Youtube /v3/search API no longer returning live videos

Question

I was using the YouTube search API to retrieve live videos by channel ID, but recently, the API has begun to return an empty response.

For example, I am retrieving from https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/search?part=snippet&type=video&eventType=live&key={YOUTUBE_KEY}&channelId=UCPde4guD9yFBRzkxk2PatoA which should return all videos which are live from channelID = UCPde4guD9yFBRzkxk2PatoA. This channel has a 24/7 live stream, but the response I get back is:

{
 "kind": "youtube#searchListResponse",
 "etag": "\"8jEFfXBrqiSrcF6Ee7MQuz8XuAM/-f6JA5_OcXz2RWuH1mpAA2_9mM8\"",
 "regionCode": "US",
 "pageInfo": {
  "totalResults": 0,
  "resultsPerPage": 5
 },
 "items": []
}

As I mentioned before, this request was retrieving data fine up until recently. I was unable to find any changes on the YouTube API docs, so I'm wondering if anyone has any idea on what changed or if there's a different approach I can take to pull live videos by channel ID.

another-cranky-old-guy · Accepted Answer · 2019-09-17T16:16:34.940

4

Not an answer, but it seems that endpoint isn't returning ANY recent videos that would include live. From what I can tell it doesn't return anything published in the previous 24 hours.

Found an open issue on Google Support https://support.google.com/youtube/thread/14611425?hl=en

edited Sep 17 '19 at 16:16

answered Sep 17 '19 at 15:59

another-cranky-old-guy

114
2
9

Thank you for the info. It sounds like there's an actual problem with the API then. – ceejayc7 Sep 17 '19 at 18:09

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 04 '20 at 03:59

1

As an alternative, instead, you could load "uploads" playlist, check https://stackoverflow.com/a/27872244/2154075

answered Mar 04 '20 at 03:59

IvanM

2,913
2
30
30

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 20 '20 at 11:41

try this code

   async static Task<IEnumerable<YouTubeVideo>> GetVideosList(Configurations configurations, string searchText = "", int maxResult = 20)
    {
        List<YouTubeVideo> videos = new List<YouTubeVideo>();

        using (var youtubeService = new YouTubeService(new BaseClientService.Initializer()
        {
            ApiKey = configurations.ApiKey
        }))
        {
            var searchListRequest = youtubeService.Search.List("snippet");
            searchListRequest.Q = searchText;
            searchListRequest.MaxResults = maxResult;
            searchListRequest.ChannelId = configurations.ChannelId;
            searchListRequest.Type = "video";
            searchListRequest.Order = SearchResource.ListRequest.OrderEnum.Date;// Relevance;


            var searchListResponse = await searchListRequest.ExecuteAsync();


            foreach (var responseVideo in searchListResponse.Items)
            {
                videos.Add(new YouTubeVideo()
                {
                    Id = responseVideo.Id.VideoId,
                    Description = responseVideo.Snippet.Description,
                    Title = responseVideo.Snippet.Title,
                    Picture = GetMainImg(responseVideo.Snippet.Thumbnails),
                    Thumbnail = GetThumbnailImg(responseVideo.Snippet.Thumbnails)
                });
            }

            return videos;
        }

    }

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Aug 20 '20 at 11:44

As 8/2020 there some changes in the API and you need to add &type=video or add it to your post request otherwise in some cases you will get empty or random response from the endpoint
for the older channels you may get the right response and it seems to be a bug in the API

https://www.googleapis.com/youtube/v3/search?key={your_key_here}&channelId={channel_id_here}&part=snippet&order=date&maxResults=20&type=video

Youtube /v3/search API no longer returning live videos

4 Answers4