[Update: Fix in works] YouTube link preview not working on WhatsApp and other similar apps for many

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on December 07, 2020) follows:

Link previews allow users to have a sneak peek into the kind of content a link has in store, since links alone don’t convey much. This essential feature, however, isn’t working for several users.

Upon trying to share YouTube links on WhatsApp and some other similar social apps, the link preview fails to show up. And there have been several complaints on YouTube forums and Twitter regarding this.

I copied my YouTube video link and pasted on text but no preview shows up! I tried pasting the URL of my YouTube video on Whatsapp and Facebook but no meta description or thumbnail shows up for any of my videos.
Source

Same here. YouTube link preview is not working in either iPhone WhatsApp and Windows-10 WhatsApp Application, what about others.
Source

While reports about broken YouTube link previews have been going on for a while, there has been a huge spike recently from WhatsApp users.

It appears that WhatsApp has released a bad update that has broken the link previews for YouTube. Links from other sources work fine though.

I was also able to reproduce the YouTube link preview not working issue on the latest available stable as well as beta versions of WhatsApp.

Furthermore, the bug isn’t just limited to a single platform alone as there have been reports from both Android and iOS.

I updated my WhatsApp in my app store and it fixed it.
Source

Users facing this issue do not need to wait for too long though, as several other users have stated that the previews have begun to work again after a recent WhatsApp update.

You can do the same via Google Play Store or Apple App Store. Simply head over to the updates section and see if there are any available updates for WhatsApp.

Keep in mind though, that updates aren’t always released for everyone at once, and it may take a couple of days for the bug-fixing update to show up for you on your app store.

Alternatively, if you are an Android user, you can head over to this APKMirror link to download a WhatsApp beta build that has been reported working perfectly by one user.

With that being said, be sure to check out our dedicated YouTube bugs/issues tracker for further coverage on matters like these along with their workarounds, if any.

Update 1 (December 14)

05:45 pm (IST): A Platinum Product Expert on Google’s support page claimed that the issue is completely unrelated to YouTube and is instead a problem with the iOS and Android WhatsApp apps.

It is not a setting or anything you have to change. It is a bug in the messaging application that occurs on both Android and iOS and has nothing to do with YouTube.

The problem is foreign to YouTube and is beyond the scope of this forum, and from what it seems, it will be resolved in future updates of the messaging application, so always check that you have the latest version installed. (Source)

Furthermore, one user has shared a temporary workaround that you could use. We’ve shared it below:

you can edit the link like this
– original : https://youtu.be/cso87inf29Q
– edit it to : https://youtube.com/embed/cso87inf29Q (Source)

Update 2 (December 17)

12:50 pm (IST): The WhatsApp link preview issue has still not been fixed according to some users (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6) and WhatsApp has not yet made any public statement regarding the broken feature.

One user claims that adding — ?t=1 — at the end of the link before sharing it via WhatsApp will fix the problem.

After I shared a link with ?t=1 at the end, the problem no longer occurred. (Source)

Update 3 (December 22)

11:45 am (IST): New developments indicate that the YouTube link preview issue has been fixed in the recent WhatsApp beta builds for Android. Unfortunately, the problem still persists even in the latest WhatsApp beta for iOS — version 2.21.10.2 — as per a report.

Update 4 (January 11, 2021)

12:38 pm (IST): YouTube has finally acknowledged the issue and is already working on a fix as per a recent Tweet. And while no ETA was provided, one can expect it to roll out soon (hopefully).

However, it is a bit odd that it’s YouTube that has admitted to the issue being on their end even though all evidence at hand has pointed towards WhatsApp. Perhaps, the two OEMs are working mutually on a fix.

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