Stop YouTube asking for sign in when using Edge.

[kennysarmy]

Hi,

 

Just had a teacher at one of my school's advise this:

 

When I go in via Chrome I can access YouTube fine and search for videos and they play as normal.

 

When I go in via Edge I can access YouTube and search for videos but when I try to play them it asks me to sign in to confirm I'm not a bot.

 

The main issue is that when we click on links in PowerPoint they open in Edge, not in Chrome. So a long way round would be to copy the YouTube address and paste it into Chrome. However, I don't think many staff are going to have the patience to do that mid-lesson so it would be good to find a fix.

 

Thanks,

 

This has only just started happening during the summer....

 

Any ideas?

[midweek]

What web filter are you using?

 

We have Securly and they are aware of this but don't seem to have a fix. We are an M365 school so don't use Chrome.

[kennysarmy]

What web filter are you using?

 

We have Securly and they are aware of this but don't seem to have a fix. We are an M365 school so don't use Chrome.

 

Securly too.

[midweek]

Best I've managed to do is set up SSO with Google Workspace (even though we don't use it) so the staff and pupils can use their school email to log into Youtube. Once they're logged in for the session all the powerpoint links seem to work fine. It's hardly ideal though.

Send a support request to Securly so they know more people are having this issue.

[kennysarmy]

Best I've managed to do is set up SSO with Google Workspace (even though we don't use it) so the staff and pupils can use their school email to log into Youtube. Once they're logged in for the session all the powerpoint links seem to work fine. It's hardly ideal though.

Send a support request to Securly so they know more people are having this issue.

 

Have done, and referenced this post, I'll let you know if I get any joy.

 

The more we use Securly the less impressed we are to be honest.

[midweek]

I know what you mean. We've had Securly for about 3 years now and it was a breath of fresh air compared to Smoothwall (easier to set up, better safeguarding reporting etc) but a few niggles have been creeping in over the last while which is making it more problematic. Embedded video's in websites and now the YouTube issue.

Their support are generally pretty good and responsive but when they hit a brick wall, as with the Youtube issue, it feels like a bit of a shrug of the shoulders. If it works with Google (as they supply the US primarily that's their bread and butter) then they are less interested in the M365 schools.

[kennysarmy]

Response from Securly.

 

Thanks for reaching out. Starting at the beginning of August we noticed that YouTube is requiring users to sign in if the detect you are behind a proxy. While this is very unhelpful this is a change on behaviour on the Youtube service rather than a change to the Securly Product. We see similar behaviour on other website and now Google/YouTube are implementing the same checks when they detect traffic is coming from behind a proxy, As a result this will only affect DNS and SmartPAC filtering and the Extension should be unaffected.

 

We have raised our concerns about this change in behaviour with our contacts and Google and YouTube.

 

 

Kind Regards,

Eric Coetzee | EMEA Senior Support Engineer

[altecsole]

Response from Securly.

As a result this will only affect DNS and SmartPAC filtering and the Extension should be unaffected.

 

I've done some testing and removed the SmartPAC setting, and installed the browser Extension, but YouTube is still prompting for a sign-in. Staff are not happy!

[midweek]

I've just done the same today and can confirm it doesn't ask for the sign in for Youtube. Are you still forwarding your AD dns to the smartDNS IPs Securly gave you? I changed that to Google (but I guess your ISP DNS or Cloudflare would work the same) and the extension continues to function but allows youtube, and some other embedded video on other websites, to work without a sign in.

Seems to block what we expect but I guess I'll find out tomorrow when staff and pupils try to break it!

[altecsole]

Are you still forwarding your AD dns to the smartDNS IPs Securly gave you?

 

Yes, our DNS servers are set to use the Securly DNS.

 

I'll raise a support ticket and see what Securly say. If you could feedback on your experience today, that would be appreciated.

[StephenPink]

Thanks everyone already reporting this - I've had the same today at one of our sites using Securly and have raised with support now. Will keep you updated.

 

Just to add - we've been using Securly for at least 3 years now, and whilst it's mostly been smooth, one of the two sites we have with them seems to have constant issues, that are never resolved. They rebuilt the entire backend for this site, and screwed it up massively so had to redo again, and ever since then hasn't been the same - and every issue they are now requesting Wireshark packet captures for...

[midweek]

If you could feedback on your experience today, that would be appreciated.

 

So far so good. Just had to make very sure the browser extension block/allow stuff was correctly set up via GPO for Edge. We don't install any other browsers.

[StephenPink]

I had the below response to my ticket:

 

Thanks for reaching out, I apologize for this issue, seems like Google made some changes to their control for none-signed accounts and causing this behavior.

https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/10128

At the moment we are working with Google to exempt our traffic from this in order to stop this issue.

