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Frequently Asked Questions
- Which media providers are supported?
- For direct links, why can't I add MKV, AVI, or some other video format?
- Why can't I add a direct link from Putlocker?
- How do I pause or seek the video?
- Can you add a new media provider?
- How can I set a background image/customize my channel?
- Why does the video show "Video format or MIME type not supported"?
- Why don't chat and the video load when I join a channel?
- How do I enable subtitles on Google Drive videos?
- Is there a mobile app for iOS/Android?
- Can you add support for Kisscartoon/Kissanime?
- Why do direct links have to be HTTPS?
- Why don't you support Google Drive anymore?
- What should I use instead of Google Drive?
- YouTube player shows "An error occurred. Please try again later."
- Can you please add a feature for my (site / channel)?
- Why am I getting an error message "Access to the link was denied" even though it plays correctly for me?
- Why don't age-restricted YouTube videos work?
Community support for CyTube is provided on irc.esper.net#cytube. Please be patient; users in the support channel may not respond immediately. Most of the users in the channel are in the United States, so if you have trouble getting a response, please try to come during USA daytime hours.
You can also get support for CyTube via email. CyTube is developed by calzoneman/cyzon, but xaekai is also an administrator, and can help with common problems and questions. Please respect their time and only ask once you've made an attempt to resolve the problem yourself.
The following services are supported:
- YouTube (videos, playlists)
- Vimeo
- Dailymotion
- Soundcloud
- Streamable.com
- Livestream.com
- Twitch (streams, VODs, clips)
- UStream? (don't know if it still works)
- Smashcast
- Mixer
Those with their own server equipment can also host their own content and embed it on CyTube. Please refer to https://github.com/calzoneman/sync/blob/3.0/docs/custom-media.md. Please note that this requires some web admin savviness, it's not a simple drag and drop solution for files on your computer.
You must host the content on a server you control (and have root access to) if you are asking for support with this feature. I don't provide support for random 3rd party websites that are not aware their content is being embedded on CyTube.
While the server backend could potentially support a large number of formats for raw video files, CyTube is limited by the kinds of videos that can be played on modern browsers. Without requiring special plugins, most HTML5 compliant browsers can only play MP4/H.264, WebM/VP8, WebM/VP9, and Ogg/Theora videos. See MDN for a table of browser support.
For best results, use MP4/H.264 videos as these are supported by most browsers and can also be played by the fallback flash player.
Some websites, such as Putlocker, restrict access to the video link to your specific IP address. These links cannot be added to CyTube, since CyTube is not able to access them.
CyTube controls the video playback with a timer on the server in order to provide smooth playback and prevent accidental clicks by channel moderators from interrupting the video for other people. However, if you need to control the video, you can right click your name in the userlist and click "Give Leader". While you are leader, you will be able to pause/unpause and seek the video. When you're done, right click your name again and click "Take Leader".
Adding a new media provider requires the media provider to support an API that allows CyTube to synchronize the video. Many websites do not support this.
Additionally, I generally don't add support for niche providers that would only benefit a few users, so that I can focus my time on maintaining the common providers. However, I am willing to review Pull Requests to implement a new provider yourself, if you'd like.
CyTube channels are customizable with CSS. Click on Channel Settings, then click the Edit drop down and click CSS. Mozilla has an introductory tutorial about CSS here. If you're not concerned about other customizations and just want a background image, you can use the following CSS:
body {
background-image: url(http://link-to-image);
}(replace link-to-image with the full URL of the background image)
This error message means the video codec being embedded is not able to be played by your browser. For best codec support, try loading the website with Firefox or Chrome.
If you don't see a green box in chat with the text "Connected", then your websocket connection could not be established. This is often caused by antivirus or firewall software on your computer that detects the websocket connection as a false positive and blocks it.
Try disabling your antivirus or firewall temporarily and connecting again. If it works, then the antivirus or firewall is the problem. You should check the manual or customer support for that specific software to figure out how to allow websocket connections without completely disabling the software.
According to recent user reports, this doesn't work anymore. Since I don't support Google Drive anymore, I have no plans to fix this.
As of July 28th, 2015, it is now possible to use Google Drive subtitles on
CyTube. Please see
here
for instructions on adding subtitles to your Google Drive videos.
