YouTube oEmbeds don't work for full-width YouTube video links

[designsimply]

Steps to reproduce:

1. Go to Posts > Add New
2. Add this to its own line in the content area: http://www.youtube.com/embed/8N_tupPBtWQ
3. Publish the post

• Expected: using ​http://www.youtube.com/embed/8N_tupPBtWQ on it's own line in a post would trigger an oEmbed for a YouTube video
• Actual: oEmbed doesn't work for links like ​http://www.youtube.com/embed/tgbNymZ7vqY it only works for links like ​http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY

Screencast: ​http://screencast.com/t/nMCYr3N3uF

Tested with WordPress trunk version 24528 on Bluehost

Should links like ​http://www.youtube.com/embed/tgbNymZ7vqY be working for oEmbed, or do you just need to make sure to use links like ​http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY to avoid the problem?

[SergeyBiryukov]

Looks like YouTube oEmbed endpoint only works for /watch?v=... links.

This works:

http://www.youtube.com/oembed?url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/watch%3Fv%3DtgbNymZ7vqY&format=json

This returns a 404 error:

http://www.youtube.com/oembed?url=http%3A//www.youtube.com/embed/tgbNymZ7vqY&format=json

[ocean90]

The src of the returned iframe from the oEmbed endpoint contains the embed part. You should just use the links, which YouTube gives you.

[designsimply]

I think users tend to copy out the URL from the Share > Embed section on YouTube pages, and that's what gets them confused (it gets reported from time to time in WP.com support which is why I created this ticket).

Aside: the long version of youtube.com mobile URLs have the same problem. If you are on a mobile device such as an iPad and copy the URL directly from a YouTube page, the link will not auto embed. Example link:

• ​http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY&desktop_uri=%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DtgbNymZ7vqY

In contrast, auto embeds for the short version of mobile URLs worked fine in my tests:

• ​http://youtu.be/tgbNymZ7vqY

Tested with WP trunk r24579 on Bluehost + Twenty Thirteen theme.

To fix both the "/embed/" URL and the mobile URL issues, could the unique identifier (such as "tgbNymZ7vqY") be pulled out and then used in whatever oEmbed URL structure is supported?

[aaronholbrook]

I tend to agree with designsimply, this may be something we wish to do simply to make the user experience that much more intuitive and simple, especially if people are having an issue copying out the URL on mobile.

I am +1 to implementing this change, but would like some dev-feedback and a second opinion on this matter.

[wonderboymusic]

If you go to Share > Embed, it gives you the <iframe> code to paste in - using the src from there is a you-break-it-you-bought-it situation. The /embed/ and mobile with # would have to be new YouTube oEmbed providers in WP, but would need additional hacks to turn /embed/ into /watch?v=. Might be best tackled in pre_kses or something.

Jetpack does all kinds of crazy stuff to YouTube URLs. I actually turned off most of what it does on a site I am building, but for these scenarios, there is probably some useful code in there.

[alexufo]

this is not a bug. Youtube give two types url for users:
1) short: youtu.be/tgbNymZ7vqY
2) and full: youtube.com/watch?v=tgbNymZ7vqY

link like yours youtube.com/embed/8N_tupPBtWQ
provided only for embed src in iframe or <object> tag and
not intended for use by users

[designsimply]

If it's not a bug, then it should be an enhancement ticket. :) I posted it because I saw support tickets from several users saying it was broken. Not a crazy high priority, but it seemed like something that could just be made to work nicely with popular types of URLs that users find and enter (even if they're doing it wrong).

[wonderboymusic]

I was about to close this, then I realized there is a slightly-relevant precedent with wp_embed_handler_googlevideo

Someone can patch this for 4.0, or we can decide that we aren't going to do anything

[fahmiadib]

Patch added

[fahmiadib]

This patch should support embed/ and #/ for YouTube video links. Am i in the right direction here?

[wonderboymusic]

24660.diff​ fixes /embed/.* URLs and makes them to display watch?v=.* videos

[wonderboymusic]

In 28652:

Because of YouTube's overwhelming dominance in the online video space, we should help our users who paste bad URLs when possible. It is easy to fix http://youtube.com/embed/acb1233 URLs by turning them into http://youtube.com/watch?v=abc1233 embeds using an embed handler (we already have one to fix Google Video embeds).

We should avoid doing this in almost every other case, but it's YouTube, and it's an easy error for a novice to make.

Fixes #24660.