Fedi.Tips (@FediTips@social.growyourown.services)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 21:25:15
If you're posting a link to YouTube and there isn't any embedded video appearing in the post, it's possibly because YouTube has started automatically putting a shortener (youtu.be) on its sharing links.
To have a link that will embed properly in a Mastodon etc post, use the full version of the YouTube video's address which begins youtube.com (instead of youtu.be). You can get this full version from the address bar of your web browser when you're watching the video.
Föderation · Di 06.08.2024 21:30:20
@FediTips@social.growyourown.services using youtube address bar to share link also avoids some google tracking
Fedi.Tips (@FediTips@social.growyourown.services)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 21:34:03
Yeah, tracking seems to be the main reason why Google are putting shorteners in everything 🙄
Franz Graf (@hikingdude@mastodon.social)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 21:31:26
@FediTips ahhh! I wondered when the video was embedded and when not .. thanks!
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 22:12:03
@MagentaRocks @FediTips Thanks for this (well remembered!) but I think it's an issue with the way YouTube is now inserting ads into the start of videos, not short URLs. I was trying to unpick it on this thread: https://mstdn.social/@stokes/112875572766386307
Fedi.Tips (@FediTips@social.growyourown.services)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 22:19:34
Hmm... 🤔 Posted the shortener thing above because someone had messaged me asking about it, and in their example the shortener didn't work while the full length address did work.
I wonder if there are two different things happening at once here, as it doesn't seem as clearcut as it appeared at first?
Fedi.Tips (@FediTips@social.growyourown.services)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 22:20:51
I just tried the example you gave (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IKgpxLN86M) and that worked fine now.
So, it seems to be an intermittent thing in some cases at least?
(I'm assuming here that you can see the preview below, it's possible that your server won't render it as each server renders its own previews.)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 22:30:45
@FediTips @MagentaRocks Oh! Yes, I can see that preview correctly.
I wonder if your instance and mine are running different versions, or there are other differences. Could be an issue on the Mastodon end after all! 😫🤪 I thought I had a handle on it but now... lol
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 22:28:11
@FediTips @MagentaRocks Yeah, could be multiple things at play. I’ve pretty conclusively ruled out URLs being the issue though.
Until I find something contradictory, all I can say for sure is that it's only occuring on:
– videos with ads, AND
– not newly* uploaded videos
*so far seems to be over 10 yrs old but I don't have enough examples to know the age threshold
Working theory is that older videos can't have the ads injected for some reason?
I will add to that thread if I get more info.
Fedi.Tips (@FediTips@social.growyourown.services)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 22:30:54
I never see ads on any video due to my browser security software, so that might be something else to consider. Is your original example still broken for you?
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 22:35:08
@FediTips @MagentaRocks Yep, still broken on my original post. Do you see the preview on this post (linked below) correctly then?
https://mstdn.social/@stokes/112875607441132299
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 22:38:12
@FediTips @MagentaRocks And I’ve just posted the link in a fresh post now and it's still broken. See: https://mstdn.social/@stokes/112916991831639755
Magenta Rocks (@MagentaRocks@mastodon.coffee)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 22:41:57
FYI. This is what I see. The link in what should be the preview does not work. The one about does.
(Medien: 1)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 22:47:04
@MagentaRocks @FediTips Yep, that's what I see too. And your instance (mastodon.coffee) is different to mine.
Hmm. The link does work for me.
Fedi.Tips (@FediTips@social.growyourown.services)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 22:44:09
Could you try posting a link to the video in this thread, rather than linking to your original thread?
That way we might get our own servers' renderings of the preview.
Magenta Rocks (@MagentaRocks@mastodon.coffee)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 22:46:40
Copied from my browser after clicking on the link in Rob's post.
Fedi.Tips (@FediTips@social.growyourown.services)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 22:42:47
Weird, so there's something to do with your server that is interacting with this which doesn't affect my server.
Hmm... this is possibly because your server is running the experimental version of Mastodon which isn't yet released (v4.3.0-alpha.5). It's possible there are some bugs still to be removed from it?
hay jude (@Jude_theone479001@mastodon.social)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 21:40:51
@FediTips I just had that happen with a gift link from the WaPo
Alex' (@gnu_alex@mastodon.social)
Föderation RO Di 06.08.2024 21:53:31
I'm using Freetube to watch youtube videos so I can't copy link with "youtube.com" but only "youtu.be"
Fedi.Tips (@FediTips@social.growyourown.services)
Föderation RO Di 06.08.2024 21:54:20
If you copy the youtu.be link into a browser, it will turn into a youtube.com link as that's the real address of the video.
raspberryswirl (@raspberryswirl@chaos.social)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 21:54:53
@FediTips google is evil
cognitively accessible math (@geonz@mathstodon.xyz)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 21:58:03
@FediTips Thanks! I was trying to figure out what the issue was.
