YouTube app frequently crashing as of yesterday

I'm also having the same problem. I have the latest version of the app on my iPhone 13. The crashes are so annoying!

I confirm. On the rc version of ios18.2 and the latest of yt each time I try to post a comment the app crashes.

I'm not a fan of their google support, but it's another place.

The youtube website buttons are labeled badly now, we just have to deal with it.

Apparently even a simple 3 finger swipe up on the comment section also make the app crash...

I do not have any insight on this, however I do have a clever recommendation for an alternative YouTube app. One that is very accessible with VO, and is ad free. It is called Enhance YT and I have been using it since last Spriing.
Check it out! 😊
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/enhancements-for-youtube/id1643308157

this can't be legal, surely? How does apple even allows it?

I'm going to check it out, and will be using it for as long as i can.

It's basically a youtube page with some tabs at the bottom.

You can't lock the phone, perhaps you can if you pay for it but that's what premium is for.

So, not for me but if you use it, have fun!

I can't believe I never heard of the app you recommended, got it now and will probably pay for premium.

I posted a comment a few minutes ago, and I didn't have any issues. Strange. Somebody posted on Facebook in one of the iPhone groups, that they're having problems changing the playback speed on YouTube videos? Anyone else experiencing this issue? This was my response that I posted over there.
Actually, when you go on the menu to change the playback speed, it does work. The problem is, voiceover isn't announcing the playback option that you're choosing. Once you double tap on the speed that you want, if you dismiss that menu, the speed changes. At least, it does for me. Like I said, the difference here is, the screen reader doesn't tell me what is selected. Before this happened, whenever you selected the speed you wanted, it would take you back to the video, and then you would play what you're watching from there with the new speed added, but it doesn't seem to work that way anymore. Once you choose the speed you want, just dismiss that screen using the prompt, and don't close the app. The speed will be added to the video, but it doesn't notify you, or go back to the video screen automatically. 

It's on the App Store. I'm pretty sure if it was illegal, Apple will take it down sooner or later. Keep in mind though, it has been on the App Store for quite a while. Unfortunately, I cannot find a way to use it while the screen is locked, and I pay for premium.

@Brooke, glad you are digging the app. Personally, I have never really liked the official YouTube app. They're actually used to be one, years ago, that was designed for voiceover users. I think that app has gone the way of the dodo bird, unfortunately.

I forgot to mention this about Enhance YT. It also comes with a Safari extension, so YouTube links click from there should also not have any ads. 🫡

same here. I submitted feedback earlier today. The home feed keeps scrolling back to the top of the feed after scrolling with voiceover for a little while. so annoying.

I'm running Youtube 19.47.7 on an iPhone 12 mini with IOS 18.2 release candidate. I am unable to make selections on the playback speed screen. The controls are not spoken, and the procedure you described didn't work for me. Shortly after updating, the playback speed section had a slider which could be set in increments of 0.05. This new playback speed setting did not remain accessible long. The problem I described persists in spite of deleting, restarting, and reinstalling the app. I agree that Google support is not helpful. I have submitted feedback to Apple.

I figured this one out, and once you read below you are likely going to scratch your head and ask, "why"? So, to get this to work, do the following:
1. Go to settings, general, PIP.
2. Turn off auto PIP.
3. Hit the back button in the upper left corner a couple times to get back to the main settings page, then close the Settings app altogether.

To listen to a YouTube video while your phone is locked, open Enhance YT, find a video and tap on it to play. Lock your iPhone. Hear the video will stop, however if you wake your phone up, typically you just move your phone if you have Raise to Wake enabled, otherwise pressure side button or put pressure on the screen to wake it up, and then do magic tap. This will get the video to play while the phone is locked.

One last thing, make sure you not have another media playable application in your app switcher while doing this, otherwise that particular app may take over the magic tap play controls. Just a heads up.

Enjoy!

Why this site is so good. One of us somewhere finds solutions even from left field that nobody would think of and shares them. Good find Brian.

On the Enhance YT app, is there any way to make it so that the videos aren't muted every time I play a new one and I have to unmute it. This is annoying. Better than the app crashing all the time, but still annoying.

I'm not so I don't know what they are but you could look there if you're in the US.

I'm not using the app anymore but on the homepage there was a unmute button somewhere, I think I pressed it and the video I tried worked with no issues.

This may or may not fix the issue. Try going into Settings, Accessibility, Motion and near the bottom of this screen there will be an option to enable or disable automatic video previews. Try turning this on, and see if that helps.

The buttons on the website are still labeled oddly.

I would contact BeMyEyes about this but honestly their "experts" are not that at all.

