<![CDATA[If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail.]]>If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. It’s been like this forever.

Does anyone know if this is a bug, or intentional? It’s frustrating to me.

(Apple TV.)

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/topic/e0ec79ed-ee8a-4ed5-9889-97996e37495e/if-i-play-a-youtube-video-for-3-seconds-and-leave-it-becomes-marked-as-completely-watched-with-the-red-line-extending-all-the-way-under-the-thumbnail.RSS for NodeWed, 30 Sep 2026 06:28:16 GMTSat, 19 Sep 2026 03:25:30 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 12:05:43 GMT]]>@mwichary No idea - the most obvious answer is that their shit just doesn't work well, because as I said, they don't care at all about your experience as a viewer.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://helvede.net/users/jwcph/statuses/117297613596131291https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://helvede.net/users/jwcph/statuses/117297613596131291Sat, 19 Sep 2026 12:05:43 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:54:56 GMT]]>@brundaged 🙃

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297571169603492https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297571169603492Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:54:56 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:50:05 GMT]]>@mwichary I just checked, and I did indeed have "All Experimental Features" turned on.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/brundaged/statuses/117297552145355102https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/brundaged/statuses/117297552145355102Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:50:05 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:49:01 GMT]]>@beep @tealtan I don’t think I saw that one, but a false negative would be trickier to encounter (and, for me, less painful) than a false positive.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297547958534347https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297547958534347Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:49:01 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:42:04 GMT]]>@phl Yikes.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297520639412806https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297520639412806Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:42:04 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:41:40 GMT]]>@mwichary I mostly watch in a desktop browser - but a lot of things I have not watched appear in my history and often with a full bar

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/phl/statuses/117297519018601469https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/phl/statuses/117297519018601469Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:41:40 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:38:34 GMT]]>@phl Oh, interesting. That’s even worse. I think I have hover turned off? Or mostly watch YT on hover-less platforms.

Although the interrupted stuff resumes well for me.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297506844377908https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297506844377908Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:38:34 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:33:05 GMT]]>@mwichary Hovering over things also seems to be enough (Home at least, or anything that silently plays on hover, not the right side recommendations which just animate), and interrupted plays never restart from the last position.

Imagine basic functionality working in a software by one of the largest software companies on the planet...

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/phl/statuses/117297485259813565https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/phl/statuses/117297485259813565Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:33:05 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:22:17 GMT]]>@brundaged There might also be a big variety of clients and experiences. It’s a big ecosystem at this point.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297442807376388https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297442807376388Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:22:17 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:16:26 GMT]]>@kbell Wait, too short in what sense?

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297419807884314https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297419807884314Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:16:26 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:14:13 GMT]]>@mwichary My guess was always (for the yeaaars this has been happening) that its a (bad) UI decision of "the playback progress for 1-3 seconds is too short, and we can't lie by saying it was 20% watched or something, so we'll just fill it up as a flag meaning 'somewhat watched' ".
I wanna say a good solution might be to make the progress always fill up with at least 20%, but a user might feel like an error happened if the indicator says they're 20% through an hour-long video, and it starts at 3s

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/ap/users/116416102323821250/statuses/117297411083602239https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/ap/users/116416102323821250/statuses/117297411083602239Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:14:13 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:09:51 GMT]]>@mwichary I probably turned on "experimental features" or such years ago and forgot about it.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/brundaged/statuses/117297393910057033https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/brundaged/statuses/117297393910057033Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:09:51 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:07:33 GMT]]>@brundaged Thanks – I have never seen any of this, if that matters.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297384911724182https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297384911724182Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:07:33 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:06:23 GMT]]>@mwichary I have seen this behavior. Other sins: It sometimes plays videos I didn't click on. It sometimes plays random shorts on startup. It will also randomly ignore clicks or taps to turn off or back out of a video during the first few seconds of playback. I have always assumed they are gaming the UX to goose their view stats to get more revenue.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/brundaged/statuses/117297380326513713https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/brundaged/statuses/117297380326513713Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:06:23 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:05:25 GMT]]>@Screwtapello I mean I hate it, but I can imagine a) a very old mvp idea like this from early days of YT, and b) a set of cirvumstances that makes this legacy thing still survive to this day under some circumstances.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297376480109281https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297376480109281Sat, 19 Sep 2026 11:05:25 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 10:59:18 GMT]]>@jwcph Oh, and also it’s not over 3 seconds. It’s under. So it’s kind of the opposite of your theory?

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297352432274353https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297352432274353Sat, 19 Sep 2026 10:59:18 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 10:52:57 GMT]]>@jwcph …except some people say they never see this problem.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297327444882668https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297327444882668Sat, 19 Sep 2026 10:52:57 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 10:51:06 GMT]]>@Screwtapello Oh, that’s interesting.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297320202777734https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297320202777734Sat, 19 Sep 2026 10:51:06 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 10:29:11 GMT]]>@mwichary YT has been utterly broken for years... for me it also does basically the opposite, which is forget the playback position & go back to zero, if I tab out of a video while paused & the page times out & reloads.

BTW it's obvious why the 3-second-watched one always fires; that's the one they use to claim that viewing 3 seconds of a two-hour video counts as "video watched" in their stats. The error is that you see this, but then they really don't care at all about the user experience.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://helvede.net/users/jwcph/statuses/117297234010325309https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://helvede.net/users/jwcph/statuses/117297234010325309Sat, 19 Sep 2026 10:29:11 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 10:09:11 GMT]]>@tealtan @mwichary Ugh, I’ve gotten this too.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://follow.ethanmarcotte.com/users/beep/statuses/117297155358078036https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://follow.ethanmarcotte.com/users/beep/statuses/117297155358078036Sat, 19 Sep 2026 10:09:11 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 10:00:53 GMT]]>My occam razor would be something like “two systems inside YT not talking to one another”: the page load saves the video as watched, and the playback progress sends the playhead position to server. If you nope out of the video quickly, the second one never fires, and the system interprets that as “completely watched.”

I don’t know if it’s just the UI layer (just shown this way), or system layer (actually recorded this way), and if there is a difference.

But why do some people not see it…

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297122726674014https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297122726674014Sat, 19 Sep 2026 10:00:53 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 09:45:52 GMT]]>@diondiondion Yeah! I recognize this too, completely.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297063679254396https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117297063679254396Sat, 19 Sep 2026 09:45:52 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 09:35:05 GMT]]>@mwichary Happens to me all the time, usually when I open an interesting looking video just to put in on my Watch Later list. (There are a bunch of video grids in the YouTube TV app where context menus are not available.)

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://indieweb.social/users/diondiondion/statuses/117297021277219623https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://indieweb.social/users/diondiondion/statuses/117297021277219623Sat, 19 Sep 2026 09:35:05 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to If I play a YouTube video for ~3 seconds and leave, it becomes marked as completely watched, with the red line extending all the way under the thumbnail. on Sat, 19 Sep 2026 09:08:30 GMT]]>@6lr61 This isn’t specific to livestreams, and happens to normal videos as well.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117296916777304193https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.online/users/mwichary/statuses/117296916777304193Sat, 19 Sep 2026 09:08:30 GMT