The YouTube app for Android has seen a handful of upgrades over the past couple of years. While it has faced its fair share of bugs recently, the YouTube team has also spent enough time fixing some of them. Unfortunately, not all of them have been quashed yet, with an issue first discovered several months ago still seemingly affecting several users.
For some background, a problem first reported in late April mentions how the row of recommended videos appears while viewing content in landscape mode, making it practically impossible to manually scrub through a video.
Fast-forward to earlier this month, when another user described facing the same issue on a YouTube support page (via Phone Arena). A fellow user responded with a possible solution, which includes checking that the app is on the latest version and switching to regular/portrait viewing mode and then back to landscape.
Separately, we uncovered another recent user report of what appears to be the same issue, indicating that it’s still not gone, close to five months on.
For what it’s worth, I was unable to replicate this particular landscape-mode glitch on the Android or iOS apps right now, which makes it hard to determine how widespread it is. However, based on the screenshots shared by those affected, it’s easy to see how annoying it can be while you’re binging on your favorite creator’s videos on YouTube.
This bug is ostensibly triggered when the user taps the screen to access the scrubber, with the recommendations taking over a large portion of the screen and either completely hiding the progress bar or making it barely visible.
There’s another YouTube bug in the wild
This isn’t the only issue affecting video viewing on YouTube this month. Another person recently claimed that videos refuse to switch to landscape mode when tapping the button in the bottom right corner of the screen. Instead, the result is what can only be described as a landscape viewing experience in portrait orientation.
Others affected by this issue have also replied in the thread looking for a solution. Some have chimed in to say that clearing the app’s data may offer temporary relief. However, this can’t be a long-term solution for an app that is used by millions every day.
We have reached out to Google for a comment on these bugs and will update the story when we hear back. In the meantime, if you’re facing similar issues viewing videos in landscape mode, let us know in the comments below.
