For a few weeks I haven’t been able to get YouTube to load in Brave.
All I see are plain gray panels and indecipherable grayed-out text.
YouTube appears normal in Safari.
What might be causing this?
Thanks.
Brave v. 1.58.109 Chromium: 116.0.5845.163 (Official Build) beta (x86_64)
Mac OS Mojave (10.14.3)
Does it work with shields off?
Thanks. When I turned ‘shields’ off, YouTube was back to normal.
‘Block’ (scripts) had been ‘on’ but toggling it had no effect.
Has YouTube/Google been taking steps against the use of ‘shields’ – ?
I had not gone into ‘settings’ or ‘shields’ at any time prior to experiencing the issue.
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“Shields are DOWN for www.youtube.com
Tell us if the site wasn’t working properly with Shields up.”
If blocking scripts was enabled, this would definitely explain the issue you encountered. Disabling the blocking of scripts should restore the functionality, but it would require a full refresh of the YouTube tab itself (sometimes these hang, giving the impression nothing is happening).
@sampson Thanks, I don’t know how ‘Block scripts’ got turned on, but disabling it with ‘Shields Up’ still just produces the same display of gray panels.
So at the moment I’m stuck with having to use ‘Shields down’ in order to get YouTube.
Might any of the other ‘advanced controls’ (in Shields) be involved?
Also, ‘full refresh’ just means reloading the webpage, correct?
Checked my youtube tab. Works fine with shields activated.
The only issue occured when I had “block scripts” enabled. Maybe there is another option in the brave browsers settings like “block javascript”.
Maybe there is a dual “block script” or something so that leads to youtube not working even without “block scripts” enabled.
“Shields up” works just fine with youtube.
Im not that familiar with the settings but that was what I remembered.
I haven’t found that ‘block scripts’ has any effect. If shields are down, YouTube displays. If shields are up, it doesn’t.
With the settings below – shields up, block scripts not enabled – YouTube doesn’t work.
Brave v. 1.58.109 Chromium: 116.0.5845.163 (Official Build) beta (x86_64)
Mac OS Mojave (10.14.3)
Just want to note that this issue has not been resolved.
From what the replies suggest, I should be able to turn Shields back on, as long as Block Scripts is disabled.
That’s not the case.
Even with Block Scripts turned off, YouTube won’t load pages normally unless Shields are down.
. . . . .
UPDATE . . . I am not able to turn Shields back on (for YouTube). Regardless of which side of the button the indicator is in, Shields are displayed as down, only the gray icon appears in the status line, and Brave reports “Not protected by Brave Shields”.
STILL LATER UPDATE . . . I have now been through a Mac system restart with no change. When on a YouTube webpage I never see a Shields On status, regardless of whether ‘on’ or ‘off’ selected. That means I also never see an option to disable Block Scripts, which can only be turned off when Shields are ‘on’. The icon in the status bar is also always gray, indicated Shields down.
I don’t know why this issue has been marked as ‘solved’ since it hasn’t been.
It’s true that if I turn Shields completely ‘off,’ then YouTube appears normally.
But why would I want to have no shields at all?
As mentioned, the status of Block Scripts makes no difference. It can be ‘on’ or ‘off’ and has no effect on whether I see YouTube webpages normally or everything is grayed-out.
Is there anything I can alter in the settings as shown that will enable me to view YouTube screens with at least some Shield protection active?
Thanks.
@Saoiray Is there any chance you could be of assistance with this?
When I acknowledged that YouTube displayed normally with Shields Down I didn’t consider that to be a ‘solution,’ any more than having to have Shields Down in order to use any other website would be a solution. Thanks.
@mk7z it’s because you have Block Scripts enabled. Can’t do that if you want content to load. Turn that off for YouTube and it should work perfectly. Ideally, you shouldn’t be using Block Scripts except for in very specific cases. A use case might be a website that is primarily text and doesn’t use Javascript or anything, but it has ads show. Block Scripts in that situation would block the ads or other negative content when browsing the text heavy site.
But otherwise you are essentially blocking all videos, some images, and other types of content that are common.
@Saoiray Thanks but the setting shown in the screenshot is to my eyes the ‘off’ position – i.e., that I am not blocking scripts. (When I use the other position, the ball is bright white, which I assume means ‘on’.)
In any event, I noted previously in the thread that switching Block Scripts to the other position makes no difference. I just tried it again and that is what I find – no difference. I see only gray panels on-screen unless I flip Shields ‘off’.
There is something odd about the way this suddenly started happening.
I had not changed any setting in Shields when the gray panels started appearing on YouTube pages instead of the normal content.
Is there any other Shields setting that could be involved?
I just did a screenshot of your screenshot, cropping to only the setting. With the button to the right, it is turned on. It would be to the left if it was off. In addition, there is a number to the right. That 11 is the number of scripts being blocked. If nothing blocked, there would be no number there.
In that same token, I want to point out that in the screenshot you provided earlier today, you also enabled the Forget me when I close this site option, which should clear cookies and all, making you sign in again the next time you return. If you thought Block Scripts was in the off position, not sure if you thought this was as well.
@Saoiray I toggled Block Scripts to the other position. It now shows no scripts being blocked.
However, the screen is still just a set of gray panels.
Reloading the page has no effect.
@Saoiray
> In that same token, I want to point out that in the screenshot you provided earlier today, you also enabled the Forget me when I close this site option, which should clear cookies and all, making you sign in again the next time you return.
I am normally already in a Google app (GDocs) before opening YouTube, so YouTube recognizes that. In any event, I am not sure what the login status would have to do with my issue. I’m already clearly logged-in when the problem is occurring.
Oh, nothing. I just was pointing it out when you were saying your eyes saw settings toggle differently. While we were addressing things I wanted to make sure you were aware. But you’re right likely nothing to do with the situation you’re showing.
If Shields isn’t blocking Scripts and it’s still doing that, I guess my initial thought goes to an extension you’re using that might do something similar or that perhaps cookies/cache needs cleared.
If you open a private window and go to YouTube, does it load the same way?
If Shields isn’t blocking Scripts and it’s still doing that, I guess my initial thought goes to an extension you’re using that might do something similar or that perhaps cookies/cache needs cleared. If you open a private window and go to YouTube, does it load the same way?
I barely use any extensions and didn’t change the status of any when this started happening.
Also, this is always in a Private window. I did try using a normal window just to check, but the behavior was the same.
I’ll try clearing data but I don’t recall ever finding that solution has any effect. I’ll report back if it does.
BTW, I’ve twice reported this issue in the feedback box that I assume goes to the developers, but have not been contacted about it. Having to use a Google app with no privacy protection is highly undesirable.
Thanks.
@mk7z okay, so I’m going to try to sit here and think through some steps. It may be a bit annoying, but could you please try each step and/or provide the details listed below?
Which version of Brave are you on now? (Please advise of actual number, don’t say latest)
Are you still on Mojave (10.14.3) or have you done any updates?
Can you go to brave://settings/shields and share a screenshot of your settings?
Go to brave://adblock. Do you have any filter lists or custom filters added?
Go to brave://components and make sure to check for updates on everything.
Can you try in a new profile? Do this by going to Hamburger Menu 
→ More Tools → Add new profile. Make sure you don’t change settings or add extensions to this profile.
Looking at your original post, you were using Beta? Is this still the case? If so, can you try on Release or Nightly and see if you have the same issue?
Have you changed anything at brave://flags?
And just to make sure, is this only happening on YouTube? Like if you go to twitch.tv or rumble.com do those load fine?
I’m hoping somewhere in looking at settings and testing things out, we’ll figure out what’s going on.
