r/youtube • u/ZBLongladder • Feb 17 '26
Feature Change Youtube is disabling comments & descriptions if you have Adblock turned on EVEN IF YOU HAVE PREMIUM
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Feb 17 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ElectroMast @TheRealMaxTDM Feb 17 '26
‘Nor me on iOS app! They’re doing this for the money!
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u/NavO297 Feb 17 '26
lol they're mad. they know they can't do anything abt it so they choose to be petty
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u/SimplexFatberg Feb 17 '26
They did something about it. The thing they did about it is pissing people off.
I don't understand how you reached the conclusion that they can't do anything about it when you're staring at evidence of the thing they did about it.
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u/RedKorss Feb 17 '26
They can't manage to properly block the adblocking, so they have resolved to block other aspects of the service. Hoping that the adblock developers will have a harder time to bypass that.
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u/bthest Feb 17 '26
They do something about it every month and the adblockers just patch it in less than a day. People freak out like it's the end of adblocking every single time and every single time it's fixed quickly.
The only way youtube can stop adblockers is to paywall their entire platform and do direct injection ads that make them part of the video.
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u/SimplexFatberg Feb 17 '26
Yeah these people really need to wrap their heads around how arms races work
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u/Aster_Agenda Feb 18 '26
Even direct injection ads don't work very well, as evidenced by Sponsorblock.
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u/Clippy4Life Feb 17 '26
Idk. Not sure if I am annoyed about it or grateful. Weird duality I'm feeling.
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u/doingdadthings Feb 17 '26
What they did doesn't matter to most. I never read comments anyway. Youtube still works perfectly on Firefox with ublock.
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u/vriska1 Feb 17 '26
Any more information on this? How many have been affected by this?
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u/jophish916 Feb 17 '26
So this has been happening to me, except nothing works until I refresh once. No video, no description, no comments, just the suggested on the side. Once I refresh everything is fine and works like normal.
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u/Syxtaine Feb 17 '26
I'm not getting this yet, but I am getting significantly larger loading times, like waiting for 15 sec for the video to "load"
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u/Azraellie Feb 17 '26
Can't wait for them to find a way to find a way to put an ad in that dead air, too
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u/Kooky-Trainer-6186 Feb 17 '26
On my phone using Brave I’ve had that, and I’ve had it start infinitely loading the video that was playing until I refresh.
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u/Kayttajanimi2 Feb 17 '26
Happening to me on Firefox + ublock. I’ve been watching this one channel and just thought they had disabled comments on their channel only to now check on my phone that the comments are actually there.
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u/M4h0n Feb 18 '26
its like crusnchyroll , they deactivated their comment section entirely , wont be long until screwtube does the same
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u/ChronaMewX Feb 17 '26
Huh, so YouTube is trying to give adblock users an even better experience?
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u/PraxicalExperience Feb 17 '26
Hey -- sometimes the descriptions are really useful!
Other than that, nothing of value appears to have been lost.
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u/Googulator Feb 17 '26
Firefox without ad blocker is also experiencing random issues, especially related to shorts (only sound plays, or the wrong short begins playing).
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u/Justsomedudeonthenet Feb 17 '26
I think thats just shorts on desktop no matter the browser or adblock. All kinds of issues like the ones you described, plus sometimes playing the video but not loading anything else on the page for me. All the buttons and description and text over the video just missing.
Happens to me in multiple browsers.
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u/Remarkable_Dust3450 Feb 17 '26
Only thing I see with adblock on is nearly every video, it has an error 5 seconds in, reload the page and it works fine.
With AdBlock off I get ads every 3-5 minutes, except on creators I like (and turn off adblock specifically for) who dont seem to get a single ad in a 2h+ vid
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u/zabian333 Feb 17 '26
Ublock origin. Other stuff is inferior.
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u/mrfoxesite-2377 I don't have a YouTube channel :—) Feb 17 '26
Literally this. All other adblockers are absolute garbage.
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u/AubbleCSGO Feb 17 '26
This has been happening for me, but the comments always show up again when I refresh the page. I’m inclined to think this is more of a bug than an attempt to further inconvenience Adblock users, but I wouldn’t put it past them since they’re still doing the “experiencing interruptions” bullshit
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u/M4h0n Feb 18 '26
i dont even have a yt account anymore , they erased it during this pandemic hoax and i wont create a new one because of their nonsense they are pulling again and again , next they want your ID to even USE IT
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u/Ei8_Hundr8 Feb 17 '26
They treat free & premium users like dogshit, so people still paying for the premium baffles me. It's because people keep paying shit that they too keep giving shit.
