[BUG]: YT auto-translate no longer works

[r00tnpm]

Checklist

• I made sure that there are no existing issues - open or closed - which I could contribute my information to.
• I have read the FAQ and my problem isn't listed.
• I have taken the time to fill in all the required details. I understand that the bug report will be dismissed otherwise.
• This issue contains only one bug.

Affected version

28.75

Device Type

Smart TV/Box

Affected Android

Nvidia Shield TV Pro

Steps to reproduce the bug

1. Go to any YT video, for example, a video in Spanish
2. Click on "CC" option > Subtitles (autogenerated) option
3. Click on any language other than Spanish, the subtitle won't appear, however, the auto-gen Spanish subtitle still appears

Actual behavior

Hi team, recently I noticed the auto-translation subtitle no longer works on any YT videos, except for original language.

For example, a English video, only auto-generated English subtitle would appear, a French video with French subtitle, and so on so forth. No subtitle of any other language than original audio language would work, it seems YT stopped any translation.

Not sure if this is an issue with YT or ST, but it became an issue very recently (in the past couple of days).

Would greatly appreciate if you could help look into it.

Additional information

I also tested a few previous versions of ST, 28.58, 28.66 - all of them have the same issue

[bxw91]

I can confirm this. Subtitles today works only in video original audio. It worked till yesterday.

To make subtitles to work during last several weeks I had to turn off and on subtitle option and select english language, but today nothing helps. This could be also related to problem why some videos are auto dubbed in english without option to choose original audio.

adding 1 hour later : when I gave up, english subtitles appeared, but only one video so far. it seems that this could be related to 429 error that is frequent lately, particularly when resuming video play.

[BobbyWibowo]

Yeah, I was able to confirm that the "429 Too Many Requests" error come from the auto-generated subtitle endpoint. I also got the same error when attempting to manually download the auto-generated subs via yt-dlp.

I tried VPN countries like Singapore and Indonesia to no avail.

My ISP also provides dynamic IPs, yet despite already refreshing router to get a new dynamic IP, it was still getting rate-limited all the same.

So far, I've only managed to get through after using Japan VPN.

[bxw91]

This seems to be some issue with youtube, probably not related to adblockers but maybe to some traffic control.

When you open a video in and enable subtitles, app or browser sends subtitle request to "https://www.youtube.com/api/timedtext?v=...........". That url works ok if you select video's original subtitle but if you request auto-translated version of subtitle (the same url but with few more arguments) returns 429 error.

Problem appears for all devices that are connected through the same ISP connection, smarttube, phone, desktop.

If you copy that url and send it thourh some proxy, you will get translated youtube subtitles. I have used some free web proxy (from USA) just to test and it worked. So it seems that temporary solution is to use VPN or proxies,

In browser (Firefox desktop) I have solved this problem with adding FoxyProxy and seting URL redirection for "://www.youtube.com/api/timedtext?v=" to a proxy and it works fine. Find proxy that accepts https requests (some don't).

[bxw91]

Today subtitles in smarttube works for me. I got one 429 error but auto translated subtitles in language different then the original video is made are working today. So this issue does not look like a bug in smarttube.

[T-Rexz]

Today subtitles in smarttube works for me. I got one 429 error but auto translated subtitles in language different then the original video is made are working today. So this issue does not look like a bug in smarttube.

Sou deficiente auditivo e uso a tradução auto-gerada em português. Funcionava bem até quase um mês atrás. Nas últimas semanas, ela funciona quando quer e isso é muito chato, mas nos últimos 5 dias a tradução de legenda auto-gerada não está funcionando mais. Já tentei até no Smarttube Beta e tb no meu YouTube do meu celular e nada... acho que o problema está no próprio YouTube. Parece uma loteria e isso é muito chato. Perdi a vontade de assistir porque a legenda não aparece. Sou deficiente auditivo e dependo muito das legendas pra entender ao assistir.

[vivalapica-droid]

Hi everyone, I solved the problem simply by changing the network engine in the settings:
Settings/Player/Network engine and selecting CRONET (Chromium).
Now when I enable subtitles in Italian (my language), they finally appear in every video. I hope this helps, bye

[yuliskov]

Duplicate of #5457