Not at this time. nuclearace created a chat-only app for iOS, but this is no longer actively developed. Right now I don't have any plans to work on iOS/Android apps since most of my free time that I dedicate to CyTube is spent keeping the lights on for the website.
If someone wants to take a shot at creating a mobile application, I'm open to contributions :)
Unfortunately no. The creators of those website have gone to great lengths to prevent other websites from embedding their content, including encrypting their video links so they can't easily be extracted from the page.
Unfortunately, no. mega.nz's embedded video player only works on the mega.nz website itself; they do not allow embedding their content on other websites.
Since CyTube's page is loaded over HTTPS, browser security policy prevents loading any non-HTTPS "active content" on the page. This means that if CyTube were to allow you to add a plain HTTP video, it simply wouldn't load for anyone.
In January of 2017, the decision was made to migrate CyTube fully to HTTPS pages due to announcements from browser vendors such as Chrome and Firefox that they would begin flagging non-HTTPS websites as "insecure" and display scary warnings to users. At that time, an analysis of video content played on CyTube showed that less than 1% of all videos played would be impacted by the move to HTTPS-only.
If you are hosting your own content, you can get a free and easy SSL certificate from LetsEncrypt/Certbot
CyTube staff will not provide support for Drive-related questions, so don't ask.
Google Drive support was added back at a time when CyTube had limited options for playing back videos, and did not have support for self-hosting videos on users' own servers. Due to the way this integration works, Google Drive playback on CyTube is often unstable for users for mysterious reasons that cannot be troubleshooted easily and which may require ugly fixes such as requiring users to enable third-party cookies, disable privacy-enhancing functionality in their browsers, and remain logged in to Google accounts in order to view the content.
Now that CyTube has better options for users wishing to host their own content, it is no longer worth it to keep investing in Drive.
The Which media providers are supported? FAQ entry lists the other supported media providers. If your content complies with the terms of service of those providers, you are recommended to try one of those.
If your only purpose for Google Drive is to evade copyright restrictions on these providers, you are recommended not to use CyTube, or to host your own website instead. I don't want to be involved in your copyright infringement.
This error message is internal to the YouTube player and typically means one or more of YouTube's resources failed to load. This can sometimes be caused by privacy-oriented browser extensions (ad blockers, script blockers, PrivacyBadger, etc.) which prevent YouTube's scripts from loading on CyTube.
2020-03-27: Many users are experiencing problems with ad-blocking extensions breaking YouTube's embedded player. Please try disabling your ad-blocking extension and/or whitelisting YouTube
Try:
- Disable all extensions and restart your browser. See if YouTube videos are now working.
- Selectively enable extensions one by one until you discover which one breaks.
- Configure the breaking extension to allow YouTube scripts to run on CyTube.
My philosophy for CyTube is to maintain a relatively small and stable core set of features and enable admins to fork the codebase and customize it to their needs. I consider the current version stable and generally don't prioritize significant feature work.
For channel customizations, I will generally suggest that you try to customize the functionality yourself using channel JS or a bot.
For website customizations, I will generally suggest you fork the repository and add your customizations on top (many other people have done this to customize the site to fit their community's needs).
If you believe your feature request will benefit a large number of users, feel free to still submit a GitHub issue to ask about it, however, please be prepared that the answer might be "no".
Why am I getting an error message "Access to the link was denied" even though it plays correctly for me?
Websites often generate unique viewing links based on your IP address, login session, or other information, and verify that information again when you attempt to download the video, in order to prevent you from distributing the video to other people. Since CyTube, and other users in the channel, will not match these parameters, the website hosting the video will deny access.
As a reminder, technical support is provided only if you are personally hosting the video file on a server that you control. Support will not be provided for files hosted on random 3rd-party websites who have no idea or consent for their content to be shared to CyTube.
As of late 2020, Google removed the ability to embed age-restricted YouTube videos on third party sites, such as CyTube.
Refer to https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2802167?hl=en for details; in particular, this paragraph (emphasis added):
What happens if content is age-restricted?
Age-restricted videos are not viewable to users who are under 18 years of age or logged out. Additionally, age-restricted videos cannot be watched on most third-party websites. Viewers who click on an age-restricted video on another website, such as an embedded player, will be redirected to YouTube, where they will only be able to view the content when signed-in and over 18. This will help ensure that no matter where content is discovered, if a video is hosted by YouTube it will only be viewable by the appropriate audience.