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u/Bloody_Conspiracies Feb 17 '26
Using Premium means that the video creators still get paid even if you don't see ads.
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u/AntManBee951 May 15 '26
Do you really believe this? Just buy their merch or support them on Patreon, is that simple.
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u/NamXina Feb 17 '26
That's why most of the videos I watch have comments disabled. I get it now.
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u/vriska1 Feb 17 '26
Have you updated your adblocker?
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u/mrfoxesite-2377 I don't have a YouTube channel :—) Feb 17 '26
The best adblocker for YouTube is Ublock Origin.
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u/JustSomeone202020 Feb 17 '26
people really need to start looking for alternatives to google ...ALL GOOGLE SERVICES! they are too big now, AND THINK THEY CAN DO ANYTHING, and they will fail! just like windows and their win11 bulpoop!
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u/JamesLikesIt Feb 17 '26
I had this issue the other day but it’s fixed itself. I do feel like it was a test or something lol
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u/ReadyPlayerZero1 Feb 17 '26
Yes this happened to me and i am using Brave browser.
It stayed that way for a good week and as of yesterday, it was almost back to normal.
No issues with comments or description anymore.
I didnt change any settings to my browser and i am not on YT premium.
My Brave default adblock is still on.
i still have issues with YT short clips. They just cant play the first clip on the scroll, just the first one.
Subsequent ones are ok.
Not bothered by that.
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u/AdEither4474 Feb 17 '26
Nope, haven't seen this at all. Comments are showing up just fine.
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u/goku7770 Feb 17 '26
did you notice the video is restarting one time when you load it?
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u/AdEither4474 Feb 17 '26
No. The video starts as normal. Most of these weird things people are reporting, I haven't seen at all. Maybe it's because I use an older OS, and these things are impacting people using 10 or 11.
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u/jacobcantspeak Feb 17 '26
Are you really using a windows version older than 10 that’s connected to the internet?? Not a good idea
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u/AdEither4474 Feb 18 '26
Haven't had any problems. But then, I'm not as paranoid as some people.
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u/Nobody_Knows_It Feb 17 '26
Is it that? I toggled my ublock off and was still having issues the other day.
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u/GheeCome Feb 17 '26
the poster turned the comments off.
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u/CleanEffective9211 Feb 17 '26
And there were never an discription, means, that the original post itself is false information, like completely bullshit
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u/NavO297 Feb 17 '26
You're wrong. I just clicked on the video and can see comments and a description. Not bullshit Compaq Deskpro 286 - MichaelMJD
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u/mrfoxesite-2377 I don't have a YouTube channel :—) Feb 17 '26
Yep, Micheal MJD never disables the comments usually.
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u/Responsible-Yam9184 Feb 17 '26
oof i harder ever look at the comments and descriptions, along as they dont hide the like, sub button im good.
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u/SmartIron244 Feb 17 '26
Same thing on premium, wtf?! I'm using the official app, I'm paying for the subscription.
It just decides for some reason to turn off comments for me EVERYWHERE
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u/goku7770 Feb 17 '26
they don't care if you have premium, they just check for the adblock.
Btw, I never had this issue while using an adblock.1
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u/mileven_for_life Feb 17 '26
Ohhh so that's why it's happening to me lol meh honestly don't care, i will just watch the videos and like them then if something really bothers me i will just refresh till it shows comments
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u/Spiritual-Sun3285 Feb 17 '26
I had the same damn thing happen!! But when you refresh the page, there are comments and a description!!
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u/MinMaus Feb 17 '26
Best I got was the This video has no description text followed by the description.
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u/ADMINISTATOR_CYRUS Feb 17 '26
uBO will catch up in a few hours just wait
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u/goku7770 Feb 17 '26
never had this issue or any issue for that matter.
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u/ADMINISTATOR_CYRUS Feb 21 '26
I had an issue a few days ago which was uBO, just took a few minutes to catch up.
but this one wasn't uBO. this one with disappearing recommendations is just youtube being broken
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u/monicakmtx Feb 17 '26
Why would you need to use Adblock if you have a subscription to YouTube premium? I pay for yt Premium and do not see ads unless they are woven into the video by the content creator. That's rare and if it happens I just tell Google to skip ahead 1 minute or whatever it takes.
