[Bug] Redirect from short youtu.be URLs does not work

[Trit34]

Describe the bug
youtu.be/××××× short URLs are usually converted as [Invidious]/××××× and they used to be redirected to the full URLs [Invidious]/watch?v=×××××.
As of today (but I don’t know since when exactly), it does not work anymore and such shortened URLs lead to the homepage of the instance instead.

Steps to Reproduce
Tested on FDN’s Invidious instance (updated each Sunday):

1. Go to https://invidious.fdn.fr/yWsS5UJf8yU (for example)
2. Instead of redirecting to https://invidious.fdn.fr/watch?v=yWsS5UJf8yU, it loads https://invidious.fdn.fr/feed/popular, the homepage.

Additional context

• Browser (if applicable): Vivaldi
• OS (if applicable): Arch Linux

[unixfox]

Reopening as I can reproduce the issue on the test instance: https://test.invidious.io/yWsS5UJf8yU

I did close the issue before because it was working on an up to date instance: https://vid.puffyan.us/yWsS5UJf8yU

[ltguillaume]

It has to be something with the routing that's been caused by the refactoring in or around 1e25894 (pull request #3261)

Maybe this is triggered while it shouldn't since the refactoring?

[rezad1393]

I think this might be the issue:

1e25894#diff-b83bd9a4ffeb9402d24fe6ade99f304367e1ee03b6cd25dac08b94160b034cf0R16

Aug 10, 2022?

[ltguillaume]

@rezad1393 It's been around for a while now, certainly longer than the existence of this issue, and quite a few instances take a long time to update, so that would have delayed the introduction of the bug.

[selurvedu]

Reopening as I can reproduce the issue on the test instance: https://test.invidious.io/yWsS5UJf8yU

I did close the issue before because it was working on an up to date instance: https://vid.puffyan.us/yWsS5UJf8yU

@unixfox while this example works on vid.puffyan.us, it doesn't work for e.g. https://vid.puffyan.us/dQw4w9WgXcQ. Instead of redirecting to https://vid.puffyan.us/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ, it redirects to some random channel (https://vid.puffyan.us/channel/UCoG6BrhgmivrkcbEHcYtK4Q). Some other instances, including yewtu.be, redirect to the front page.

[unixfox]

It's a known problem, it's on the track list of issues to solve.

[Trit34]

Well, for now, you can copy the video ID, open a random video after being redirected to the front page and replace its video ID by yours to go to the video you want to see. It takes just seconds…

[syeopite]

Wasn't the consensus back in #2347 that youtu.be links should be handled by external redirect programs? Did the consensus change since then?

---

Anyways, seems like there is logic pertaining to redirect youtu.be video ids within the 404 handler. Weird that its never triggered.

invidious/src/invidious/routes/errors.cr

Lines 37 to 41 in 3450896

	# Check if item is video ID
	if item.match(/^[a-zA-Z0-9_-]{11}$/) && YT_POOL.client &.head("/watch?v=#{item}").status_code != 404
	env.response.headers["Location"] = url
	haltf env, status_code: 302
	end

Probably something related to this short-circuit here.

invidious/src/invidious/routes/errors.cr

Lines 13 to 16 in 3450896

	if response.body.empty?
	env.response.headers["Location"] = "/"
	haltf env, status_code: 302
	end

[rezad1393]

these are also not correctly redirected?
https://youtube.com/live/video-id
like:
https://youtube.com/live/ZPnlpbymGZc

[rezad1393]

many of youtube redirections that work with piped, don't work with invidious.
like this https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaB9TDPxm_dpNx6sDpZTuzg/featured
because it have /features at the end, it goes to homepage of instance and not even the channel page.

[unixfox]

many of youtube redirections that work with piped, don't work with invidious.
like this https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCaB9TDPxm_dpNx6sDpZTuzg/featured
because it have /features at the end, it goes to homepage of instance and not even the channel page.

This is a separate issue, this is because we do not support this functionality called "featured".

Could you please open a separate issue for that?

[rezad1393]

Could you please open a separate issue for that?

done.
#4091

[github-actions]

This issue has been automatically marked as stale and will be closed in 30 days because it has not had recent activity and is much likely outdated. If you think this issue is still relevant and applicable, you just have to post a comment and it will be unmarked.

[JacksonChen666]

Applicable on 2024.08.26-4782a67 (no modified source code link). Bugs don't fix themselves.