEO> tag should work, and its possible to use the regular embed tag and force html5 too...

this will probably be fixed on the main site, but if not, someone could always create a search site for Wii U that defaults to those embed methods.
 

nickcv

Member
Just done the same tests on the Game CX video and I get HTML5 in Chrome and Flash on the spoofed Wii U user agent

Chrome



Wii U

we have two explanations here:

- they already solved the problem
- the bug is not widespread across all their servers and it's just a matter of luck if their load balancer will send you to a broken one or not
 
oh go fuck yourself

i put a theory forward for someone to test. Knob. Given recent Nintendo decisions, it could have been possible.

So yeah lets never test theories on gaf again? idiot

Your "theory" doesn't make any sense, and doesn't hold up to any degree of scrutiny. If Nintendo didn't want adult content on the Wii U, then why have a web browser at all? You can just point it at whatever porn site and go nuts.
 
That makes me think that YouTube doesn't recognize the Wii U's user agent and goes to the flash version by default. Maybe we should send and email to Google about this issue.

It's already being discussed on Google's product forums here, hopefully we'll get official word soon on what they plan to do if anything -

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/youtube/SLDH9oMBm1E

this post tells you how you can continue to view by altering the video URLs once you get there

a workaround has been found, take the watch?v= out of the link and add /embeed, get a link like this:
http://www.youtube.com/embed/K5eygPeodmU

This still needs a proper fix though.
 

Chrom

Junior Member
Oh, so can we confirm that the problem is indeed a glitch and not something deliberate as a result of Google wanting to force us to use their dedicated YouTube app?
 
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