YouTube is completely broken on my Apple TV — the last platform I have which actually does display ads. When the app loads, I get a black screen. When I tap on a video (click on it? on the remote?) it goes black, stutters through an ad, stutters through the next one, then stutters through the video for a couple seconds. Sometimes I have to start the video over. If I were running an ad blocker, I would expect static like this... but I'm not. I don't have a PiHole. The Apple TV has direct, unfiltered access to my WiFi. The ads are showing, but the app is just... broken. On my computers (Macs) I get a perfect experience, because I use Firefox with uBlock Origin like a sane person who knows what they're doing.
this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2025
523 points (98.5% liked)
Technology
75599 readers
2297 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
The black screen on the TV could be related to your TV’s HDR settings. Only recent TVs have started to decrease that temporary stutter between SDR/HDR.
It was annoying as hell in ad rolls before I started to pay for YT lite so my kid wouldn’t be advertised to.
No longer paying since they shuttered the YT Kids app on TvOS.
load more comments
(1 replies)
*Goolag shooting itself on foot be like.
The dev community is just adapting to shit thrown.
I assume the recent forced JS which recently broke downloaders and alt front-ends is connected to this somehow.
For reference, here are the exceptions I've been using to try to make sure my viewership counts. Not sure if they're all needed and they're probably overkill, but:
@@||youtube.com/api$domain=youtube.com|google.com
@@||youtube.com/youtubei$domain=youtube.com|google.com
@@||youtube.com/ptracking$domain=youtube.com|google.com
@@||play.google.com/log$domain=youtube.com|google.com
! these are meant for checking for active internet connection (https://www.techtapto.com/what-is-gstatic-why-you-see-it-often/#Is_Gstatic_com_generate_204_a_virus)
@@||youtube.com/generate_204$domain=youtube.com|google.com
@@||google.com/generate_204$domain=youtube.com|google.com
@@||youtube.com/gen_204$domain=youtube.com|google.com
@@||google.com/gen_204$domain=youtube.com|google.com
They're not getting revenue from you either way. That's really more effort than I would want to go through for what amounts to a display bug.
Well, I for one stopped seeing YouTube videos ever since they started requiring me to Sign On because I'm using an AdBlocker and am behind a VPN.
If for some reason it's actually required that I watch it, I'll disconnect from the VPN and watch it, if not, I just move on.
In the last 6 months or so I have disconnected my VPN to watch a YouTube video maybe once, whilst I just moved on maybe hundred times or so (less and less as I increasingly I won't even click on links for YouTube).
load more comments
(4 replies)