here's a solution to a Youtube "Favorites" quirk

tivoknucklehead · 02-24-2009, 02:03 PM

I noticed that in "Youtube", "Favorites" only my first favorite vid was listed. I tried signing out and back in, but that didn't work. I went to my Youtube site online and saw the second favorite was listed as "unavailable" (must have been flagged) Once I removed the "bad" favorite all Favorites worked fine again with the Tivo

You must remove any bad favorites to fix this

zapster · 03-30-2009, 11:10 PM

you rock, thanks for this... i was going nuts trying to figure out the problem. you saved the day.

rjgibson0066 · 04-08-2009, 06:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tivoknucklehead

I noticed that in "Youtube", "Favorites" only my first favorite vid was listed. I tried signing out and back in, but that didn't work. I went to my Youtube site online and saw the second favorite was listed as "unavailable" (must have been flagged) Once I removed the "bad" favorite all Favorites worked fine again with the Tivo

I was about to start a thread about this same issue. However, I don't see where my favorite vids not appearing on my Tivo are unavailable - where specifically is that denoted?

Thanks

dougdittrich · 04-17-2009, 09:21 AM

Thank you for the tip. I had 3 "Unavailable videos" in my online favorites list. I removed them and checked the Tivo and my full favorites list now appears. Thanks.

morac · 04-17-2009, 11:01 AM

I have no favorites listed on my TiVo. I have around 168 favorites on YouTube. I would rather not go through all of them to find which one(s) are "unavailable", but I guess it's a work around. Thanks for the info.

I removed all the "unavailable" videos and it's working again. Thanks.
Now if only YouTube wouldn't keep logging me out periodically.

rjgibson0066 · 05-24-2009, 04:58 PM

I think this is my problem (found this on youtube's help)...

Possibly because the video has been monetized...the uploader didn't
have the permission of the copyright holder to upload the video. The
copyright holder allow them to keep the video on YouTube in exchange
for placing advertising on the videos watch page...which essentially
pays for the use of the copyrighted material. In this kind of
situation, the copyright holder can choose where and how the video is
seen (disabling embedding, blocking various countries, etc...). They
can also prohibiting syndication of the video to TVs (tivo, etc...).
Which is probably what is happening here.

mather · 07-30-2009, 09:28 PM

Late to the party but how do I find if I have "unavailable" videos in my list? I don't see any note under favorites online.

morac · 07-30-2009, 10:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mather

Late to the party but how do I find if I have "unavailable" videos in my list? I don't see any note under favorites online.

This problem was supposed to have been fixed by YouTube, according to TiVo, so you shouldn't need to the work around. As far as I can tell the fix is still working (at least for me)

Note that the TiVo can only play back mp4 formatted videos. As such older videos that you favorite won't show up on the TiVo even if you perform the work around.

If you still see no videos in either the "My Favorites", "My Subscriptions, "My Playlists" or "My Channel" categories, you can try using the work around. It entails going to youtube's account page and finding the appropriate link under "My Videos". Note "My Channel" on the TiVo is "Uploaded Videos" on Youtube.

Once you select a link, just scroll through all the videos and look for ones that have a "[video unavailable]" after the title and remove those.

Like I said though, you shouldn't need to do that anymore.

mather · 07-31-2009, 12:50 AM

Thanks, I do see some of the videos, some I don't see. None show an "unavailable". So the general reason if I put a video as My Fav in YouTube and it does not show up under Tivo, is the formatting of the video? Would this also be the reason if I perform a search under Tivo and a video does not show up under the searched listing when in fact I've seen it online on the YouTube?

morac · 07-31-2009, 02:07 PM

If you see some videos in the favorites list on the TiVo, but not others, then yes it's the formatting of the video.