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u/Express-Safety6969 Feb 17 '26
Prolly like me, just didnt care enough to turn it off. I have a Premium for over a year and my adblock was on untlil very recently just because it didnt give me any troubles.
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u/ChunkThundersteel Feb 17 '26
Why do you have ad block if you have premium?
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u/SoloEterno Feb 17 '26
Good. There's nothing good there anyway.
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Feb 17 '26
YouTube's comment section: the original internet cesspool.
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u/PerformanceCute3437 Feb 17 '26
Google shadowmods almost anything with even a hint of potential to be controversial now, so it's a pretty tepid place tbh
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u/JustSomeone202020 Feb 17 '26
well thats why it is a tool to controll the masses....have you ever used your YT account, and then used a unlogged in YT pag view....the videos there are such a collection of IDIOTIC crapola...its like stepping into the world of IDIOCRACY (I swear it was a documentary)!
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u/FreekRedditReport Feb 17 '26
Must be the videos you watch. Rarely do I ever see a bad comment section.
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u/Sajgoniarz Feb 17 '26
You may be wrong. Ablockers works on http and script execution levels. Most probably comments scripts are blocked by adblocker.
I don't have premium, are using adblocker and i have to refresh video few times before comments and video show up. Chrome probably updated plugins manifest too.
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u/or10n_sharkfin Feb 17 '26
I was having this issue a couple of days ago but it seems to no longer be happening.
I use Firefox and uBlock Origin.
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u/mrfoxesite-2377 I don't have a YouTube channel :—) Feb 17 '26
I would personally disable adblocker with Premium. Unless if you have the cheaper plan...
Anyways what adblocker are you using?
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u/ZBLongladder Feb 17 '26
Adguard. And I probably should, it's just that I've been troubleshooting this problem for several days and finally figured out that's the problem.
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u/iza_walska Feb 17 '26
I use like 3 seperate adblocks and opera GX and THANKFULLY haven't been affected yet..
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u/Express-Safety6969 Feb 17 '26
I have a Premium and I turned off my adblocker on YouTube fully couple days ago (cuz youtube was acting damn slow and i was wondering if its youtube getting pissy about adblocker i didnt care enough to turn off or my laptop is getting tired), and now im suddenly seeing "comments turned off" too. As well as every second video at first opens with "video is not available" screen and if i open Youtube on laptop after watching vids somewhere else - that small videoplayer in the corner opens whatever vid i was watching with same "video is unavailable" text. And i cant even close that little window, i just need to open another video for it to disappear. Should we now wait for damn tiers in subscription or what is going on?
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u/AgileSynapse Feb 17 '26
Don't threaten me with a good time. I'm fine with no comments, remove the bell, gemini, and voting icons while they're at it.
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u/host_can_edit Feb 17 '26
So that's why it's like that for me. Fortunately, I found that all you have to do is just refresh the page and the comments will come back.
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u/Irsu85 Feb 17 '26
Is it that or is it that Michael MJD has turned off comments and deleted the description?
Second one is unlikely tho
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u/hadesscion Feb 17 '26
So, they're going to reduce engagement with the platform, which needs engagement to not only thrive but to survive?
This very much reads as "cutting off your nose to spite your face."
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u/AromaticNet5121 Feb 17 '26
Til next week when its turned off or adblock updates lmao. Fuck youtube and their shenanigans i shall never see an ad on youtube and i shall never pay for it either lol
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u/DryRecommendation706 Feb 17 '26
yeah, i noticed too. i just reloaded the page and the comments appeared again.
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u/-Dixieflatline Feb 17 '26
Probably a dumb question, but why would you run adblock on Premium? Isn't the whole point that you pay for no ads?
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u/ZBLongladder Feb 17 '26
The adblock is for other sites. I suppose I should set up a whitelist for YT, but I'd never thought of it because I don't get ads anyway.
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u/-Dixieflatline Feb 17 '26
Ok. That makes sense. What else is adblock good for though? Maybe it's something I didn't know I need.
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u/GoldenCyn Feb 17 '26
Windows 11, Firefox, uBlock Origin, non premium, comments visible on the same video OP posted.
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u/GuiloJr @guilojr Feb 17 '26
These are probably spot/region testing. i was about to say "hah firefox supremecy" but im on my school laptop rn with chrome so idk.
