YouTube API Changes Causing Issues with YouTube Mashup and Video Everywhere
Answer
Fixed.
From Blackboard Support:
The YouTube Mashup
Bulletin/Advisory Information: The YouTube Mashup and Video Everywhere tools in the Blackboard Learn software, which allow instructors to integrate videos directly into their lessons and courses from YouTube, is not functioning properly due to Google’s planned retirement of the YouTube Data API (v2).
The result of this is that users are unable to play existing YouTube Mashup links or upload/embed YouTube videos using YouTube Mashup or Video Everywhere. While the uploaded video can still be found on youtube.com, searching for it in the respective course will direct users tohttps://youtube.com/devicesupport.
It is our top software maintenance priority to restore this functionality, and has been for several months. Our product teams have been working diligently to update our software to work with the YouTube Data API (v3). We plan on releasing patches as soon as development is completed and patches have passed quality assurance. We estimate that these patches will be available within the next 30 days.
Until software patches are made available, the following workarounds are available:
Workaround #1 - For Existing Links
Access the link by opening it in a new tab within your browser.
Workaround #2 - For Adding New Videos:
Instructors who have lost access, and/or are unable to upload and embed YouTube videos using the YouTube Mashup or Video Everywhere tools may go to youtube.com and upload the video(s) via these instructions:
- After recording the video, click Continue. This will save the video in YouTube.com
- Log into YouTube.com > select the video you have just recorded
- Copy the URL
- Go back into the editor in the Bb environment
- Select Insert/Edit Embedded Media
- Paste the URL into the Fire/URL
- Change 'Type' to "Embedded Audio"
- Click the “Insert” button
- Click the “Submit” button
Embed YouTube Videos
Users Unable to Embed YouTube Videos Using YouTube Mashup or Video Everywhere
Product: Blackboard Learn
Release: 9.1
Service Pack: 9.1 SP14 (9.1.140152.0), Learn April 2014 (9.1.201404.160205), Learn October 2014 (9.1.201410.160373), SaaS
Issue Description: Users are unable to play existing YouTube Mashup links and to upload and embed YouTube videos using YouTube Mashup or Video Everywhere. The uploaded video can be found on youtube.com, but searching for it in the applicable building block returns videos directing users to https://youtube.com/devicesupport. This behavior is unrelated to OAuth 1.0 being deprecated.
Steps to Replicate:
YouTube Mashup
Log into System as a System Admin
- Click on the System Admin Tab > Courses > navigate to Test Course
- In Course, access Content > Build Content > Item
- Content Area > Content > Item > from within the content editor > Mashups > YouTube OR Content Area > Content > YouTube Mashup
- Search for videos using the keyword(s) of your choice
Log into System as a System Admin
- Click on the System Admin Tab > Courses > navigate to Test Course
- In Course, access Content > Build Content > Item
- Click Video Everywhere icon to start recording > login with gmail account with a YouTube channel
- Stop recording > Insert Video > Submit
Expected Behavior:
The video is displayed in the content item and can be played.
Observed Behavior:
For existing links, users will see this error when viewing them:
Error:
We are unable to display the mashup content. This happens if the system detects an invalid URL. Remove the mashup item and try again to resolve the issue.
For adding new YouTube content, the YouTube error video showing "https://youtube.com/devicesupport" is displayed, depicted below. The video will not play within Learn in this condition due to an incorrect embed URL This error differs from a corrupt/unavailable video caused by an invalid video URL as seen in the second item titled "Broken Video". Navigating to youtube.com directly, one can verify the status of the video in question.
The first image above depicts what happens when this issue occurs.
The scenario in the second image above (Broken Video) is not affected by this issue and is caused by an invalid video URL.
Resolution/Workaround: Workaround #1:
- For existing links:
- Access the link by opening it in a new tab within your browser.
- For adding new videos:
- After recording the video, click Continue. This will save the video in YouTube.com
- Log into YouTube.com > select the video you have just recorded
- Copy the URL
- Go back into the editor in the Bb environment
- Select Insert/Edit Embedded Media
- Paste the URL into the Fire/URL
- Change 'Type' to "Embedded Audio"
- Insert
- Submit