Question about fetching videos (new to FreeTube)

[salvatore28]

hello,

just discovered FreeTube today and I have downloaded the v0.24.0 Beta x64 portable for now. Sorry if I'm going to ask something obvious, but a search didn't fetch anything useful.

There is a thing that is not immediately clear to me: I see that in the search edit box I can also type a YouTube classic URL, so far so good. I type the home URL of a channel followed by "/videos", exactly as I have it saved in the browser's bookmarks, for example:

https://www.youtube.com/ChannelName/videos

The channel page appears, but no videos are displayed and a message is shown instead:

This channel doesn't actually have any video (that's obviously false).

Sometimes I also get an error like this:

TypeError: Cannot read properties of undefined (reading 'metadata_parts')

Apart this behaviour, there is a thing that I'd like to know: is it compulsory to be subscribed to channels that I want to view to see the list of videos? I think no, because I can normally browse the video page of the channels that I want to browse without being subscribed to any of them (nor I want to subscribe to any of them). And it seems that I cannot add any channel to the channel' list of FreeTube without being subscribed (at least, I haven't seen any way to add one). Or am I wrong?

By the way, being this my first message, I haven't indicated the real channel name because I don't know if it is permitted to do so.

Thank you
Sal

[Shadorc]

Hello,
YouTube has recently changed something on their side that broke FreeTube video fetching on both subscription and channel pages (#9163).
There is a workaround with some limitations for the subscription page: you can go to Settings > Subscription > Fetch Feeds from RSS. It will correctly display videos for your subscriptions, but it will not show their length.
Both issues are known, and one of them is fixed but not released yet.
There is no estimated time for the next release at this time.
And welcome to FreeTube!

[salvatore28]

hello,
thank you for the reply. I have seen the workaround but, as I wrote, I am not subscribed to any channel nor I want to. I've also tried the Fetch Feeds from RSS option, but it didn't work for me.
Sal

[Shadorc]

I haven't tested it myself, but if you're only interested in channel videos you could try the latest nightly build, it will include the fix.

[salvatore28]

thank you. I have downloaded it and now I'll try it.

Sal

[salvatore28]

hello,

tested today's nightly build with these results:

1. searching a specific url like pictured in my original message now works, but...
2. some videos are missing (I'm comparing FreeTube with the same page on YouTube)
3. videos are not in chronological order (from the most recent to the oldest)
4. clicking on "Load more..." things get worse because other recent and older videos are loaded worsening the chronological order further
5. if I click on the home page of the channel I go to this page, but clicking Videos from here, again nothing shown

Thank you
Sal

[efb4f5ff-1298-471a-8973-3d47447115dc]

Hi @salvatore28 please download latest release v0.24.1 and let me know if your issues are resolved or if you have other questions. Download here

• GitHub Releases
• Website

[salvatore28]

wow! Downloaded 0.24.1 and now it works very well: all channel links do what they have to do and chronological order is respected. I have also seen the "Channels" command on the left bar, but how it works? How do I populate it?

A suggestion for future releases: video download, but I bet that's already in the todo list :-)

A big thank you!
Sal

[efb4f5ff-1298-471a-8973-3d47447115dc]

I have also seen the "Channels" command on the left bar, but how it works? How do I populate it?

Search for a channel you want to subscribe to. The searchresults should return you a channel icon and asubscribes button. If that isnt the case just go to a channel you want to subscribe to by directly going to the channel page. There you will also find a subscribe button.

So its basically the same as where YouTube places subscribe buttons.

Oh also one under on the watch page below the player

[salvatore28]

mmmh, after a search I got only a blue "share channel" icon and the usual "subscribe red button:

but since I don't want to subscribe, I thought that it would be possible to save the channel here, so to have a quick link to return:

Thank you
Sal

[efb4f5ff-1298-471a-8973-3d47447115dc]

Ahh noo that channels tab is exclusively used to view the channels you subscribed to

[salvatore28]

it should be great to add a sort of bookmarks page...

Thank you
Sal