In May 2007, YouTube started converting uploaded videos to H.264 format in addition to Flash video format. Prior to that the videos were only converted to Flash video format. Since the TiVo doesn't support Flash video, only videos uploaded after May 2007 will show up on the TiVo.

mather · 07-31-2009, 08:36 PM

Thanks Morac, cleared it up so I don't have to pull my hair out wondering how to "fix" it. On a similar topic, any issues w/ the Playlist under Tivo? I have a Playlist in YouTube but it never shows under Tivo.

morac · 07-31-2009, 09:36 PM

It could be the same thing. You can try creating list.

jbs · 08-22-2009, 10:35 PM

Quick update here, I had the problem of no favorites on Tivo tonight, found this forum, deleted one "Unavailable" video and everything went back to normal. So as of Aug 22 2009 at least, a single Unavailable video will still cause your favorites to not appear in Tivo.

ejh4isu · 08-29-2009, 04:03 PM

I had the same problem, with one "unavailable" video. I deleted it and re-logged on and it works fine. I'm somewhat dissipointed however that some of my "favorites" still do not work, presumably because they were uploaded in an older video format ?

Thanks for the help here, this was really starting to bother me

magnus · 09-18-2009, 08:06 PM

Hey, when we gonna be able to watch shows on this? I want to watch original Star Trek but can't.

Ben_Jamin75 · 09-19-2009, 11:43 PM

Thanks to the OP! I had not seen this and thought that the favorites option just didn't work.

Going through my favorites, I found that a video marked "private" will also cause the the same problem.

tivoknucklehead · 09-28-2009, 11:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jbs

Quick update here, I had the problem of no favorites on Tivo tonight, found this forum, deleted one "Unavailable" video and everything went back to normal. So as of Aug 22 2009 at least, a single Unavailable video will still cause your favorites to not appear in Tivo.

thanks, I edited post one to say any bad favorite must be removed

kupe · 11-12-2009, 11:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jbs

Quick update here, I had the problem of no favorites on Tivo tonight, found this forum, deleted one "Unavailable" video and everything went back to normal. So as of Aug 22 2009 at least, a single Unavailable video will still cause your favorites to not appear in Tivo.

Well, as of Nov 13, the bug is still not fixed. I found that I too had no YouTube Favorites displayed on my Tivo HD when logged in. I scrolled through my many Favorites on the YouTube website and found two videos that, for some reason, were now flagged as Private (including the U2 concert video that is being pitched to all Tivo HD users.)

Once I deleted those, Favorites again worked. What a PITA though- can't believe this issue causes YouTube on Tivo to choke.

Kupe

danhealy · 12-06-2009, 11:33 PM

Sometimes YouTube doesn't tell you if the video has become unavailable, but there is a site called yuivo.com that will track your youtube favorites. It lets you know if any of them become unavailable for any reason, and then it offers alternate suggestions based on the tags.

tt881 · 12-25-2009, 12:25 AM

As of today (Christmas Eve) this issue is still definitely not fixed. I had to do the manual "delete unavailable videos" trick just now to get any Favorites to show up via the TiVo.

mycltype-s · 02-18-2010, 04:50 PM

I am not sure if there is another thread about this but here goes.

I have NO unavailable videos. But only 4 of my 13 are showing up. Dates range from 2006 to 2009.

Suggestions?

morac · 02-18-2010, 10:54 PM

Older videos that are not H.264 encoded won't show up since they aren't supported. If they are H.264 encoded, trying removing and re-adding them (or post one here so someone can try it).

mycltype-s · 02-18-2010, 10:56 PM

Ya I thought that. But some of my videos are older and some are brand new and they both dont work. Then some old ones work. It is very weird.

bnbhoha · 03-13-2010, 10:10 PM

none of my favorites are showing up on tivo. I can see them on the computer. All are available. Kind of sux. Any work around this?

pra4snw · 04-24-2010, 09:44 AM

This is how I fixed it:

I found 2 videos in my Favorites on YouTube that were marked as unavailable. I removed them, but I still had no Favorites on the TiVo.

Next, I create a Playlist on YouTube and dropped in videos from Favorites one at a time, then checked the playlist on the TiVo until it said "Playlist Is Empty". I then removed the last video I added to playlist from Favorites and, bingo, they all now show up on TiVo.

Tedious, but it beat starting from scratch.