YouTube Displays Blank Page

[van p]

This started in the last day as far as I can tell. Never seen this before and doesn't happen in any other browser. Restarting Pale Moon, restarting Pale Moon in safe mode, and restarting the computer have no effect.

[Nigaikaze]

Youtube is working fine for me. Have you tried it in Pale Moon's safe mode and/or with a fresh new profile?

[Tomaso]

Lately, I've noticed that a few thumbnails sometimes fails to load @ YouTube.
When this happens, I see this in Pale Moon's status bar:

Waiting for i.ytimg.com...

Apparently, it's a DNS problem.

However, your problem seems to be much worse.
Are you able to connect to i.ytimg.com at all?

[van p]

Nigaikaze, as I said in the OP, I have done safe mode. Tomaso, I tried the link you mentioned. It shows as follows, which I get with Waterfox also, so I guess it's what I'm supposed to see. Thanks to both for responding so far.

[slp_se]

I thought it was just me, but this is what it's like for me today as well. All works fine in Chromium, though.

[coffeebreak]

I have done safe mode

No problems with YouTube here.

As asked above, what happens with a new profile?

[Night Wing]

I also received the blank page, but mine is a dark theme blank page since I use YouTube's "new" interface instead of the old classic interface. This happened in both 64 bit linux Mint and 64 bit Windows 7. I was able to get the "new" YouTube interface back with YT's own dark theme by changing the user agent for both linux and windows Pale Moon.

The user agent code is below. But remember I use 64 bit linux Pale Moon 28.4.1 running in 64 bit Linux Mint 19.1 (Tessa) Xfce and 32 bit windows Pale Moon 28.4.1 running in 64 bit Windows 7, SP1 so I don't know if this will work in Windows 10 and the coding will not be for the classic YouTube interface which doesn't have the Dark Theme.

Code: Select all

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:62.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/62.0 (Pale Moon)

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Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:62.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/62.0 (Pale Moon)

I'm guessing Google is trying to get people to use Google Chrome to access YouTube now and is discriminating against small browsers which don't have large market share.

[slp_se]

Code: Select all

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:62.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/62.0 (Pale Moon)

Thanks Night Wing, that put me back in business.

[vannilla]

For what is worth, using the native Pale Moon UA string, I get the old youtube interface and at the time I'm writing this, it works.
Though admittedly I have a fairly aggressive blocking going on, so it might just be a last resort fallback.

[coffeebreak]

For what is worth, using the native Pale Moon UA string, I get the old youtube interface and at the time I'm writing this, it works.
. . . it might just be a last resort fallback.

The built-in override for YouTube works fine for getting the older interface, which doesn't have this blank-page problem.
(and anyone who is using YT's new interface with PM must, in the past, have changed that built-in override to get it.)

Whoever is willing to solve the problem by returning to the classic interface can do that by just resetting the existing override to its default value.

For people who prefer to keep the newer interface, the user agent posted by Night Wing (for FF 62) reportedly does the job.

[van p]

Thanks for all the input so far.

No, I haven't done a new profile. Never done that and don't want to if it's not absolutely necessary. I'm willing, for now, to assume nothing bad happened from one day to the next and the profile's OK. Also, since others seem to be reporting something similar, I'm guessing (again, for now) it's not the profile.

I tried the 3 UA Modes in Preferences: no change.

I'm guessing Google is trying to get people to use Google Chrome to access YouTube now and is discriminating against small browsers which don't have large market share.

I'm also using an older version of Waterfox and the now-deceased Cyberfox. I don't think anything has smaller market share than a dead browser, but both are still working in YouTube, so I'm doubtful about the above explanation.

Finally, I tried Night Wing's Windows UAO, and it works (thanks). The UA I was using for YouTube is "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:65.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/65.0 Pale Moon/28.4.0". Should everybody using this UA have gotten the same results? So, now what? Will something else mess up with this new string? Will it have to be changed in the future?

Thanks again to everybody.

[coffeebreak]

So, now what? Will something else mess up with this new string? Will it have to be changed in the future?

Because you are using YouTube's new interface, yes, you will probably need to change the string again in the future, as YouTube makes changes to the site.

If you don't want to deal with that, use YouTube's classic interface, which is what Pale Moon is set up to do by default.

[van p]

If you don't want to deal with that, use YouTube's classic interface, which is what Pale Moon is set up to do by default.

Can I return to the original by using the Reset command, or does that take me back to the immediately-previous version?

Thanks.

[Moonchild]

Resetting a pref will reset it to Pale Moon's default. It does not keep a history of what you've ever set it to.

[van p]

Thanks, Moonchild.

I'll wait a little for any other comments/explanations then mark it solved.

EDIT: As I recall, there used to be a check mark symbol on the right side of the comment box to mark the issue solved. I don't see it now.

[coffeebreak]

there used to be a check mark symbol on the right side of the comment box to mark the issue solved. I don't see it now.

That's a (maybe temporary) casualty of migrating the forum to phpBB 3.2:

Several extension-based functions (like marking a topic solved, etc.) have also been disabled or removed until 3.2 compatible alternatives can be instated -- if they exist in the first place.

[Moonchild]

The topic solved extensions is currently not compatible with phpBB 3.2. I've opened an issue with the extension author for it, but I'm not sure if it's still actively developed to begin with.

[van p]

Thanks, coffeebreak and Moonchild. I did read the migration post when it came out but didn't remember any reference to Solved and didn't think to look there to see if that was mentioned. Thanks again.

[SYGAA]

.
to use youtube with new tab (dark mode) :

->about:config

• dom.push.userAgentID --> 004e65b80c4d44378ad818cc136927cf
• general.useragent.override.gaming.youtube.com --> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:66.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/66.0
• general.useragent.override.googlevideos.com --> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:66.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/66.0
• general.useragent.override.youtube.com --> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; Win64; x64; rv:66.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/66.0

[Gordon Dry]

@SYGAA

Same blank issue, but dark.

The only one that works for me for dark mode as well is

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Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:62.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/62.0 (Pale Moon)