Wigbert B 🎻🏛🎭🎤🗞🎥📚 (@wigbert@mastodon.world)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 22:26:46
thank you ! very useful
BeAware 
(@BeAware@social.beaware.live)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 22:31:45
@FediTips side note: anything after the ? In a YouTube link can and should be removed. It's all tracking info.
If you've clicked a YouTube link on Fedi before, there's a good chance Google has linked your Fedi account to your Google account in their backend systems via tracking.
Fedi.Tips (@FediTips@social.growyourown.services)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 22:59:38
p.s. It's possible too that this may not work for you, there seems to be a bug that is difficult to nail down. I've just been messaging with someone who cannot get the full length address to work for some videos on their server, but the same addresses work on my server.
I'm mainly posting about the shortener because removing it has worked for some people, and it's worth a try. (Plus removing shorteners will help protect your privacy in any case.)
Allpoints (@allpoints@mstdn.social)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 23:08:09
@FediTips there was a weird config/bug a few weeks back where YouTube preview links in toots were showing up in German regardless of the original language. (Don't know if it was instance specific)
⊢≪ Noctilua ≫⊣ (@noctilua@social.noleron.com)
Föderation EN Di 06.08.2024 23:19:08
@FediTips I experience this with some PeerTube videos as well. I cant see any pattern of that occuring, it happens that one video is getting embed fine, and the next one from the same instance fails. Same with YouTube videos too.
Can it be Mastodon-specific issue?
Fedi.Tips (@FediTips@social.growyourown.services)
Föderation EN Mi 07.08.2024 20:07:51
Have you tried waiting and reloading the page later in the day? Instances are sometimes slow to generate the preview.
⊢≪ Noctilua ≫⊣ (@noctilua@social.noleron.com)
Föderation EN Mi 07.08.2024 20:19:25
@FediTips yes, waiting resolves the issue.
Föderation EN Mi 07.08.2024 00:18:06
@FediTips the YouTu.be shortener is just the video ID, so the privacy should be the same as any YouTube link
Fedi.Tips (@FediTips@social.growyourown.services)
Föderation EN Mi 07.08.2024 20:06:40
Ahhh... that's a really good point, did not notice they were 100% identical.
For some reason I'd got into my head they had put a different code on the shortener, but obviously not.
Canayjun (@canayjun@mstdn.social)
Föderation EN Sa 10.08.2024 19:06:51
@FediTips yes actually that method doesn’t work on our instance either. Tried the full address, but still not getting preview.
Anselm Schüler (@anselmschueler@ieji.de)
Föderation EN Mi 07.08.2024 00:58:24
@FediTips or you can just manually retype it from youtu.be/<ID> to youtube.com/watch?v=<ID>
Nazo (@nazokiyoubinbou@urusai.social)
Föderation EN Mi 07.08.2024 02:52:54
@FediTips Most instances seem to still be able to accept the shortener. They just need time to actually crawl and cache the preview. I've found that interacting with the post (such as clicking "favorite") will make it load the preview (upon which I can unfavorite if necessary.)
The real problem with Youtube embeds is that they're starting to block them for people (thus defeating the purpose of Youtube embeds existing in the first place, but whatevs I guess.) I now get "you must login to prove you're not a bot" on all youtube embeds on all sites (including Discord/etc.) Oh, and there is no login button on Youtube embeds.
Time to start using other services.
hairylarry (@hairylarry@gamerplus.org)
Föderation EN Mi 07.08.2024 04:13:36
I was wondering about that.
Larry Garfield (@Crell@phpc.social)
Föderation EN So 11.08.2024 03:14:17
@FediTips Unless you're in the app, in which case it only gives you the shortened version.
Is there a technical reason the preview cannot be extracted from the shortened URL?
Fedi.Tips (@FediTips@social.growyourown.services)
Föderation EN So 11.08.2024 21:25:40
I don't know, I'm not sure how easy it is to code a preview from shorteners.
There isn't any point using shorteners on here (as all links count as 23 characters) so it may be the devs haven't considered doing previews of them?
(@Ember@blobfox.coffee)
