Unusual issue: Youtube iOS player helper "restricted from playback on certain sites." message, but works on Android

Question

I know this question seems to have been asked before, but it apparently hasn't (at least on stack overflow). I get the following error using Youtube iOS helper api for certain videos when I attempt to embed them in my iOS app.

"This video contains content from VEVO. It is restricted from playback on certain sites."

The error below is fairly self explanatory... and it appears that there is nothing you can do about it. I can live with that. But there is more to it.

The reason I am puzzled by this message (and it refers to any VEVO music video on Youtube) is that the videos play on Android. Someone else has also had this problem... stated here: https://github.com/youtube/youtube-ios-player-helper/issues/52

If there is a restriction on other sites - and there may well be - it should be restricted on both iOS and Android devices. I find it highly odd that the restriction applies to only iOS.

Can someone advise?

Cheers!

Answer 1

add this in your playerVars @"origin" :@"http://www.youtube.com" it will work. I had the same problem.. i solved it using playvars

Answer 2

According to this answer,

...iOS devices use iframe so they basically embed. Android devices that use player API can check syndicated.

From the documentation: if a video is embeddable, it can be embedded into a webpage, and if it is syndicated, it can be played outside of youtube.com.

A video that is embeddable but not syndicatable will play on YouTube.com or on other sites that embed the YouTube player, but may not play on devices such as mobile phones or TVs (source). Therefore, if a video plays on Android but not on iOS, it's possible that it's syndicateable but not embeddable, in which case it's working as intended.