Seasons of the Ukulele

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Is it just me? Site settings query

redpaul1

Hello everyone.

I've recently run into three issues with the site that I can't find answers to, neither in discussions here nor on the wonderweb. I wonder if anyone else has experienced the same & if so, can help. These three issues arise whether I'm on my phone (Samsung) or laptop (Windows) or whether I open my (any) browser in regular or incognito mode.

The first is that I can no longer preview a message before posting. I have to publish first, then edit. I know the 'eye' icon bottom left is supposed to reveal a preview, but for me all that happens on clicking it is that I'm left with just the message header visible at the bottom of the page and nothing else.

The second, related, issue is that I can't delete a post by clicking on the 'dustbin' icon bottom right of the published post. Apparently I "don't have the permissions to do that." The only way for me to delete a post is to click on the 'eye' icon bottom right of the published post. But the record of my deleted posts remains, littering up the screen. There's a lot of them, of course, because I can't preview a post; only publish, then edit. My guess is that clicking on the 'eye' icon (bottom right) means that I'm hiding the post, not deleting it: even though, when I do click on the 'eye' icon, the resultant 'confirm action' dialog, that then pops up, does still ask whether am I sure that I do want to 'delete,' not 'hide' my post. The reason behind my guess is that I am able to restore all those deleted posts; they haven't gone into the trash.

As I mentioned at the outset, these first two issues arise regardless of platform, browser or regardless of whether I'm in open or incognito mode.

The third and separate issue is that I can no longer watch contributions as embedded videos. Trying to open one from within the thread results in an 'Error 153' message from YouTube. If I want to watch the video, I have go to YT to do so.

From what I have discovered researching this issue, the problem lies partly with YT seeking to drive viewer engagement to their platform (which is also why video titles are no longer generated in the thumbnails for embedded videos); but nevertheless there are, apparently, ways of editing the global settings (? <ititle> ?) in seasonistaforum.flarum.cloud to force embedded viewing. Can anyone comment authoritatively on this? Or again, is it just me?

If you've got this far, thanks for reading!! All suggestions gratefully received. Solutions even more so!! 😊

Joko

I've had the Error 153 thing since day one on this platform.

DelGriff

Joko

Joko I've had the Error 153 thing since day one on this platform.

Me too - never been a problem as it gives the option to go directly to the video on YouTube, where you can like and/or comment appropriately. 👍🏼

@redpaul1 I’ll comment in more depth as and when time permits, Paul. Thanks for your observations! 🙂

LimousinLil

I agree with all three of your observations, Paul, and have also found that it is impossible to upload photos from my files … but, maybe that's a good thing!

redpaul1

LimousinLil I'm running into this problem too (while trying to post screenshots illustrating the issues I've run into). Thanks for flagging it.

redpaul1

DelGriff Joko As to Error 153, for me this arose only intermittently at the outset (I think it might have been down to some ad-block extension) but now it's every time.

DelGriff

redpaul1

Unfortunately, although I’m the most active of the admin team, unlike most of the others I don’t have an IT background, so am the least qualified to answer your queries, Paul. I can only offer a couple of observations and workarounds for now:

redpaul1 The first is that I can no longer preview a message before posting.

The preview is working for me, Paul. Was your issue just a one-off, or has it been happening for a while? And you should find that if you scroll to the bottom of the forum background behind the reply window you’re typing in, you should see how your post is appearing keystroke by keystroke as a ‘faded’ message - ie as a kind of ‘live preview’. Not sure I’ve described that particularly well, although I guess if you’re typing on a small phone screen it’s not that easy to see.

redpaul1 The second, related, issue is that I can't delete a post by clicking on the 'dustbin' icon bottom right of the published post

You’re not the first to have mentioned this, but unfortunately, when I checked the forum admin settings, the ‘own post deletion setting’ has actually always been enabled. In other words, it should be possible, but actually isn’t. I can only offer a workaround to this, which is to contact one of the admin team by PM and ask us to delete an unwanted post for you. Wendy @UkeCan1 and me @DelGriff are the most active of the admin team here. I’d be very happy to help - you may notice that I’ve already deleted your unwanted posts in the latest season’s thread, Paul.

redpaul1 The third and separate issue is that I can no longer watch contributions as embedded videos.

Me too - never been a problem as the error message presented when you do this (error 153) gives the option to go directly to the video on YouTube, where you can like and/or comment appropriately. Which, imho, isn’t a bad thing.

LimousinLil have also found that it is impossible to upload photos from my files

I’ve already looked into the site settings for this and can’t understand why it isn’t possible - it certainly works for me. So again, the only workaround I can offer is to suggest that you post your message as usual (writing ‘image to follow here’ where you want the pic to appear), and email the image you want to include to me (PM me if you don’t already have my email address). I can then insert it in the required place in your post. Not ideal, but unless or until one of the more tech-savvy admins solves the issue, it’s all I can offer.

