YouTube won't let me watch a video unless I sign in...

I have been using freetube for a while now which is also facing this issue so it looks like a tug of war between the clients and YouTube which is getting others in the crossfire as well. But for some reason, when I add haruna as external player in freetube and launch a video it always works. Guessing other video players like vlc might also work which you can use with freetube and maybe other privacy focused clients.

I thought about making an *arr application for automating the downloading of your subscribed youtube channels and in quality you want. I want to call it yarrtube. Idk if anyone would be interested or not so only been a pipe dream.

Copy URL, yt-dlp <dat URL>.
- I just hit up that mpv & skip a few steps after installing yt-dlp mpv <dat URL>

I'm once again asking you to host Invidious (alternative YouTube frontend) locally on your PC.
- The real problem is that it's a pain sometimes and the fact they suggest to restart every hour is even worse. Recently, I had a problem where it started to play some videos and then stopped the playback and from there it went in a reloading loop till you get something like
  Refreshing does nothing. Restarting is the same
  
  IDK about invidious, but on Piped I had to add a container that grabs POtokens for the Newpipe API to use to pull videos.
  
  For me, it's running for months and I had to load new image updates sometimes, because YouTube likes to break it, but this was maybe once a month...
- How does one embark on such a journey?
  
  Quite easy with Docker: https://docs.invidious.io/installation/#docker-compose-method-production

POV 3 years from now: YouTube won’t let me watch a video unless I do a nazi salute

I mean that's a way to check for bots

Newpipe is working
- no desktop for newpipe? is it just the android app?
  
  You can use Waydroid
  
  There is Piped, which is a web version of NewPipe
- Huge, got worried

Grayjay can get around that issue in most cases.
https://grayjay.app/
- Unfortunately that is proprietary software, i.e. it restricts the users four essential freedoms :/
  
  Meh, as long as it works... I can always switch off grayjay. And the source is available
  
  Whats wrong with it? its open source: https://gitlab.futo.org/videostreaming/grayjay

If you click Cancel and then simply search for the same video you can watch it without signing in. Total horseshit but still a good ‘fuck you’ move against YouTube.

freetube for windows and linux. newpipe for android.
- I'm having the same issue on Freetube, it pops up and says it can't play the video because Youtube requires being signed in. Sometimes if I retry a couple of time it'll play, but usually keeps getting the same error. Freetube is great though, maybe they'll come up with a solution soon.
  
  Agreed, my up-to-date freetube is having problems today.
  Edit: with or without VPN makes no difference either
  
  Make sure you update freetube frequently
- Unfortunately, neither fixes this. Grayjay seems to work, but its inconsistent in my experience, often repeatedly returning to the beginning of the video part-way through.
  
  Grayjay is useless on Linux. Every video suddenly stops halfway and you need to reload. Same for every video. Talking about music videos, 5-6 min long.
- Freetube is a Invidious client. Newpipe has its own build in scraper

So bots just have to sign in?

Happens to me only when I use my VPN.
- your VPN IP is blacklisted
- I was about to leave the same comment
- Seconded.
- Don't use a VPN?
  What good is doing anyway? Tracking happens mostly outside if IP address. Even at that your IP address is probably dynamic.
  
  Really? I’m pretty sure I’m being IP tracked by companies like google.
  
  I usually don't use one for browsing, and not for privacy reasons.
  I have a wireguard hub-and-spoke configuration with my VPS as hub to
  Let my VPS act as a reverse proxy to my home servers
  Not have to expose ssh on my VPS to the public internet
  Easily reach all my home servers when I travel
  Route traffic through my VPS when I'm on sketchy open WiFi. Which is when I've encountered OP's sign-in requirement.

Revance it
- Revanced still uses microG

I’ve just stopped watching. Plenty of other stuff to do. If they don’t want to show me their ads that’s their problem.

As someone without a YT account, I have seen this with regards to age verification (on rather random videos, actually), but not with "you might be a bot" reason.
- Since I always browse with VPN + lots of privacy protections, I feel like half the websites I visit think I’m a bot. It’s a pain in the arse.
  
  Turns out reCAPTCHAs aren't actually 'tracking the way you move your mouse' but just trying to match you to one of the billions of statistical models held in Google datacenters that represent the device fingerprints, personalities, locations, and preferences of every Internet user they track.
  And when they fail to match you… then they presume you're not a real person.
  
  Just turn off these plugins and VPN boy, it is safe here 🤡
- This is usually because they're using a common VPN service. I've found that connecting to Ireland gets me past this prompt more often than not, but that likely won't last long.
  
  VPN Ireland has been my go-to for years. If it stops I'm gonna be pissed.

this is likely youtube's way of trying to persuade people into making an account, without going public that they are forcing people to make accounts.
I found it does that if im logged out on a VPN, but standard residential IP's it doesn't with.
I assume eventually it's going to just require a google account to use the service period
- It sounds like they're getting ready for age verification, which will be mandated in some countries this year.
  
  They've required an account to watch age restricted videos for years now
- I only speak for myself but the day they require it, bye. I'll miss the creators that I follow but the ones I directly patron through other ways, I'll watch elsewhere. I get that servers cost money but Google isn't losing money, they just want more.
  
  Realistically we didn't need it before YouTube existed and I should be fine without it, but I think it'll be tough, I don't have an aerial for FTA tv anymore, nor a tv in my bedroom and I don't really want to sign up for a subscription streaming service. Plus a decent chunk of my employers use YouTube as end point for the videos I edit so that could be a bit of a hit too. There's always reading I guess, that might be doubly necessary if I end up poorer and can't afford much else.

That's been happening to me lately also. I've used NewPipe on Android to get around to.

GrayJay
- Also has this problem. For me, the issue is vpn, so I switch to a random server that hasn't been blacklisted
- FreeTube
  
  FreeTube isn't working for IP related issues atm, I'm having more luck with NewPipe

Have had some success just by reloading the page when I get this message

Have a look at peertube, it's gotten to a point where it can definitely supplement YT.
!peertube@lemmy.world
- Peertube is great, I wish more people started uploading their content to it
- I’m deaf and the large majority of peertube videos don’t have captions :/
  
  At least from what I've seen, a lot more videos than in the past seem to have transcripts and captions, including automatically generated captions. I recently moved all my old YT videos (mostly German YoutubePoops from the early 2010s) over to peertube.wtf and they had automatic captions generated without input on my end, in English and German both.
  
  hmmm should probably find their request list and vote up AI captioning
- It isn't even close to YouTube.
  
  That's no lie, hence supplement, not replace. But the community can only grow, if people start using it more, even just a little bit in addition to YT where it works for them.

Happens to me every now and then, I just switch vpn servers, then it works fine. It's inconsistent, the same server that was suspicious one day is fine the next. I'm guessing it depends on how many youtube videos are being streamed on that particular sever at that time

welcome to my life

I mean its lame but it's pretty much standard at this point. Gotta make an account to use anything these days.
- My solution is to avoid services that are anti-lurker.
  If im not able to view it without logging in, i just accept it, not watch it, and move on with my life.
  
  IG ain't gonna get me.