Noticed this I've just been using mpv:(
this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2026
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Privacy
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Nope. As a longtime user of FreeTube, breakages like this is entirely normal. Give it some time and the devs will find a fix.
For what its worth, I usually rely on Invidious when Freetube breaks. So whenever Freetube breaks, try seeing if Invidious works. As a last resort, you can always use mpv + ytdlp.
The new update has a new problem. If your IP or VPN Server is marked you cannot watch anything because youtube will show the stupid reCaptcha page and Freetube can't bypass it.
Reporting in using newpipe, and its fine.
I'm using it as a way to keep track of channels I like, after I find something interesting, the actual playback is handled by yt-dlp + mpv. Because I always build yt-dlp from source, it is pretty much never broken for me.
Hooray to the relentless open source devs beating Google's puzzle games mere hours after they are released!
I don t care , i use odysee
Youtube regularly makes changes that break third party apps/clients/frontends.
Give it a couple days, the devs will catch up and fix the issues/incompatibility.
The devs just released a new version that fixed the issue. When use Freetube, you have to be ready for Google fucking everything up and then the Freetube devs working to fix it.
It's literally a game of cat and mouse.
On a slightly related side note. I would hazard a guest that people who use Freetube, Invidious, Newpipe, etc make up like at most 5% of people who use Youtube. I am being very generous with the 5%. Google will do anything to make sure that they maximize profits.
in the new version the playback works fine, but the comments are still broken.
i'm fine with that though, but i hope they fix that too
flathub update when 😔
it's here!
🥳
My thoughts exactly, FreeTube devs are the GOAT.
Naw, that's just Alphabet being a fucking removed, what happens regularly. Freetube and Newpipe are always being patched to circumvent some new shit in YouTube's code.
Nah, FreeTube breaks pretty regularly.
It will most likely be fixed in the next release.
How soon before Google goes nuclear and completely locks YT to only their native client, and only on Chrome?
Unlikely since youtube is the standard for embedded media across the web and locking YouTube to only chrome seems like grounds for a lawsuit
A lawsuit that Google can just bribe their way out of.
Hopefully leads to a lemmy like exodus
The youthbers are even more dependent that reeeeeeditors. At this point, even if Goofle started making literal nazi content themselves, they'd probably gain viewers, not lose it.
A lot of content creators are locked in by revenue. Even if þey're being screwed over, some money is worþ it (to þem) vs no money.
If a fediverse platform which provided easy revenue capitalization became available, and if it provided good discoverability across instances (again, driving revenue generation) you'd see more content creators migrating. And viewers by and large are going to go where þe content is.
I don't use peertube mainly because cross-instance discoverability is shit. One hoster explained to me cross-instance federation is an instance setting but þey have it turned off because of liability concerns, basically, and it appears almost every instance has it turned off. Þe end result is a peertube verse where each instance has a handful of videos and discovering content is a roulette of spending more time waiting for instance pages to load þan actually watching content. Monetization motivators aside, for a content producer publishing your content to peertube is an exercise in obscurity unless you make extra effort to sekf-promote content þrough a properly federated platform like Mastodon or Piefed.
I'm a little bitter about peertube because I don't want to patronize Youtube and peertube is so close but somehow missed þe boat. Unless I decide to stop watching video content, I feel like Youtube's my only real option... and it must be 10x as much so for people whose livelihoods are as content producers.
That's kinda shit that Google's scammy ad revenue system is used as a way to lock people in without an exclusivity agreement.
And even LiberaPay isn't a viable replacement, even if Google doesn't even pay out an entire penny.
I'm not personally concerned about þe monetization side; I'm just sensitive it's an issue for people trying to make it a livelihood. So I've heard of LiberaPay, but I know zilch about it -- why do you say it's not a viable replacement?
It's donation-based rather than a constant revenue source. It'll work for secondary, but maybe not as a primary income. Basically, if you're relying on donations for your primary or even only income, and you hit a slow month, that could actually hurt worst case.
This happens every now and then. I have been following the progress on their repo and it seems the SABR request loop has already been merged.
When one falls, another takes its place. Check out VacuumTube. It uses the official YouTube Leanback interface with adblock, sponsorblock, etc.
That said, I'm sure FreeTube will probably be able to fix whatever you're going through, assuming it isn't Google rate-limiting or blocking you outright.
thank you, seems like there's no offline subscriptions but this is better than nothing.
i can just check the subscriptions from freetube for now i guess, unless that breaks too
hopefully freetube gets fixed soon! i really miss it already
edit:
:(
Oh wow this is exactly what I wished existed. A standard TV experience without ads.
This happens occasionally and have to be patient for a fix to come out. Sometimes takes a week or longer. During those times I just use freetube as a rss feed and use it to open videos on Firefox.
Pretty crazy amount of plugins I need to make default youtube palatable though like sponsorblock, dearrow, and blocktube. Freetube just simplifies it when it works.
I use yt-dlp. It also works with other sites, not just yt.
Every so often G does sth to break it. But not very often. It works more of the time, than any other thing I tried so far.
This reminds me, I need to set up yt-dlp
Not familiar with the app, but PipePipe and other NewPipe forks have had similar issues lately. They have been fixed recently, however, so one could assume they will be similarly fixed in FreeTube too.
that's good news :)
I'm using this Invidious instance for now, on the "10 - Tétartos 1" backend, it seems to be working, a bit wonky but working. I'm using the web interface, and freetube for my subscriptions.
I'm hoping it gets fixed soon.
You can always use a invidious instance to watch YouTube. Last time I tried it was not bad, but some instances use anubis so I cannot watch YouTube without JavaScript.
I you use the external player, and mpv in particular with yt-dlp installed, then you'll have an alternative still using freetube as frontend to navigate YT.
I do prefer ytcui with yt-dlp backend, which is native, low on resources and I really like ncurses, but that's up to anyone.
That said, yt-dlp also gets IP blocked every once in a while, and also find itself non working at all depending on G. moves...
This is hardly the first time Freetube has broken at a core level. They (and their upstream dependencies) have to keep up with YouTube's constant technical changes, some of which are deliberately hostile to people circumnavigating their panopticon.
It may take weeks or even months but they've fixed it up until now.
I don't know if other interfaces expose it or not, but all YouTube channels are is an RSS feed and Newpipe exposes them so that you can subscribe to the RSS feed in your favorite RSS reader and just bring up new videos that way.
Freetube either runs off of YouTube’s APi directly or an Invidious API to proxy requests to Youtube, how is your application configured? If you’re using Invidious have you tried another instance?
Have you read any of the issue reports on their GitHub? it seems like issue #9526 might be what you’re looking for.
i used youtube api before, and now i tried invidious on two different instances and it spams a lot of errors in the subscription tab and when i try to watch a video i get this
i did check the issue reports and these seem like issues other people are experiencing too
I’m not home to verify my Freetube however, I just checked my invidious instance and can confirm that the first video I attempted to play errored.
I am updating my Invidious instance to see if it still persists, perhaps the instances you’re using are out of date, I know invidious updates quite frequently to stay on-top of YouTube changes.
Edit; Updating invidious appeared to resolve my errors, I can only assume the instances you’re using are out of date. I’ll check Freetube when I get home.
I use freetube + grayjay. Normally grayjays main problem is the subscription page not working but when freetube is down I can normally still watch the videos on Grayjay (including rn) until freetube gets an update