Can Not Play video any more - XCDYouTubeVideoErrorDomain Code=-3

[JmyW]

Start from today(or maybe yesterday). Most of videos are failed to play. The error is returned "XCDYouTubeVideoErrorDomain Code=-3".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AgFeZr5ptV8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnVUHWCynig
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=clJsnBoVQDA

Could anyone help? thanks in advance.

[fightveryexplosion]

I'm having the same issue since this morning.
The failures seem to be random, the same video is sometimes available to be played and sometimes fails.
I have not found the root cause of this all yet, but it seems like the issue lies with YouTube's get_video_info URL sometimes returning a 404 error.
The following is the print of the NSHTTPURLResponse I get when trying to access the get_video_info in the -(void) handleVideoInfoResponseWithInfo:(NSDictionary *)info response:(NSURLResponse *)response handler inside XCDYouTubeVideoOperation.m

<NSHTTPURLResponse: 0x2834e8180> { URL: https://www.youtube.com/get_video_info?el=embedded&hl=ja&ps=default&video_id=dy90tA3TT1c } { Status Code: 404, Headers { "Alt-Svc" = ( "h3-29=\":443\"; ma=2592000,h3-T051=\":443\"; ma=2592000,h3-Q050=\":443\"; ma=2592000,h3-Q046=\":443\"; ma=2592000,h3-Q043=\":443\"; ma=2592000,quic=\":443\"; ma=2592000; v=\"46,43\"" ); "Cache-Control" = ( "no-cache" ); "Content-Length" = ( 0 ); "Content-Type" = ( "text/html; charset=utf-8" ); Date = ( "Tue, 18 May 2021 06:10:38 GMT" ); Expires = ( "Tue, 27 Apr 1971 19:44:06 GMT" ); Server = ( "YouTube Frontend Proxy" ); "Set-Cookie" = ( "VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE=YqCzchuOn6U; path=/; domain=.youtube.com; secure; expires=Sun, 14-Nov-2021 06:10:38 GMT; httponly", "YSC=hmbP_-FCTAY; path=/; domain=.youtube.com; secure; httponly" ); "Strict-Transport-Security" = ( "max-age=31536000" ); p3p = ( "CP=\"This is not a P3P policy! See http://support.google.com/accounts/answer/151657?hl=en for more info.\"" ); "x-content-type-options" = ( nosniff ); "x-frame-options" = ( SAMEORIGIN ); "x-xss-protection" = ( 0 ); } }

If anyone has any idea how to solve this I would love to hear about it!
I'll update as well if I figure this out...

[bark1n9]

Same here! Sometimes it fails other times it works fine.

[tristiando]

I got the same error:
"Failed to decode response from https://www.youtube.com/get_video_info?el=embedded&hl=en&ps=default&video_id=vlDzYIIOYmM"

[JaydeepVirani303]

Sometime, i got two error:-
Domain: XCDYouTubeVideoErrorDomain
Code: -2
User Info: {
NSLocalizedDescription = "Invalid parameters.";
NSURL = "https://www.youtube.com/get_video_info?el=detailpage&hl=en&ps=default&video_id=";
}

Domain: XCDYouTubeVideoErrorDomain
Code: -3
User Info: {
}

Please suggest me right path, my application is live on appstore and many user will get same error.

[fightveryexplosion]

I still have no idea what is actually causing this.
However, since the 404 errors seem to be random I realised that just retrying when they happen seem to make most videos able to play. I'm not sure if this is the best way of handling this though, but at least in my case it has reduced the number of errors from happening almost 80% of the time to a very small percentage.

By adding the following code to XCDYouTubeVideoOperation.m, just below the error handling for HTTP 429 errors (around row 373 or so), it is possible to retry when this error happens.

if ([(NSHTTPURLResponse *)response statusCode] == 429)
{
    // error handling for 429 errors
}

/** ↓ Insert from here **/
if ([(NSHTTPURLResponse *)response statusCode] == 404 && responseString.length == 0)
{
    [self handleConnectionError:[NSError errorWithDomain:XCDYouTubeVideoErrorDomain code:XCDYouTubeErrorEmptyResponse userInfo:@{NSLocalizedDescriptionKey : @"The response is empty."}] requestType:requestType];
    return;
}
/** ↑ Insert end **/

if (responseString.length == 0)
{

If anyone have any better solutions, please share them!

[knbx]

I tried the approach above, but in my testing this didn't seem to have much effect at all. I even increased the amount of retries, but once there's a 404 it seems to be unavailable for a little while:

[joro1]

Unfortunately I have nothing new to add (re fixes) except to confirm as of today I'm noticing this same issue. Looking forward to learning more, i.e. what can be done to quickly fix.

[bark1n9]

Could this be related? https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/186560114

[markeins]

Unfortunately I have nothing new to add (re fixes) except to confirm as of today I'm noticing this same issue. Looking forward to learning more, i.e. what can be done to quickly fix.

Same here, I started experiencing the bug today...

[alejandro-ulloa-dev]

Same here, videos are not reproducing

[manobal]

Same here... none of the videos are playing..

[fightveryexplosion]

Hmm, I did add a few other changes as well, like incorporating #524, apart from retrying on 404 errors.
I am now able to play all videos. It's strange that the same doesn't seem to work for you guys..
My way of retrying doesn't seem to be the best way of handling this error anyway, so I am still interested in any solutions you can find.

[joro1]

Hmm, I did add a few other changes as well, like incorporating #524, apart from retrying on 404 errors.
I am now able to play all videos. It's strange that the same doesn't seem to work for you guys..
My way of retrying doesn't seem to be the best way of handling this error anyway, so I am still interested in any solutions
you can find.

Adding your 404 retry code (w/ no other changes) does seem to be solving the issue for me*, i.e. in (as specified in your previous response) I added your code to XCDYouTubeVideoOperation.m:

if ([(NSHTTPURLResponse *)response statusCode] == 404 && responseString.length == 0) {
..

Thank you, very much appreciated.
However, wondering if this is just a temporary issue @ YouTube (seemingly w/ get_video_info) or if this signals a major change in how moving forward we can access YT video data in-app.

*PS I checked how many Xs the retry code is triggered and it's consistently 2Xs before the method (handleConnectionSuccessWithData:) continues successfully w/o retrying. Reason why this works (consistently after retrying 2Xs) is beyond my understanding, just happy it does (work, for now).

[mjroldan]

Same issue encounter today. any update on this?

Domain: XCDYouTubeVideoErrorDomain Code: -3 User Info: { } The operation couldn’t be completed. (XCDYouTubeVideoErrorDomain error -3.)

[JmyW]

@fightveryexplosion Thanks a lot for the great work and sharing. In my case, it's solved. Appreciate!
@mjroldan Have you tried the solution fightvertexplosion shared? It indeed works.