5.0 Beta3

[InfinityLoop1308]

We are close to the stable version :)

Changes

• Support in-app download
• Support zoom settings
• Add classic-style navigation drawer
• Support HDR video playback
• Support swipe up to enter full screen
• Add queue button to player menu
• Support more sorting methods for playlists
• Support clearing watch history and deleting search history
• Support Shorts tab (YouTube)
• Recover brightness after exiting full screen
• Mark new items as "new"
• Ensure progress is restored when changing media items
• Optimize bottom player UI logic
• Optimize tab layout
• Improve dialog handling and update new user dialogs
• Make feed refresh button sticky
• Add a small indicator to help with progress bar dragging
• Redesign sleep timer and add it to the play queue screen
• Auto-hide player overlay after 2 seconds
• Allow default tabs to be removed
• Only use service theme color for search bar when configured
• Add Retry logic when encountering 403 errors
• Remove broken trending section (YouTube)
• Origin audio should always be selected as default
• Fix exiting paused fullscreen video sometimes starts playing the video
• Fix playback speed is not persistent between sessions
• Fix local playlists not updating when modified elsewhere
• Fix playlist navigation feature not working as expected
• Fix some YouTube links not correctly recognized
• Search issues when there are no more pages (YouTube)
• Fix trending items upload date wrongly parsed (BiliBili)
• Fix "10+ years" shown as "xx decades"
• Fix trending items not being filtered correctly
• Fix sponsorBlock cannot be disabled
• Fix crash when feed group containing duplicated items
• Fix black screen after minimizing to bottom player
• Pure black mode should only affect the background
• Fix Parsing issues with mobile NicoNico links and channels
• Fix Crashes related to parsing suggestions and processing certain comments
• Fix some video view counts not correctly parsed (YouTube)
• Fix player controls invisible when loading
• Fix App crashes when scrolling through playlist search results
• Fix List preferences scrolling issue

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This discussion was created from the release 5.0 Beta3.

[bolbolfolfol]

the latest beta was 20mb and this one is 72mb ! what happened ?

[faizul726]

We bundled yt-dlp to support in-app download.

Whats the difference between the legacy downloader and yt-dlp?

[91grayjay]

So eventually we can use ytdlp commands for downloads?

[rush111-ship-it]

Video is not playing . Not working for me

[InfinityLoop1308]

@rush111-ship-it can you provide a screenshot or screen recording

[InfinityLoop1308]

@91grayjay No we will make things as simple as before.

[RQYP]

Is it just me or is it impossible to search on YouTube in Beta3? If you try to search something in the search bar, nothing happens, whether you press the magnifying glass icon or enter button on keyboard. I also tried the last v4.7.5 and search worked fine there.

[Onlykievv]

i just tried the beta and searched for some videos, all the results showed without problems (at least in my case)

[InfinityLoop1308]

It works fine here.

[faizul726]

Works fine

[faizul726]

Where can I report bugs other than issues regarding the beta?

[InfinityLoop1308]

You can email the logs directly in the log page.

[rajarshikhatua]

The yt-dlp way seems slower than NewPipe's, and as a YTDLnis user, I know yt-dlp has its quirks. They don't always release updates to the stable branch when things break, and they push updates super often in nightly because YouTube keeps breaking them. Plus, yt-dlp works with tons of sites, not just YouTube, while NewPipe only supports a few. They both break all the time, but I think NewPipe is lighter and more stable. Also, yt-dlp now needs a separate JS runtime.

Here are some related HN links
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45358980
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45898407

[InfinityLoop1308]

Not quite.

The old NewPipe-style extractor does feel lighter and has been remarkably stable lately, but that stability comes almost entirely from relying on the android_sdkless player response — currently the last YouTube client that still escapes both SABR encryption and the new JS challenges.

Everyone in the ecosystem knows this is living on borrowed time. Once YouTube applies SABR + JS runtime to android_sdkless (which is very likely the final step in their rollout), the old extraction logic will break hard, and adapting it to the new decryption + heavy JS environment would be extremely complex and resource-intensive.

