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It's probably because your browser's fingerprint looks too uniform and hard to track. If they could tell who you were, they wouldn't be asking you.
I only ever get this when I'm on a VPN. Sometimes reddit will do that to me too. It means someone's been abusing/scraping YouTube through your VPN server and they've temporarily blacklisted its IP address. Switch your VPN servers or turn off your VPN.
Mullvad with a Ukrainian server works fine for some reason. But it's a PITA to do, that's why I don't go to YouTube anymore.
My VPN gets blocked on reddit and YT and it's my private server, OpenVPN on a Digital Ocean droplet in Amsterdam. What the hell?
They can tell the IP of your server is nonresidential and don't trust it either. But I'd expect it to sometimes work.
I've seen a few places they started blanket banning data centre ip ranges since late last year.
That would explain why I get this too, but only some days and not others. Thanks for the insight (not OP)
Its been doing this to me for at least a year now. I don't have a VPN. I look at old.reddit using duck duck go browser without an account. There's no way I'm going to watch a bunch of random videos while logged in. It would completely screw up their absolute shit recommendation algorithm.
I would guess you're using a bunch of privacy protecting features that's preventing them from verifying your browser/device. Unfortunately, being anonymous is the same as looking like a bot.
Use NewPipe. It only ever gets blocked if you're on VPN or if YouTube did an api update and the app needs to update to match.
Turn off VPN… solid advice.
If you want to view the content, its change the VPN server or use a residential IP. Residential proxies exist but are expensive and I'm not aware of any residential VPN services.
I get that sometimes. It goes away when I refresh.
Time for invidious my friend https://yewtu.be/
Nice! Thank you for this. I've had good success with Grayjay on Android but this is a great desktop solution
I gotta take a look on grayjay, on Android inusually use newpipe
Apparently, YouTube thinks they have a too many viewer problem. This should fix that.
The only bots we permit are our own and those that pay us for your data
Are you using a VPN?
I get the same on PC after watching videos for a while, no VPN.
Firefox
Oh, Then they are despite to block frontend (To make alot of money)
yeah, theyre a/b testing quite hard right now. yt even ip banned me for two hours once. lmao
this post was submitted on 16 Jul 2025
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AssholeDesign
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