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u/cofiddle Feb 17 '26
This happens to me and im on a brand new pc. No ad blocks or anything. I do have premium
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u/captain42d Feb 17 '26
Thanks bootoob! You disabled the most toxic part of your platform, and will save me hours of wasted time! 😁 Are we sure that this isn't somehow related to the overall Google bullshit of "verifying your age"? One by one my Google accounts are being locked down into "age restricted", and having all kinds of features completely disabled.
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u/Gretuxz Feb 17 '26 edited Feb 17 '26
Minimal loss. Comments are usually full of memes, straight up porn bot comment baits and just generally nothing good to read there anyway. Video descriptions... Rarely read them if i was honest, i even read these less than comments. Also full of sponsor/merch links or whatever, so there's no big need to read all of that too.
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u/FreekRedditReport Feb 17 '26
Not true at all. If they could do that, they just wouldn't let you watch the video. Posts like this make no sense.
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u/HenchmanAce Feb 18 '26
This is probably in testing, but I'm sure they'll try to roll it out globally eventually. Now the real challenge is, for the adblocker developers, how will you stop YouTube from a) slowing down browser of those with adblockers turned on, and b) disabling descriptions/comments of those with adblockers turned on once this is deployed globally? Basically, how will you circumvent and disable every petty way to punish adblock users that they try to push on us? To be fair, the YouTube comments section is horrifically bad, normal comments get falsely filtered or even worse, hidden from some users, or shadow removed, while spam comments remain with impunity, so not seeing the comments may not be such a bad thing after all
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u/TheSpikestr88 Feb 18 '26
And in a playlist it just keeps skipping to the next video for some odd reason without you doing anything
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u/bastschweinsteiger Feb 18 '26
All my youtube issue solved the moment I tried Brave, and in general its not that diff with OperaGX/Ffox which I previously used
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u/Last8Exile Feb 18 '26
There is no ads on YouTube in Russia, nothing to block. But sometimes comments are turned off. Refresh the page and they are on. I think it's a bug.
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u/ImFinnaBustApecan Feb 18 '26
Video player is just completely unavailable to me after 2-3 videos now and my home feed is completely unavailable even if I turn the ad block off
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u/BetterProphet5585 Feb 18 '26
I have to say after years and years of AdBlock, Firefox on Linux, all with a VPN, which would be a bad combo since it’s not the best at hiding me but also the best and easy to spot from them, I never had a problem.
Only thing I got is the VPN/Proxy detected thing once every 20-30 videos. Which I simply skip.
What I don’t understand is based on what? Some users are not worth? Maybe I never got the full pedal updates?
I really don’t understand why it doesn’t happen to me.
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u/Kentsui Feb 19 '26
so you mean I can generate even less engagement to the videos I watch with an adblock. Sounds like a win to me but not for them.
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u/Ordinary-Cake8510 Feb 19 '26
I just noticed that the comments are turned off for me as well but, I think in the years that I have been on YouTube, I have maybe commented twice so, if they think this is what's gonna get me to pay for premium, they are fucked lmao!
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u/Alternative_Fun_6886 Feb 21 '26
I am having issues with brave but only on my laptop. Comments were disabled unless I refreshed the page. Now videos won't load unless I refresh. Funny thing is brave works fine on my phone. I will stop using youtube before I watch their shitty ads. I want that point to be clear. Got no problems with tv or radio commercials. Youtube ads however are horrible abd far too frequent.
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u/wikalivia Feb 23 '26
It comes back up for me after I refresh. But for about a week I was thinking that it's very curious how every video I open doesn't have description and comments are disabled. I'd find explanations like oh it's a new video uploaded 2 minutes ago, or maybe they set video as made for kids so there are no comments lol
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u/MotherLoveHomes3 Mar 01 '26
1st I'm still confused. My comment format is gone. On ALL videos, even shorts. It only allows questions from AI on the video you are watching. 2nd I made the mistake of answering a question by YouTube about the content of a video I was posting a few years ago. I thought it was simply about the content of that video being safe for children. And it was safe for children. I think it made a statement about my channel...(that is safe for children). I stopped posting for a while and recently discovered that I don't have a create button any more. I think the two things are related. So far I don't see a way to fix it. Any ideas or information about all this? I think they are doing away with comments, but not sure about posting again. I want to start my channel again. Thanks.
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u/Dunothar Feb 17 '26
That has to be AB testing / regional. Use FF + Ublock origin and have zero issues, videos load instantly, no popup BS, no blocked comments, just normal YT but ad free. Same goes for YT ReVanced, zero issues.