No luck for me I've rebooted my phone many times per day and made sure I'm on the latest version but it crashes every 20 minutes or so, when I post comment or scroll through them, when I brows as usual too...

I’m having this exact same problem in my iPhone 11 since this Thursday, the YouTube app crashes very frequently when I use VoiceOver, mainly when I try to post or delete comments. Sometimes it happens randomly, even while opening any video or notification.
Nothing have fixed it for me, I’ve reinstalled the app countless times, and even did a factory reset to my iPhone. No luck, the issue keeps persisting no matter what.
This is really driving me nuts. The app became So buggy out of the blue for me as well

This is why I use a third-party app for my YouTube needs. The YouTube app, the official one that is, has been buggy for quite a while. Even before the whole comment issue that is going on now. At least for me. 🤷🏽‍♂️

In the enhance yt app, is there a way to browse videos while playing a video in the mini player? I tried just tapping one of the tabs like subscriptions while a video is playing, but that seems to close the video player because the video stops playing and the speed setting is reset.

Hi Samanthia,

I do not use the mini player feature very often, but I would think not. As I understand things, the mini player is meant to be a very minimalist play control for the application. If you want to search for other videos, you will likely have to step out of the mini player in order to do so.

HTH.

Same issue with the application on my iPhone 12 IOS 18.1.1 I am going to Tweet about it to Google accessibility I suggest you all do the same. Use this thread to show them how many users are facing this issue

I’ve been noticing this issue. It did not start to happen more frequently since yesterday, December 10 and lately every time when I try to edit the description, the title, the time of schedule and edit a time schedule for a video that is already uploaded, and also writing hey, comment, and I also witness this issue as well both of my iPhone 12 i’m not sure about the XR and I noticed this also with the iPad seven and iPad eighth generations, not software bug, 17.7.2 and 18.1.1 it was OK. They released an update recently.
And whatever that is, is triggering the app to malfunction not to mention even the YouTube student is also starting to have its effect as well. I don’t know why YouTube is getting more and more crappier because I noticed a crashing when editing a title or description for a video to upload back in early 2024 and now it’s been happening more frequently and Yep, you’re not long. I edit a comment the other day and it was like last night and boom just like that a crashed.

Is it possible to prevent a video from playing automatically when launching the app?

Yes, I think so. Try this. In the app, go to your library tab, then your account, which is near the top just to the right of the search button, then settings, then general, then you should find a toggle that says Video previews Video previews will play as you browse Home and Search. Make sure this is off. See if that does it.

Thanks for the answer. I'll keep playing with it. I often browse my subscriptions list to look for the next video I want to watch while a video is playing, so I would really like to find a way to make this work in the app. Other than that one issue, I'm really liking this app a lot, and I encourage everyone else to at least give it a try. One big accessibility improvement I found over the YouTube app is when looking at the video discriptions and trying to activate links in there. The Enhance Youtube app formats it in paragraphs like a webpage so you can swipe right to read and get to individual links and know what they are. This is nearly impossible to do in the normal YouTube app for descriptions with a bunch of links like product recommendation videos. You can get to the links, but good luck trying to figure out what each of them is for.

It turned out, that South Africans currently don't have access to customisations. Appreciate the help though.

I made a post about it a month ago, still the same issue. The app crashes every single time. The interesting thing is it comes and goes, I hadn't been having the problem for the last week but it came back... The post I made: https://applevis.com/forum/ios-ipados/voiceover-playback-speed-issue-youtube-ios-app

My youtube has also started crashing since about Saturday night. I can reliably reproduce it by scrolling far enough in the comments section, creating, deleting, or sorting comments. Strangely, the crash that happens when scrolling far enough does not occur on shorts, but there may be a chance that it crashes immediately after scrolling far enough in the comments section of a short, then switching to a long-form video.

You were asking about stopping videos from automatically playing when you start the app? I posted a reply earlier in this thread, explaining how to enable or disable the auto playback of videos. I will explain it here as well, and provide a link to the reply. You can also find it by scrolling up several replies as well.

Basically, on an iPhone, if you go to settings, accessibility, motion, and at the bottom of that screen, you will see an option to enable or disable the auto playback of videos. Unchecking this should fix it for you.

The link below is my reply to somebody else regarding this issue.
https://applevis.com/comment/179669#comment-179669

This crashing thing, that is. I no longer have the YouTube app on my iPhone, so I couldn't tell you, but if you are updating to the latest, and it works for a minute then crashes, sounds like it could be a server side issue.
Just buy two cents.

had this issue for a few days, now it's gonn, not sure what fixed it, but there you go