Watch youtube for about 5-10 minute, the whole watch window turn gray and just one line of text in the middle: Something went wrong, refresh or try again later
did try again about a day later, still same
Youtube still watchable on chrome or edge, still able to watch on my phone, just happen on my PC
everything still fine before, suddently from yesterday evening (about 8pm Feb 1st, 2026 GMT +7), cant watch a single video
Already remove and re-install brave
I had the same issue a while back. Twice infact.
Turns out it was some setting that I had changed.
Youtube works fine with Vanilla brave as it comes by default from app store.
I has a custom third party dns, a lot of brave://flags toogled, and a vpn running in background.
It was my vpn that was causing the issue the first time.
Second time it was the custom dns.
Presently I use all the above and YT works flawlessly, especially with brave features like blocking YT Comments, Shorts recommended content, and other distracting elements.
Thank you for you reply
I have found the trouble maker
it is an extention call Youtube Iridium, I remove it and i can watch youtube noproblem
it is strange that i have Youtube Iridium for months and no problem, the problem just appear 2 days ago
YouTube has ramped up a lot of anti-user choice in 2026. And I mean it’s every angle, VPN, ad blockers, background play (a feature of the browser mind you, not a paywalled thing), etc.
Not just that, but every once in a while (maybe 2 to 3 times in a month) my Sony Bravia TV gets recaptcha on YT videos before I can stream them. My TV does not even use any vpn or proxy, just third party dns.
When routing all my traffic through vpn, YT is pretty much dead on all devices that does not have google account signed in. It throws up something along the lines of … ‘Signin To Confirm You’re Not A Bot’ This does not even provide the option of captcha, straight up signin is required.
YouTube has a strong dedicated team who is tasked with mitigating all the efforts any user can make to implement limited data collection, reduce Ad Revenue, or customize YT in a way which it is not intended to.
They want to ensure/force people to use YT as it comes shipped out of box. So essentially maximize data collection, deliver targeted ads and block users who attemp to bypass these measures.