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
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video player broken
tizbit
video player isnt working
StormRel
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Stream Error (Video Player Error/IPv6 - yt-dlp)
Shyf1sh
If i try to use/play or an atomated video tries to play in the background following Events Trigger and wont let me use the VideoPlayer :
VideoError: [youtube] 3bcSo0XlMvE: Sign in to confirm you re not a bot. Use --cookies-from-browser or --cookies for the authentication. See https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/FAQ#how-do-i-pass-cookies-to-yt-dlp for how to manually pass cookies. Also see https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Extractors#exporting-youtube-cookies for tips on effectively exporting YouTube cookies
VideoError: Loading failed. File not found, codec not supported, video resolution too high or insufficient system resources.
StormRel
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Cannot load videos in worlds in both Open Beta and Release builds
sillybit
Since last night all video players have stopped working for me in Desktop and VR, and in Open Beta and Release. Resyncing / reloading results in the same 'video error unable to load video' with several video players in several worlds.
StormRel
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Video player failing to load properly..
ƁƲƓƓƖƠ
It seems that I'M the only one experiencing issues, I assume it's because I'm in Japan..
I'll go to worlds with YouTube search or ANYTHING that plays things via link; more often than not, they'll fail to load. It was only happening with official music videos and such, but now it's ALL VIDEOS. I can't watch anything and I can't listen to anything either. I don't want to resort to using my built in browser 24/7 while on vrchat. I have no idea what's causing the issue, but I've talked to all of my friends(they're all in American) and they can view videos just fine. I've tried putting videos in manually, but it still doesn't work with anything.
Again, I have no idea what's causing this issue. I don't know how to look for errors at all.. the only lead I have is that I'm in Japan.
sillybit
All video players fail to work. This is not just YouTube, but also VRCDN and Twitch across multiple players and worlds. I've tried rebooting my PC, reinstalling VRChat, deleting the VRChat folder in AppData\Local and it was still broken. I fixed it by deleting the VRChat folders in AppData\LocalLow and AppData\Roaming
StormRel
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⚠️ 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...
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