As a footnote, can I just add that I know the forum isn’t perfect, as illustrated above. But please bear in mind that it’s free to all, and those of us attempting to keep it running do so in our spare time, without (in my case) any experience of doing anything like it previously, and without reward (except for knowing that we are keeping this fine community alive, where it would otherwise have perished at the hands of our previous forum hosts). I know it can be frustrating when things don’t work perfectly, but we are here and we are thriving - and that’s the most important thing of all! Thank you all for being a part of it! ❤️

UkeCan1

@DelGriff @BigKingVelour @EdwinAdmin @Edwin Is there a Flarum admin forum where we can ask these questions? That would seem a good place to start. I too have been annoyed by these issues and haven't had time to look into them.

I really really really miss being able to see the YouTube video titles without having to click to a whole new tab to view them. It's time consuming and resource-expensive.

LimousinLil

DelGriff Couldn't agree more, Del! It is an achievement to have been able to maintain an independent site and any "niggles" are worth what we have been able to establish here. (As an aside, I can't help but wonder how successfully our previous host site, with its indefatigable "mods", is able to maintain its "no politics" stance in these unbelievable times. Do testing discussions over which strings to use and which eye-wateringly expensive uke needs to be added to one's extensive - but never to be played "on air" - collection; still prevail, whilst any mention of the current world order - or lack thereof - would result in instant banishment? Oh, the wonders of Cloud Cuckoo Land! But then, I suppose not many of the aforementioned priceless ukuleles are currently stuck in the Strait of Hormuz en route to their new owners, and who cares if your neighbours have been abducted by ICE … one can always tune out such goings on in order to tune up one's carefully considered new set of strings.) Oh, dear … ban me, Del!!!

redpaul1

DelGriff Hi Del. Firstly thanks for going into this so thoroughly for me. Second of course I appreciate it is a free site and the work you, Wendy and the other mods put in to keep it running. I hope that nothing I posted came across as criticism of the way things are run.

As to the substantive issues, I once heard it said that there's no such things as 'bugs' in computer software, merely undocumented features. Clearly, there's the odd undocumented feature here, but as long as I know it's not just me. I can happily work with what we've got. I'm certainly not going to be troubling you with requests to post pictures - thank you for the offer, but it would be going above and beyond for you. Thanks also for getting rid of all my deleted posts. Hopefully, I won't be calling on you to delete any more of those either.

Cheers! Paul

DelGriff

redpaul1

redpaul1 I hope that nothing I posted came across as criticism of the way things are run.

Not at all, Paul - no worries. We need to hear this stuff! 👍🏼🙂

BigKingVelour

It appears the ability to embed videos in a post, which I think is what you are talking about, is turned on. Not really sure how to go beyond that.

redpaul1

BigKingVelour Hi Rick, it's not the ability to embed videos that's the issue, rather it's the ability to view embedded videos as embedded videos, i.e., within the (a) thread. I'm finding I'm forced always now to have to open the video in YT instead, which didn't use to be the case. Effectively, embedding currently simply creates a hyperlink associated with a picture instead of text.

From what I've read, the initiative behind this lies with changes in the YT/Google API; seeking to drive viewer traffic from the bulletin boards in which YT videos are embedded to their own platform, and so drive up their advertising revenues. This is also the reason why titles are no longer automatically generated/displayed in embedded YT videos: if you want to know what the video's about, you now have to open it - at which point you're sent over to YT (hopefully - for them - to watch a couple of ads before the material you want to view finally displays).

However, the fact that between clicking on the video and being thrown over to YT, there appears an 'Error 153' message, does suggest that possibly something can be changed in the board global settings to re-establish the ability to view embedded videos in situ (originally you could get round the error by whitelisting this site on any adblock you might be using, but no longer).

I read something somewhere about some tag called '<ititle>' being the thing to look at, but whether this is a red herring or no is way above my levels of competence.

That's why I titled this thread 'Is it just me?' The previous three paragraphs are all a bit 'conspiracy theory' - Might it not just be me simply having some setting wrong somewhere?!

Anyhow, this is all simply by way of bringing you up to speed on the issues being discussed. If it's not just me, then I suspect that even if there is a current solution, sooner or later YT/Google will find a way to break that and reimpose their policy of forcing you to watch their videos exclusively on their platform. Paul

CanadaJim

I don't find this an inconvenience, since I have to watch on YT in order to comment.

redpaul1

CanadaJim Of course, you can go to YT leave comments there, but this isn't a choice you're making: it's a workaround, an action forced on you by YT, in order to drive traffic away from our forum to their platform.

If we continue down this route, the ultimate outcome will be that the only reason to visit the forum will be to discover this Season's theme and to get the link to the playlist; following which, there would be no reason to revisit the forum again for the rest of that week. If you're looking to build/maintain a community here, relying on this workaround is not a sustainable option long-term.