I'm attaching your ticket to the engineering case that we created to track this down.

[kennysarmy]

I had the below response to my ticket:

 

Staff at my affected school are now starting to create their own Google accounts to get around this issue.

 

Sites not using Securly for web filtering are not affected at all and are using YouTube as before!

[midweek]

That's 3 days we've been using Edge with the extension only (no smartPAC url, no DNS forwarding to the Securly smartDNS IPs) and it seems to be functioning as expected. Actually a bit better than when it was the smartPAC as embedded video in some websites that were previously an issue are now behaving. It still blocks everything we would expect.

Youtube and video embedded in PowerPoint now plays without the faff of a google sign in.

 

Fingers crossed...!

[StephenPink]

Chased again today, and had the below back:

 

Unfortunately, I don't have any update on this, we made huge progress in the US and we are getting great feedback, we should get the UK and Canada going in a moment. I don't have ETA, but let me escalate immediately.

 

We don't have Google at this site, so are stuck just waiting on them!

[Noxid_w]

Still got this issue myself. Anyone else heard anything from Securly? Anyone got a decent workaround? I've tried exploring creating google accounts with SSO but keep hitting brickwalls, I think you need to pay for licenses, and the Google support is non existent unless you pay.

[kennysarmy]

Still got this issue myself. Anyone else heard anything from Securly? Anyone got a decent workaround? I've tried exploring creating google accounts with SSO but keep hitting brickwalls, I think you need to pay for licenses, and the Google support is non existent unless you pay.

 

Thanks for getting in touch and for also letting us know about the communication taking place in the EduGeek forum. This is a known issue that Securly has formally raised with Google Education and they are working on it.

 

https://status.securly.com/ :

 

Several School districts have reported receiving an error message when attempting to access YouTube: "Sign in to confirm you are not a bot, this helps protect our community." The issue is linked to an anti-bot measure recently put in place by YouTube. The new measure requires certain traffic sources to log in to their Google account to view video content. While this isn't directly related to Securly, it impacts schools, particularly those that don't use Google accounts, like those in the Azure ecosystem, making it difficult for those students to log in to YouTube. Securly has escalated the problem to Google's education account representatives who have informed us that the issue should be resolved by the end of next week for our users in the US. We are working on a timeline for our users in the UK and Canada. We are also currently investigating potential workarounds from an engineering perspective. More information to come as we receive updates from Google

 

We appreciate that this is inconvenient for our schools and their staff and we apologise to you for this. Unfortunately in this scenario we're at the mercy of Google.

 

There has been some progress made by them this week in terms of whitelisting some of Securly's IPs.

 

Unfortunately, I can't give you an exact timeframe for this to be resolved. Our best estimation for some time at the start of next week.

 

We'll keep you updated as soon as there is more progress and appreciate your patience at the time.

 

Best wishes,

 

Alex

[speakercon]

Is anyone having certain youtube videos (mostly music) not loading either (circle just spinning) - this one for example -

[StephenPink]

Forgot to say, had this update on 17/09:

 

I am happy to inform you that the fix is now LIVE on the UK Cluster, and we have already received some positive feedback.

Please monitor the YT sign-in bot issue and inform me if you notice any improvements.

Thank you for your patience.

 

Appears to be sorted for us.

[kennysarmy]

Forgot to say, had this update on 17/09:

 

 

 

Appears to be sorted for us.

 

and us, confirmed by staff at the school too.

[Noxid_w]

Whilst it works, every website now thinks we are coming from USA, so BBC Youtube videos complain that it's not available in our country, websites list things in $, this is the nail in the coffin for me and securly, I'll be looking at competitors when our contract comes up for renewal. I've had enough of them messing up what feels like every month.

[StephenPink]

Whilst it works, every website now thinks we are coming from USA, so BBC Youtube videos complain that it's not available in our country, websites list things in $, this is the nail in the coffin for me and securly, I'll be looking at competitors when our contract comes up for renewal. I've had enough of them messing up what feels like every month.

 

Interesting - we've not had that, but have definitely had our fair share of issues (although weirdly, it only ever seems to be one site and not the other...)

 

Anyway I'd be interested to hear who else you would look at? The reason we chose Securly was that there were so few options out there that ticked all the options, for a predominantly 1:1 iPad site.

 

Cheers

[Wired_Inside_90]

Can't you use GPO's in powerpoint/office to set default browser? this happened a while ago for me with an update in outlook.

[michaeljbrewis97]

We are a Google school and have started to have the same issue - we dont get the prompt to even sign in, just the blocked message on Embeded YouTube videos in Google Slides. We use Smoothwall so have contacted them to see what they say.