1783540 - YouTube iframe will not play video when logged into Google

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(Core :: Privacy: Anti-Tracking, defect)

Description

[Andy Bajka]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.15; rv:103.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/103.0

Steps to reproduce:

Create an HTML page with iFrame like this:

<iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8JjISXdS1qg"
		width="560" height="315"
		frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="true"></iframe>

Actual results:

When I click the play button the video will not play.

Expected results:

The video should play.

Comment 1

[Andy Bajka]

The same HTML code works fine when using Safari.

I have the following computer type:

MacOS Monterey
iMac 24-inch, M1, 2021

Comment 2

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The Bugbug bot thinks this bug should belong to the 'Core::Audio/Video: Playback' component, and is moving the bug to that component. Please correct in case you think the bot is wrong.

Comment 3

[Karl Tomlinson (:karlt back Feb 10)]

I can reproduce bug 1781759, but not this bug.
Does this reproduce for you with data:text/html,<iframe%20src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8JjISXdS1qg"%20width="560"%20height="315"%20frameborder="0"%20allowfullscreen="true"></iframe> ?

Where you can reproduce, are you able to perform the following steps, please?

1. Open the developer tools (Hamburger -> More tools -> Web Developer Tools).
2. Select https://www.youtube.com/embed/8JjISXdS1qg using "Select an iframe as the currently targeted document" near top-right of dev tools.
3. Select "Console" tab in dev tools.
4. Type document.getElementsByTagName("video")[0].error at prompt and press return.
5. What is displayed under the typed text?

Comment 4

[Andy Bajka]

Hi Karl,

The video plays fine when I paste this into the browser address bar:

data:text/html,<iframe%20src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8JjISXdS1qg"%20width="560"%20height="315"%20frameborder="0"%20allowfullscreen="true"></iframe>

However the video will not play if I create a HTML file with the iframe code. All I get is a spinning circle.

Comment 5

[Andy Bajka]

Hi Karl,

Following your steps in the Web Developer Tools, the results are <- null.

Comment 6

[Andy Bajka]

I had about 15 unused profiles which I deleted. I restarted Firefox and now the video now plays properly.

Comment 7

[Andy Bajka]

Now it's back to not playing. Perhaps the way YouTube delivers the iframe changes, one minute it works, but most of the time it does not.

Comment 8

[Andy Bajka]

When I click the video there's a spinning circle, after about a minute or two I get this error message:

An error occurred. Please try again later. (Playback ID: colGWLKIpyLq98lH)
Learn More

Comment 9

[Andy Bajka]

(In reply to Karl Tomlinson (:karlt) from comment #3)

I can reproduce bug 1781759, but not this bug.
Does this reproduce for you with data:text/html,<iframe%20src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8JjISXdS1qg"%20width="560"%20height="315"%20frameborder="0"%20allowfullscreen="true"></iframe> ?

Yes same problem, video does not play

Where you can reproduce, are you able to perform the following steps, please?

1. Open the developer tools (Hamburger -> More tools -> Web Developer Tools).
2. Select https://www.youtube.com/embed/8JjISXdS1qg using "Select an iframe as the currently targeted document" near top-right of dev tools.
3. Select "Console" tab in dev tools.
4. Type document.getElementsByTagName("video")[0].error at prompt and press return.
5. What is displayed under the typed text?

I get this:

TypeError: document.getElementsByTagName(...)[0] is undefined

Comment 10

[Andy Bajka]

Today the video was playing fine, but then I noticed I was not logged into Google. Normally I'm logged into Google all the time. Soon as I logged into Google the video was once again not able to be played. I just get the spinning circle when I click the play button and the video never starts.

Comment 11

[Andy Bajka]

The issue appears to do with being logged into Google and the following setting:

Preferences -> Privacy & Security -> Standard

If I change to:

Preferences -> Privacy & Security -> Custom

The video plays fine even logged into Google.

Comment 12

[Andy Bajka]

The issue appears to do with being logged into Google and the following setting:

Preferences -> Privacy & Security -> Standard

If I change to:

Preferences -> Privacy & Security -> Custom -> Uncheck Cookies

The video plays fine even logged into Google.

Comment 13

[Andy Bajka]

The video will not play if I have this setting:

Preferences -> Privacy & Security -> Custom -> Cross-site tracking cookies, and isolate other cross-site cookies

The video will play with this setting:

Preferences -> Privacy & Security -> Custom -> Cross-site tracking cookies

Comment 14

[Andy Bajka]

I submitted a bug report to YouTube here:

https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/242017147

Comment 15

[BugBot [:suhaib / :marco/ :calixte]]

The severity field is not set for this bug.
:jimm, could you have a look please?

For more information, please visit auto_nag documentation.

Comment 16

[Tim Huang[:timhuang]]

Hello Andy,

Thanks for reporting this. Would you be able to provide your info on about:support page to help us with diagnosing the issue?

Also, were you using a special google account(like an enterprise account) or just the regular account when the issue happened? Is the issue reproducible with a fresh profile?

Comment 17

[Andy Bajka]

Hi Tim,

In the past I would do a Firefox refresh and the issue persisted. Today I followed your advice and created a new profile, that finally resolved the issue.

I will close this bug report now.

Thank you.