I note that viewing VT content within a thread is still possible on UU (link here to an example - since I can't post a screenshot - note how being able to view an embedded video in the forum into which it's embedded - a video, incidentally, that does also display title/creator info in the embed thumbnail - helps promotes interaction within a thread). Perhaps someone who knows what to look for for, could take a look over there to see what they do to make embedded viewing possible.

When searching myself for the causes of, and solutions to YT 153 errors, a commonly proffered suggestion is that it arises from Using incorrect or outdated YouTube embed codes. This post on github offers a fuller, but more technical explanation:

`Description`

openedon Oct 29, 2025

`Expected Behavior`

Adding a Browser Source with a YouTube embed URL (in other words, in the formathttps://www.youtube.com/embed/VIDEOID) should load the resulting video and play as expected, without having to navigate or interact with YouTube's full desktop webpage.

`Current Behavior`

The embedded player fails to initialize with YouTube error code 153, indicating a misconfiguration.

`Steps to Reproduce`

Create or edit an existing Browser Source
Add a YouTube embed URL in the URL field — as an example,https://www.youtube.com/embed/YDvsBbKfLPA/
Attempt to start the embedded video

`Anything else we should know?`

Guidance from YouTube/Google suggests they are enforcing a new restriction on player embeds:

"Our Terms of Service require embedders to provide a HTTP Referer. If this information is missing, viewers attempting to watch embedded YouTube videos will encounter blocked playback and an error screen (“error 153”). These viewers will still be able to click “Watch on YouTube” to view the video on YouTube. Note that directly accessing the embedded player without an enclosing webpage or context (such as accessing it from your web browser's address bar) will typically not have a HTTP Referer and users will encounter the error screen; the embedded player is only intended to be used within an embedded context.

Embedders who want to fix blocked playback can provide a HTTP Referer to their requests to YouTube. See the developer documentation for technical details."

A more technical explanation can be foundin YouTube's API documentation.

The above suggests the Browser Source is not providing the information needed to avoid throwing this error. Other software that allows users to embed YouTube videos are reportingsimilar issues.

This mention of an HTTP Referer, led me to this coding suggestion for specifying our forum's HTTP Referer policy (whatever that may mean): to make sure that our HTTP Referer policy is not Referer-Policy: same-origin but Referer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin ("Referer's" not a typo btw, it's this idiosyncratic American objection to doubling a consonant between two short vowels when the final syllable of a word is a qualifier viz. traveler, marvelous, etc. - and of course, all code's written in American).

`Simon Willison's TILs`

`My blog`

`Error 153 Video player configuration error on YouTube embeds`

I recently noticed that almost every YouTube video onmy blogwas displaying the same mysterious error message:

[snip]

[These edits to how I code YT links in my blog] mostly fixed the problem…

(Weirdly on some refreshes of the page I [still] get the… error. I'm not sure why that is.)

`UPDATE: Avoid Referrer-Policy: same-origin#`

As explainedover here, it turned out the reason I still saw some failures is that Django's SecurityMiddleware defaults to sending this header:

$$
Referrer-Policy: same-origin
$$

ButYouTube's documentationexplains that this header, which strips all Referer information on links to external sites, causes the error in YouTube.

The fix is to send this HTTP header instead:

$$
Referrer-Policy: strict-origin-when-cross-origin
$$

Or leave the Referrer-Policy off entirely.

Created 2025-09-30T10:07:00-07:00, updated 2025-11-30T

In any case, I'm sorry to keep banging on about this, for myself as much as for those following these exchanges., particularly on a beautiful Bank Holiday morning.

Hopefully, we will be able to find someone here with the coding skills/experience to resolve this.

DelGriff

@redpaul1

I’m sorry Paul, but for most of us this isn’t a huge problem. And I don’t agree with your suggestion that it works against the community - there’s plenty of interaction in the threads, in spite of the Error 153 issue having been around since we first moved here. I’m sorry if it spoils your experience of the forum, but I think most of us would agree with Jim’s earlier comment:

CanadaJim I don't find this an inconvenience, since I have to watch on YT in order to comment.

It’s actually very easy to switch back and forth between the forum and YouTube when working your way through the posts on a thread here. I don’t see YouTube as some kind of competitor in the way you seem to be suggesting, Paul - in fact I think we are very lucky to have it - it facilitates what we do here very well. And, just like the forum itself, it’s free.

redpaul1

DelGriff CanadaJim I wasn't aware that it was a rule of the forum that you have to watch on YT in order to comment, but if it is, so be it.

It certainly find it an frustrating experience though of course I accept your decision not to pursue the matter.. I do appreciate the time and effort you put into keeping the forum going regardless of any glitches that arise from time to time.