YouTube links : "Your browser is up to date" clicking links from Office Documents

[paulkerton]

We're getting an interesting behaviour when clicking YouTube links from inside Office Documents when using Office.

It's taking people to a "Your browser is up to date" page rather than to the video.

 

If you upload the documents into Google Drive then open them in Docs/Sheets/Slides the links work as expected.

Anyone else seeing this?

[ICT-Joe]

Yes, I've started seeing this today! We had a user with YouTube links in a PowerPoint saved on the network rather than the cloud and it takes them to the "Your browser is up to date" page. When you click "Browse YouTube", it just takes you to the home page rather than the video in the link. Edited February 9, 2022 by ICT-Joe
Changed Second Quote

[David44]

We have been seeing something similar when we have links to a Google Doc within a Word Document.

[mattgrimley]

Yep, Embedded Youtube videos in Powerpoint files open this page as of today. We're on Office2019 and the latest Edge browser, so no idea where the issue lies!

[Taz786110]

Happening to us too. I thought changing default browser may help - but edge to chrome or vice versa you get the same thing.

[mattgrimley]

There is a thread open on Google's support site, but i have no idea if they actually pay attention to those or not. It might be worth adding voices to that thread:

https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/150006763/your-browser-is-up-to-date?hl=en

[chazzy2501]

dang! me too.

[DavR]

+1, we had this linking to Google Forms from an Excel spreadsheet. If we saved the spreadsheet as a PDF, the problem went away.

 

I thought this was something to do with the fact the link was generated by formulae in the spreadsheet, but interesting to see others having this problem.

[E_G_R2]

OK had our first one today. They work fine when running from OneDrive or 'Files' in a team (same thing really).

[E_G_R2]

Could it be a version issue? We are using Office2016.

 

All browser versions are OK

[Badaz52]

This is a very annoying problem exists in Office 2019 too but is fine with Office 365. What I have noticed is if you copy the URL of a video and paste it into PP in the 365 version it places the title of the video rather than the URL and then clicking on it hyperlinks properly. It's one of those things though that I can't see YT fixing because it doesn't appear to be broken as such.

[E_G_R2]

OK we use Smoothwall and allow YouTube video's by changing them to embedded. These one's work!

 

So this URL -

dosn't work (gets the annoying message screen)

 

If I change the URL so that Smoothwall lets it through as an embedded video it works!!!

 

https://www.youtube.com/embed/3eBIHdyGJLQ

 

I'm not suggesting its a Smoothwall issue as YouTube works fine

[themightymrp]

We've just started to experience this too. Not sure why? We are running Office 365 rather than 2019

[E_G_R2]

Strange a colleague who has O365 and Firefox as their default Browser didn't have a problem.

[Badaz52]

We've just started to experience this too. Not sure why? We are running Office 365 rather than 2019

 

See now that is weird as we are ok on 365 but not on 2019.

[themightymrp]

Sorry, engage brain. Looking after 2 schools - the one having the issue is using Office 2019, the other is using 365 and has no problems (that I'm aware of)

[David44]

Odd that this is coming up now. We first had reports of this (or something very similar) six months ago.

 

A user was pasting a URL to a Google Doc in to a Word (2019) document, when they clicked the link in the Word document they were taken to this page https://support.google.com/drive/answer/6283888. Is that the page that everyone else is seeing now?

 

Interestingly, if you use tinyURL or something similar and paste that URL in to the Word document, it works, the link goes to Tiny URL which then redirects to the Google Doc's URL and it opens. I just checked and we still have this issue but since only one user reported it, we haven't been actively looking in to it.

 

My guess is that when the user clicks on the link in the Word document, Word fetches the URL. Since Word isn't a supported browser, the link redirects to the one telling the user to update their browser.

[Badaz52]

Odd that this is coming up now. We first had reports of this (or something very similar) six months ago.

 

A user was pasting a URL to a Google Doc in to a Word (2019) document, when they clicked the link in the Word document they were taken to this page https://support.google.com/drive/answer/6283888. Is that the page that everyone else is seeing now?

 

Interestingly, if you use tinyURL or something similar and paste that URL in to the Word document, it works, the link goes to Tiny URL which then redirects to the Google Doc's URL and it opens. I just checked and we still have this issue but since only one user reported it, we haven't been actively looking in to it.

 

My guess is that when the user clicks on the link in the Word document, Word fetches the URL. Since Word isn't a supported browser, the link redirects to the one telling the user to update their browser.

 

It takes you to this link:

 

https://www.youtube.com/supported_browsers

[msi_school]

We are seeing this as well on http://www.youtube links but not m.youtube links except www. sometimes works as well especially if you are testing links and have clicked a lot recently

[RetiredBut]

I suspect this trouble will be resolved rather soon and that is because it is likely related to some changes in what browsers are being allowed on YouTube. For many parts of the globe the IE11 browser has just recently been shut down on YouTube and when the tech folks do that sort of work these sorts of glitches will sometimes happen. That is a mighty complicated bit of tech work to stop IE11 from being used on a site like YouTube.

[cheaptonersucks]

Hi, just wondered if anyone has any news/info on this issue, as although we have workarounds, it’s driving staff up the wall at our school?

Thanks

[Koldov]

This hasn't been referred to me as an issue here so I haven't paid it much attention, but I just looked at this and we see the same issue.

The only thing I have come up with that seems to work for me is adding the browser into the hyperlink (and this so far has only worked with Edge)...

 

microsoft-edge:[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUx15xf6z8Y[/url]

 

It does give a security warning.

[cheaptonersucks]

Thanks for that, we are advising staff to upload their PowerPoint files to OneDrive as athough that stupid YouTube landing page appears when they use Office 2016 locally, when they upload the PP files to OneDrive the links work just fine??

[andy_b]

Not ideal, but this seems to "fix" it:

 

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-US/office/troubleshoot/office-suite-issues/cannot-locate-server-when-click-hyperlink

 

Office uses the Urlmon.dll file to handle all Internet transitions.

 

In this case, the Urlmon.dll file sends a request to get a file via http:// through the proxy server. The proxy server sees that the request came from Internet Explorer, based upon the HTTP User Agent field of the http://request. It then gives an error 403, basically saying "Access Denied."

 

The Urlmon.dll file gets this and simply returns the error message mentioned earlier. The error means that the request failed, but it never states why it failed.

 

The workaround is to use a ShellExecute() on the URL. This allows the operating system to start the URL on the default browser. If the default browser isn't restricted by the proxy server, the proper page is displayed.

 

Going to guess that youtube is doing a redirection based on whatever User agent urlmon.dll is presenting. Adding the registry key "bypasses" urlmon and therefore stops the user agent redirection.

 

Not sure if there are any other consequeces to this reg change, I have tested a few documents for "A hyperlink may not go to a Microsoft Word document or a Microsoft Excel worksheet after you use this workaround." and not found any broken ones yet.

Edited February 23, 2022 by andy_b

[cheaptonersucks]

Thanks, I will have a look at the information. We haven’t used IE for many years and am not sure why that reg key has changed recently, but I will have a read, thanks. This issue has only been reported since returning from the half term break last week! We haven’t changed anything this end at all. This seems minor but is affecting a large number of staff!! Edited February 23, 2022 by cheaptonersucks