Channels & viewing

[atc98092]

---

@MrMark wrote:

With that said, YouTube works as expected on all browsers and mobile devices, so it's not YouTube as such.  Perhaps Roku did a firmware update that made it stop working.  

---

You can't compare how an app works on different devices. While they may look identical, they are written in a completely different programming language. Any functionality within the app itself is completely controlled by the app developer. Changing something in the OS to cause such a change is extremely unlikely, as a change like that would probably break the app completely. 

[MrMark]

I think it's fair to say that YouTube not working on Roku is a problem for Roku owners, so it follows that the value of all Roku streaming devices is diminished as a result.  So even if we say that Roku has no fault in the problem, it is, nonetheless, a significant problem for Roku as a company.  If My company had a problem of that significance, I'd be highly apologetic to my customers and I'd also be doing my very best to get together with Google/YouTube.  Roku cannot ignore the fact that Google is an ultra-major player, and even though Roku is not in the same league, I believe that Google is fully aware that Roku is a major player in the streaming market, and is therefore important to their ongoing success. 

If you believe any of that to be true, then the most obvious solution is for the two companies to get together and come up with a solution instead wasting precious time with cavalier finger-pointing at each other..

[MrMark]

You might be onto something because I recently switched from Google DNS to Cloudflare's 1.1.1.1 DNS.  I'll see what happens if I switch it back, but I have to say that even it that works, it will be very concerning if it turns out to be true that Google makes YouTube screw up if they don't happen to own the DNS server.  Because surely most people use whatever DNS their ISP provides, not Google's.

[J_Mo]

---

@Psilobite wrote:

---

@J_Mo wrote:

I have this exact problem.   The search page is empty.  I have search history turned off, but youtube is useless to me without the search page.

---

Are you using Adguard? Add a custom filter rule:

@@||static.doubleclick.net^$important

This made search appear for me, but without personal search history. It appears to show "top" searches instead of the personal history, which is what it shows to a user who isn't logged in. "Top" searches have a flame icon to the left of them. Personal search history has a clock icon to the left of them.

I suspect this is going to go down the road of Roku blaming YouTube, YouTube blaming Roku, nobody knows anything about what happened (probably a typo or bug somewhere), and until someone can forward this issue to the people who actually code the channel, it's going to stay like this. If it goes any way I've experienced in the past, it could be months until this is fixed, or maybe even never.

Very frustrating for users.

---

UPDATE:  I took your regex string above and plugged it into my pihole whitelist.  The result was that it caused pihole to pass everything for all clients; no blocking at all.  I took it out, and put it into the blacklist and it caused pihole to block every DNS query.

BUT...  I watched the DNS query stream in pihole and noticed "static.doubleclick.net" was being blocked whenever I tried to access the youtube search function.  I whitelisted that, and voila, search now works again.

This is not a optimum solution, however, because the point of having an ad blocking DNS service is to block queries to ad servers, which doubleclick is one of the largest.

[edburgos]

Based on what I've seen here and my own experience, the problem seems to be a combination of the YouTube app and ad blocking. I wonder if those using pihole or a paid version of AdGuard could set up their roku device with a static ip and whitelist the offending DNS request for that IP alone. That way the rest of the network can enjoy blocking the doubleclick request.

I've never played with pihole before but I might give it a try if it's possible. I would love to report these findings to Google and see if they can do something, for sure they made some sort of change that caused this.

[MrMark]

I can't speak for anyone else, but mine is not related to ad blocking.  I changed my DNS 1.1.1.1 back to Google public, but it still failed to populate search history or watch history when using my brand ID.

[Psilobite]

If using the YouTube for televisions app on a new device, OR if resetting the app using the app's option under Settings, when using a "brand" account:

- Watch history no longer tracks or updates globally

- Search history does not show up, only top searches, although anything you search for will reflect on myactivity.google.com for the brand account.

This affects all versions of the YouTube for televisions app (Roku, Fire, Playstation, Smart TV). The YouTube app for Apple/Android is different. YouTube.com is different.

https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/129358445/youtube-roku-channel-no-longer-shows-search-hist...

[Psilobite]

If using the YouTube for televisions app on a new device, OR if resetting the app using the app's option under Settings, when using a "brand" account:

- Watch history no longer tracks or updates globally

- Search history does not show up, only top searches, although anything you search for will reflect on myactivity.google.com for the brand account.

This affects all versions of the YouTube for televisions app (Roku, Fire, Playstation, Smart TV). The YouTube app for Apple/Android is different. YouTube.com is different.

https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/129358445/youtube-roku-channel-no-longer-shows-search-hist...

[J_Mo]

---

@MrMark wrote:

I can't speak for anyone else, but mine is not related to ad blocking.  I changed my DNS 1.1.1.1 back to Google public, but it still failed to populate search history or watch history when using my brand ID.

---

I originally believed that your problem and mine had a common cause, but now based on your report, I believe they are separate issues.  I did not mean to hijack your thread.

[MrMark]

Actually, I think you were right - there is a common cause: A lack of interest on the part of both Google and Roku

Perhaps if I make a YouTube video showing it not working and get about a bazillion views, it will generate some interest.