bug: User reported some channels are not blocking via 3 dot UI

[varshneydevansh]

I just got a mail from user and they came across to a bug where the 3 Dot UI
is unable to block some channels. But I am awaiting for more details from user.

[varshneydevansh]

User reported this channel and I saw its handle is @CorridosdeOroNorteños

[varshneydevansh]

It is getting blocked correctly with manual entry of channel ID

so this is related to 3 Dot UI automatic block feature which I was suspecting.

[varshneydevansh]

The Commit 5dae34c fixes this bug.

What was happening?

• On the search page you’d see cards labeled “Santa’s Music Room,” but the channel link under the name pointed to https://www.youtube.com/@Santasmusicroom.Official.
• The moment anything (FilterTube or even you in a new tab) tried to open that exact URL, YouTube itself returned a 404 page. You can see the same failure logged at /c6%kuoin%kmc&hr/about:1 Failed to load resource: 404.
• Because FilterTube used that link to figure out the real channel ID, our block request never finished, and the Hide/Restore summary kept listing Santa videos as “restored” instead of “hidden”.

In short: YouTube’s own handle URL was broken. Clicking it inside the Watch Page was succeeding with channel name Dynamic Deep, but opening it the normal way (or letting us fetch it) always failed with YouTube’s 404. That’s why it looked like our extension was hanging.

As you can see for the same handle it is giving Dynamic Deep

Here is after 3 dot UI blocking which is now working sound.

---

What we changed to work around YouTube’s bug

1. Start from the handle, but prefer the real channel ID (UC ID) whenever possible.
   fetchIdForHandle now checks FilterTube’s saved channelMap before hitting YouTube, so if we’ve ever seen @santasmusicroom.official → UCM6nZ84qXYFWPWzlO_zpkWw, we reuse that instantly.

2. If YouTube still returns 404, grab the data from YouTube’s own page state instead of the broken link.
   When the 3-dot “Block channel” button fails the first time, handleBlockChannelClick asks the Main World (injector.js) to scan ytInitialData for the clicked video. Those logs show the retry succeeding with the UC ID even though the handle URL was dead .

3. As a last resort, scrape the Shorts page for the UC ID.
   If the video is a Shorts card and ytInitialData isn’t enough, we fetch the Shorts page itself, read the UC ID there, and re-run the block.

4. Share the fix across every blocking flow.
   All of the block paths (single click, multi-step collaborator list, Shorts, etc.) funnel through the same handleBlockChannelClick logic, so this improvement keeps every block attempt robust.

---

Result

The logs now show exactly what we need:

• FilterTube: Resolved @santasmusicroom.official from channelMap -> UCM6nZ84qXYFWPWzlO_zpkWw
• FilterTube: Successfully blocked channel … filterAll: false
• Hide summary listing every Santa video as hidden instead of restored.

So even though YouTube’s handle URL still 404s in a new tab, FilterTube now recovers the real channel ID automatically and removes those videos immediately.

[varshneydevansh]

The problem is not just @handle leading to 404 page or having the wrong channel name.

The problem with YouTube is also tagging Wrong Channel @handle when the content is from different channel in at-least the Collaborator video.

As you can see the Collaborator video when opened from the Collaborator UI is leading to @ShakiraVEVO channel but here the channel which is being tagged in @Shakira and the Channel Name is ShakiraVEVO.

and our code is fetching the correct details only the channel avatar logo is problamatic

[varshneydevansh]

Additional: YouTube also serves content using 3rd way: https://www.youtube.com/c/V%C3%ADdeoseMensagens
[https://www.youtube.com/c/VídeoseMensagens]

[varshneydevansh]

Additional: YouTube also serves content using 3rd way: https://www.youtube.com/c/V%C3%ADdeoseMensagens [https://www.youtube.com/c/VídeoseMensagens]

It is interesting that this way of channel access is not working for every channel?

I found this is working well with Shakira's channel

For DeepMind it opened -

for BangtanTV it opened this way while the handle is @bts -

But for my channel this is not working either by handle or Channel Name

[varshneydevansh]

The c/Name ID is now able to block reliably.

Commit 9265807 closes it.

[varshneydevansh]

The Channel ID mapping is working so well.