YouTube videos fail to load frequently!
CMajor7
Starting with the 28th of March, I'm receiving very frequent reports of users that YouTube videos fail to load in my world. After some testing I concluded that it's other worlds too. To quantify this problem I ran some data and visualized it. Since the 28th, the Error rate of videos in my world increased to around 20%, meaning every 5th video fails to load. This also exactly lines up with when VRChat had the yt-dlp resolver updated for the last time.
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StormRel
Merged in a post:
⚠️ Video Player Not Loading Properly
_ᴄʜɪsᴇɴᴏɴ_
Tested Clients: PC and PCVR
Note: Standalone Quest and Pico have not been tested.
Since around May 20, 2025, a problem has been occurring in certain regions where Video Players in VRChat do not load or function properly.
Below is a summary of my investigation and findings.
✅ Test Results:
・Unity's built-in VideoPlayer cannot play YouTube videos
→ Playback fails regardless of whether the video contains ads or not
・Discord and Twitch videos can be played using the default VideoPlayer
・AVPro Video Player works without any issues
These results suggest that the issue may lie with Unity's VideoPlayer or ytdlp.
(Note: Occasionally, YouTube videos may play successfully with Unity’s VideoPlayer — possibly due to retry timing. This has not been thoroughly verified.)
🛠️ Current Workaround:
If you want to play videos reliably in VRChat, use AVPro (Live or Stream) instead of Unity’s VideoPlayer.
(Note: If the YouTube source is flagged or bot-banned, the video will not play regardless of the player used.)
🧪 World Used for Testing:
(This world includes multiple types of video players.)
⚠️ Error Log Example (when playback fails)
==================================================
YYYY.MM.DD HH:MM:SS Warning - [Video Playback] ERROR: [youtube] [youtube URL]: Requested format is not available. Use --list-formats for a list of available formats
==================================================
Afevis
I've made my own fix for this issue that has been working great for me, it simply replaces VRChat's stripped down version of YT-DLP (which doesn't allow loading external cookies) with the official version when you launch VRChat, letting you use your default web browser's login cookies directly by specificing it in yt-dlp's config file (without having to install a browser extension like Haxy's version needs you to, YT-DLP handles that automatically so I'm not sure why they need a extension to get the cookies...)
Haxy
Afevis The extension is required because youtube rotates the cookies every few minutes / page change, also yt-dlp can't extract chrome cookies directly anyway due to windows encryption.
its the most user friendly way to get it working for people with the issue regardless of their tech skill level.
You are also missing various workarounds / additions in yt-dlp such as the safari forced browser agent which will cause issues to anyone using your fix resulting in 360p playback.
Haxy
Workaround: https://github.com/EllyVR/VRCVideoCacher
kawashirov
Yeah, noticed that too even in normal non-vrc yt-dlp, it says errors about being bot and propose to use cookiest.txt method, which works, but isn't suitable for vrchat.
Have to do something about that...
Wax7
My friends and I keep getting affected by this — sometimes we're blocked from YouTube for a day, sometimes even for an entire week. The problem is the increased bot protection due to too many anonymous requests.
The only solution: implement a login process for YouTube in VRChat. Even major platforms like Discord are facing this issue now.
This would solve two major problems at once: first, the blocking issues as described, and second, users would once again be able to stream videos in higher quality.
There’s nothing worse than worlds without sound, or group YouTube sessions where one person can’t join in.
So many people have been dealing with this problem for months now.
Gale Kairo
Wax7 agree. theres no reason you shouldnt be able to login to youtube. its a change from yt to stop bots.
lun-4
The issue that has been merged doesn't seem to be the same as this current one, given the one reported here began in March, while the merged issue dates itself on January. Data has been provided from multiple world creators that suggest this is a different widespread issue because we can confirm timing.
This issue now contains completely unrelated comments. I would suggest for the merge to be reverted, as well as some kind of acknowledgement that internal investigation efforts by VRChat are aware of the research information posted on or after April 7th 2025.
StormRel
Merged in a post:
Youtube videos not playing in all video players
Cirno Baka
- Open VRChat.
- Go to any world with any video player.
- Have someone enter a Youtube video URL.
- Get playback error.
The error looks like this (more in the attached log):
2025.01.22 23:57:56 Log - [AVProVideo] Opening https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8OPtlBAxLE (offset 0) with API MediaFoundation
2025.01.22 23:57:56 Error - [AVProVideo] Error: Loading failed. File not found, codec not supported, video resolution too high or insufficient system resources.
More details:
Recently (around the middle/end of December 2024, can't remember an exact date) I started getting an error in all video players when trying to play videos from Youtube. Video links from other sites are working fine.
Also, if I create a private Invite instance, the videos are playing fine, but if I join an existing instance where someone is already playing a video, it doesn't work. I can even enter video links and they will play for my friends in the same instance, but not for me.
I can play affected links in my web browser just fine, so it's not a region block from youtube or my ISP.
What I've already tried:
* Clearing VRC cache
* Disabling my firewall
* Rebooting my router
* Disabled vsync in nvidia control panel
* Deleting yt-dlp.exe and replacing it with a version from github (by the way, if I feed a youtube link directly to yt-dlp.exe via windows command line, it's able to download video just fine)
None of the above helped.
Salbug
A lot of it has to do with this particular issue.
LED Lamp
It has something to do with VRChat's modifications to yt-dlp. If you download the same version yt-dlp.exe from https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/download/2025.03.27/yt-dlp.exe and drop it in %homepath%\AppData\LocalLow\VRChat\VRChat\Tools\ while VRChat is running, the issue is gone.
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