Youtube

[fubero88]

Hello, I am satisfied with Pinepods. I normally search for podcasts from the podcast index, host my own backend search API, and have not had any problems so far. Today, I found a new podcast that is only on YouTube. I set up an API key, queried it manually first, and then in the application in the web interface. The podcast adds it and even loads the episodes. The Google Console interface also shows API queries. But when I try to play the episode, it doesn't start, and the browser console shows me what is in the screenshot. I use the Vivaldi browser, and I tried to play the episode in Firefox as well, but the error is the same.
The error only occurs when I play YouTube podcasts; other podcasts are not affected.

I looked for advice on GitHub, but no one has pointed this out yet. I consulted with Mistral AI, who told me to check a few things. Everything is as it should be according to the instructions. So I was told that the problem is how Pinepods calls YouTube, that Google has made some changes to YouTube. But I'm writing here to see if you have any advice.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

[MrMetathesis]

Getting a similar issue. Here's my findings.

Environment:

• Pinepods: madeofpendletonwool/pinepods:latest as of March 2026
• Deployment: Docker Compose on Windows with Tailscale
• Browser: Vivaldi

Summary:
YouTube podcast episodes spin indefinitely when attempting to stream but download and play correctly as MP3. This appears to be the frontend passing the raw YouTube channel/video URL to the audio element rather than a yt-dlp-resolved stream URL.

Steps to reproduce:

1. Subscribe to a YouTube channel as a podcast
2. Open an episode and press play
3. Episode spins indefinitely, never plays

What I confirmed works:

• Subscribing to YouTube channels ✅
• Episode list loading ✅
• Downloading episodes as MP3 and playing locally ✅
• yt-dlp inside the container correctly resolves stream URLs when called manually ✅
• Regular (non-YouTube) podcast streaming works fine ✅

Diagnosis:
Monitoring the Network tab in browser devtools while pressing play shows:

• No requests to googlevideo.com or youtube.com are ever made
• The only request fired is POST /api/data/record_listen_duration with status 200 — meaning the app believes playback has started, but the audio element silently failed
• The browser console shows a wasm error in HtmlMediaElement.play() originating from web::components::audio::on_play_pause
• The episode URL being resolved in the browser is the raw YouTube channel URL, not a yt-dlp-resolved stream URL

This suggests the frontend is passing the raw YouTube URL directly to the HTML audio element rather than first resolving it via yt-dlp. The audio element silently rejects it, but the app doesn't catch the failure and fires the listen duration call anyway.