Checklist
Description
On most videos playback never starts: the app enters an endless
reload loop instead of waiting out the SABR backoff and beginning
playback. It does not happen every time — occasionally a video loads
immediately.
While testing account states I found a pattern that may help narrow
down the root cause of the loop issue mentioned in the 5.2.5 beta
release notes ("can still happen randomly with error loop").
Observed behaviour, by account state
Roughly 20 videos tested per scenario, same device, same network,
same app version, tested back to back.
| Account state |
Loop occurs |
| Not logged in |
Vast majority of the ~20 attempts |
| Logged in, free account |
Vast majority of the ~20 attempts |
| Logged in, Premium account |
Never, across ~20 attempts |
When the loop does not trigger, playback starts normally.
Expected behaviour
On free and anonymous states, playback should start once the SABR
backoff expires, not loop indefinitely.
Why this may be useful
The loop appears confined to states where YouTube has ads to serve.
Premium accounts never traverse that code path, since there is no ad
duration for the server to derive a backoff from. This points at the
handling of the backoff/reload cycle rather than at authentication or
cookie transport: the same cookie mechanism is used in all logged-in
states, only the server response differs.
The intermittency may correspond to whether a given video would have
served a pre-roll ad.
Version
5.2.4 (stable)
Frequency
Often (80-90% of the time)
Device
Honor 400 (MagicOS 10), Android 16
Steps to reproduce the bug
- Stay logged out, or log in with a free Google account
- Open several videos in a row
- On most of them playback never begins and the reload loop repeats
No error report available: the app does not crash, playback simply never starts.
Switching to a Premium account on the same device: the loop did not
occur in ~20 attempts.
Additional context
Installed from: GitHub
Custom DNS or network-level blocking: no
Note: I have not tested 5.2.5 beta.
Checklist
Description
On most videos playback never starts: the app enters an endless
reload loop instead of waiting out the SABR backoff and beginning
playback. It does not happen every time — occasionally a video loads
immediately.
While testing account states I found a pattern that may help narrow
down the root cause of the loop issue mentioned in the 5.2.5 beta
release notes ("can still happen randomly with error loop").
Observed behaviour, by account state
Roughly 20 videos tested per scenario, same device, same network,
same app version, tested back to back.
When the loop does not trigger, playback starts normally.
Expected behaviour
On free and anonymous states, playback should start once the SABR
backoff expires, not loop indefinitely.
Why this may be useful
The loop appears confined to states where YouTube has ads to serve.
Premium accounts never traverse that code path, since there is no ad
duration for the server to derive a backoff from. This points at the
handling of the backoff/reload cycle rather than at authentication or
cookie transport: the same cookie mechanism is used in all logged-in
states, only the server response differs.
The intermittency may correspond to whether a given video would have
served a pre-roll ad.
Version
5.2.4 (stable)
Frequency
Often (80-90% of the time)
Device
Honor 400 (MagicOS 10), Android 16
Steps to reproduce the bug
No error report available: the app does not crash, playback simply never starts.
Switching to a Premium account on the same device: the loop did not
occur in ~20 attempts.
Additional context
Installed from: GitHub
Custom DNS or network-level blocking: no
Note: I have not tested 5.2.5 beta.