This is an interesting one, I can reproduce the issues with the links in the OP here on Meta, but locally and on our internal Discourse site they are fetched and rendered fine:
@roke_julian_lockhart are these links not rendering properly on your own site, or just not here on Meta?
---
> [@martin](#):
>
> Are these links not rendering properly on your own site, or just not here on Meta?
@martin, _some_ others, too:
#### Non-Shorts
With [`https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs3sTnLO6EE&lc=Ugyi1VtrCVd2POTc82N4AaABAg#:~:text=A%20Screencast%20Of%20LinkedIn%20Persona%20Verification%20Failure`](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs3sTnLO6EE&lc=Ugyi1VtrCVd2POTc82N4AaABAg#:~:text=A%20Screencast%20Of%20LinkedIn%20Persona%20Verification%20Failure), this reproduces at:
1.
#### [`discuss.kde.org/new-topic`](https://discuss.kde.org/)
 \[1\]
2.
#### [`forum.fairphone.com/new-topic`](https://forum.fairphone.com/new-topic)
 \[1:1\]
However, at [`discussion.fedoraproject.org`](https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/new-topic), it renders:
 \[1:2\]
#### Shorts
> ****
>
> With [`https://youtube.com/shorts/Cs3sTnLO6EE`](https://youtube.com/shorts/Cs3sTnLO6EE), the undermentioned is reproduced:
>
> > [@Youtube links don't show preview anymore](https://meta.discourse.org/t/youtube-links-dont-show-preview-anymore/159755/1):
> >
> > our forum doesn’t show the preview image on a Youtube video anymore. It only shows a link that
>
> …at:
>
> 1.
> #### [`discuss.kde.org/new-topic`](https://discuss.kde.org/)
>
>  \[1:3\]
>
> 2.
> #### [`forum.fairphone.com/new-topic`](https://forum.fairphone.com/new-topic)
>
>  \[1:4\]
>
> However, as before, at [`discussion.fedoraproject.org`](https://discussion.fedoraproject.org/new-topic), it renders:
>
>  \[1:5\]
What are Fedora doing so correctly?
* * *
1. [`bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=511477#c1`](https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=511477#c1:~:text=2025%2D11%2D03%2021:06:27%20GMT-,Duplicates%20https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=510982%23c2.,-***%20This%20bug)
---
Is this issue solved, I opened a topic for issue similar currently going in my Board
> [@I have issue to embed Youtube video - YouTube Error 153](https://meta.discourse.org/t/i-have-issue-to-embed-youtube-video/387672/2):
>
> this is my topic link
---
@hameedacpa, this is completely irrelevant to that, because this is about the previewer. Additionally, you can confirm that it’s not been remediated by merely utilising the previewer. I suggest that you install a translator.
---
I found this topic including partial issue that I’m facing too
Actually all Youtube videos not working like before and my forums is not having a customization as it is based on the original board
---
@hameedacpa, thanks. That is similar, although I doubt equivalent. The presence of an invalid thumbnail icon appears to demonstrate that, alongside the different aspect ratio of the `
### Author:  [@martin](https://meta.discourse.org/u/martin)
#### Post date: [November 10, 2025, 7:20am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/youtube-uris-fail-to-render-thumbnails-when-oneboxed/387673/10 "2025-11-10T07:20:21Z")
Something is messing up in our Onebox flow here, I think to do with redirection/FinalDestination. If I use `curl` like so:
```plaintext
curl -L https://youtube.com/shorts/Cs3sTnLO6EE
```
I am able to find the `title` and other `meta` tags in the response:
```plaintext
curl -L https://youtube.com/shorts/Cs3sTnLO6EE | htmlq 'head > meta'
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 0
100 947221 0 947221 0 0 406174 0 --:--:-- 0:00:02 --:--:-- 504109
...
```
```plaintext
curl -L https://youtube.com/shorts/Cs3sTnLO6EE | htmlq 'head > title'
% Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 --:--:-- --:--:-- --:--:-- 0
100 992110 0 992110 0 0 445530 0 --:--:-- 0:00:02 --:--:-- 739941
A Screencast Of LinkedIn Persona Verification Failure - YouTube
```
However when I get the response via our oneboxer code, these are the only tags (except script + style ones) I get in the `` :
```plaintext
uri = FinalDestination.new("https://youtube.com/shorts/Cs3sTnLO6EE", Oneboxer.get_final_destination_options("https://youtube.com/shorts/Cs3sTnLO6EE")).resolve
doc2 = Onebox::Helpers.fetch_response(uri)
Nokogiri.HTML(doc2).css("head").children.each do |headel|
next if headel.name == "script" || headel.name == "style"
puts headel.to_s
end; nil;
- YouTube
```
I thought maybe this `ignore_redirects` was causing it, but if I modify the FD options it made no difference:
>
I suspect YouTube is probably cutting down on scraping because they are having the same AI scraper problem as everyone else, but not sure what specifically is causing us to get the blank response (that looks like it gets meta/title tags populated via JS the same as if you visit in the browser).
This code here for youtube oneboxing is what is expecting the title + image tags to be populated:
>
Will keep investigating 👀
---
> [@martin](#):
>
> the same as if you visit in the browser
Could be that they are only shipping what looks necessary to save bandwidth? Our Oneboxes do use a browser user agent, so maybe they just honour that and say: “Cool. You don’t need OpenGraph then”?
---
Okay I think I have a fix here, we should use oEmbed for this stuff from YouTube instead:
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/35959](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/pull/35959)
> [@ted](#):
>
> Oneboxes do use a browser user agent, so maybe they just honour that and say: “Cool. You don’t need OpenGraph then”?
I don’t think so, it seems like 2 things:
1. Some sort of weird IP rate limiting/redirection, because _sometimes_ for different sites on our hosting the OP link works
2. This code no longer working, because the JSON that we expect is no longer there [discourse/lib/onebox/engine/youtube\_onebox.rb at e144ec07c8c17ad0f73427524bccc10c074d5a19 · discourse/discourse · GitHub](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/e144ec07c8c17ad0f73427524bccc10c074d5a19/lib/onebox/engine/youtube_onebox.rb#L31-L40)
Overall the oEmbed URL seems safer, for the OP video it’s `https://www.youtube.com/oembed?url=https://youtube.com/shorts/Cs3sTnLO6EE&format=json` and you get this kind of response:
---
Okay with that fix merged, this is working now 🙂
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs3sTnLO6EE)
Note that onebox URL responses are cached for 1 day, I had to do this in the console `Oneboxer.preview(“https://youtube.com/shorts/Cs3sTnLO6EE”, invalidate_oneboxes: true)` to see the new result.
---