Moreover, even today the old downloader still can’t provide a bunch of features that have become standard expectations in 2025:

• embedded thumbnails
• proper embedded metadata
• embedded subtitles
• embedded chapters and sponsorblock segments (not done yet but we have a plan)
• ... etc

yt-dlp, despite its quirks and frequent updates, is already fully capable of handling SABR-encrypted streams and the new JS challenges today. More importantly, we have direct control over its extraction logic in PipePipe, so we can (and do) keep it at least as stable as the old sdkless-only path — actually even more stable in many cases, because we’re no longer limited to a single fragile player response.

That’s why, when rewriting PipePipe 5.0 from scratch, the choice was clear: the lighter old extractor simply isn’t a sustainable long-term option anymore, whereas a deeply patched yt-dlp gives us both future-proofing and all the missing modern features today.

Hope this clarifies things.

[rajarshikhatua]

So, are you patching yt-dlp now to work with PipePipe? In that process, are you removing support for other unnecessary platforms that PipePipe doesn't need? Also, I guess you have to add support for yt-dlp to use directly within PipePipe, so it will essentially become a smaller fork of yt-dlp. How are users going to update it? Do users have to update the app itself, or can the yt-dlp part be updated separately? Will you offer two versions of PipePipe to download—one with the download feature and one without it—or maybe ask the user at first opening if they want to download/add the video download features additionally, something like that? And how are you going to manage the settings of yt-dlp, like whether to add thumbnails, subtitles, chapters, etc.? Is it going to be minimal like before, or will everything be inside the popup menu or in a dedicated settings menu?

[rajarshikhatua]

sorry if the questions are stupid

[InfinityLoop1308]

No worries, we have already done all the complex works and everything is as simple as before. Things like thumbnail and metadata are automatically embedded.

[atbest]

Since yt-dlp is updated frequently, it would be better to download and/or update libffmpeg.zip and libpython.zip on demand instead of embedding them in the APK. This can reduce APK size and avoid unnecessary app updates triggered solely by yt-dlp upgrades.

[ThatAnnoyingVegan]

It crashes on startup and won't even open. :(

[InfinityLoop1308]

OK it's #1748 . I have fixed it and uploaded new apks. Please download again.

[abuturabofficial]

Please, please bring back "Mark as Watched"

[91grayjay]

Yes, I agree. Pretty please.

[spvkgn]

Is there a chance to add "Content" settings as in 4.x, to hide comments, similar videos, etc?

[InfinityLoop1308]

It will be redesigned as a appearance setting.

[TheGreyHawke]

Thank you for your hard work, I really appreciate you for incorporating our humble suggestions into the app.

Its working as expected on phone, however on my tablet, oneplus pad 3, i cannot scroll down on video pages to see comments, descriptions etc.

I would be grateful if this was resolved in the next version. Thank you again and have a great day.

[InfinityLoop1308]

Thanks. This is #1623 and will be fixed in next beta version.

[91grayjay]

Will video management in playlist make it back, sich as Remove Watched, Remove Duplicates, and Add to Playlist?

[InfinityLoop1308]

Yes.

[Tameness-Idealize-Washstand]

I'm having a strange issue with the video speed / pitch changer. For context, I'm not manually moving the bar, I'm pressing the addition buttons.

They appear to behave inconsistently, with +5% doing +4% when the speed is at 100%, and +1% sometimes doing +2% instead. This appears to only affect the pitch changer.

video_issue.mp4

[Tameness-Idealize-Washstand]

I've also experienced the in-built downloader download a .vtt file instead of the requested .opus. This has only happened once, and I don't know how it happened.

[pixelpiirate]

The quality selector in landscape mode is glitchy as in when I scroll through all the available qualities, the quality selector closes.

Also is it possible to make a feature to choose the desired codec and show only that codec in the quality selector in every video?

And regarding these two, should I create an issue?

[V8GHOST8V]

Standard PipePipe works on Android 5 and 6. The 5.0 beta variants don't. Will it work on those Android versions just like the current standard PipePipe apks?