Video only in "adaptive HLS" or unstable kodi experience totally randomly...

[DjDiabolik]

Context

Please provide any relevant information about your setup

• Add-on Version:7.4.4 unofficial
• Kodi Version: Flatpak 21.3 (21.3.0) Git:20251031-a3a448d-dirty
• Kodi GUI Language: Italian
• Operating System: Linux x86 64-bit Ubuntu 24.04.4 LTS
• Operating System Language: Italian

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Expected and Current Behavior

I tried running the setup wizard again, but it doesn't seem to help. So apparently every video i try to open it's fail to open. A infinite spinning remain on screen.
Need to open a video whit "ASK for quality" and i choose adaptive HLS and h.264 video works.

Steps to Reproduce

Please provide detailed steps for reproducing the issue.

1. Simply open youtube try to open a video

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Log

As soon as I open the issue, I'll generate the Kodi debug log and attach it. I'll try opening 3 or 4 videos from the "Subscriptions" section.

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[DjDiabolik]

Omg... They haven't been working since this morning until 5 minutes ago.
I close Kodi, open the issue, and enable all debug logs. I restart Kodi, and the VP9 videos start working again.

I mark the issue as "unreproducible."

[DjDiabolik]

@MoojMidge if you can..... you can try to look this log:

kodi (today).log

It's pretty much the exact same error reported in the issue that was just opened.

It seems to happen completely at random when using Kodi and the YouTube add-on; every now and then it gets stuck in this state where videos fail to play—I have to use HLS—or they stop playing, like when I skip forward or backward during playback.

In this log, I was watching a video… I rewound it about 30 seconds, and everything froze.

I had to stop playback, and when I went back to the video list, the same video wouldn’t open anymore—now all I see on the screen is the blue spinning wheel spinning endlessly, and nothing else opens.
Eventually, Kodi froze completely, and I had to kill the process via the Ubuntu terminal.

Unfortunately, this isn’t a complete Kodi debug log… but the Prolisso log was enabled for the YouTube add-on. I don’t know if it can help explain why, so randomly, I end up in this unstable state….

Thanks for the help.

I can't make sense of all those lines in the add-on logs.
Can you tell if it's Kodi that's freezing up, or if it's the add-on itself that, for some strange reason, becomes unresponsive enough to crash the entire Kodi session?

Thanks again in advance...

[fenderfreund-maker]

Same issue here,
Running on Kodi 22 nightly for Android TV. YT version 7.4.4 and 7.4.3 behave the same.
Start any Video and after 60 seconds (or when skipping beyond 60 seconds) it freezes and quits. Sometimes the audio continues playing while picture is frozen.
I tried everything in the stream settings, I tried all audio settings as well.
Starting a video with "ask for quality" and "adaptive HLS" is the only option that works.

For me, the issue started yesterday, the system ran flawlessly before.

[Fludizz]

This reads as if there's overlap with issue #1483
The request_client.py file referenced in this comment: #1483 (comment) has fixed the playback issue for me. Some video's play in lower quality, but at least they play.

In addition, looking at the log you provided, the fix mentioned in #1480 should be applied as well. That helped resolving the endless spinning wheel for me.

[DjDiabolik]

@fenderfreund-maker quote:

Same issue here, Running on Kodi 22 nightly for Android TV. YT version 7.4.4 and 7.4.3 behave the same. Start any Video and after 60 seconds (or when skipping beyond 60 seconds) it freezes and quits. Sometimes the audio continues playing while picture is frozen. I tried everything in the stream settings, I tried all audio settings as well. Starting a video with "ask for quality" and "adaptive HLS" is the only option that works.

For me, the issue started yesterday, the system ran flawlessly before.

My problem seems to be different... This doesn't happen to me all the time—I can't reproduce the problem every time—but it seems to pop up only when Kodi and/or the YouTube add-on ends up in this sort of unstable limbo, which leads to playback failures and other possibly related issues.

@Fludizz quote:

This reads as if there's overlap with issue #1483 The request_client.py file referenced in this comment: #1483 (comment) has fixed the playback issue for me. Some video's play in lower quality, but at least they play.

In addition, looking at the log you provided, the fix mentioned in #1480 should be applied as well. That helped resolving the endless spinning wheel for me.

mmmmm....I can try changing that file... just in case, I'll make a backup of the current one and see if the situations where I end up in this state happen less often.

[DjDiabolik]

@Fludizz Read here ->#1483 (comment)
The file in Serph91P's repo is exactly the same as the file in the current version. So I think changing this file is completely pointless... lol.

Instead the file http_server.py here:
https://github.com/chrishamm/plugin.video.youtube/raw/2ec2947ca6a40142283ea6768887703a14e17302/resources/lib/youtube_plugin/kodion/network/http_server.py

It contains some changes to how the add-on works. I'll test it by making a backup and downloading the raw file directly from GitHub.

+++ edit +++
But I don't think I understand.... I see two pull requests for this add-on—which two files exactly should I try to change?

Lol.... sorry, but with all the issues and links, I think I've gotten all mixed up.

[DjDiabolik]

@Fludizz
I tested the current version of the add-on for a couple of hours by applying the two new files included in the two pull requests.

As strange as it may seem, the situation has actually gotten worse because now, when I get a video that doesn't have a VP9 version and Kodi opens its H.264 version (most likely using adaptive HLS), playback often freezes and the audio glitches, producing a continuous glitch-like sound.

At this point, I'm not sure—maybe I should try both solutions, perhaps applying only one or the other pull request to see if I can actually achieve a better and more stable experience over time.

For now, I'll try reinstalling the unofficial version from the repo... that way, at least I'll clear out any backups as well.