Join us Dec. 1-3 in Nashville for the Digiday Programmatic Marketing Summit
Some Adblock Plus users are being greeted with a concerning message on YouTube: “An error occurred. Please try again later.”
In the past, the software would skip the pre-roll ad and the video would immediately play. With the error message, some videos would play after a delay of several seconds. As people on the Adblock Plus message board have pointed out, the message is mostly affecting Google Chrome, although people have spotted the issue on Firefox and Safari albeit less frequently.
In a statement, Adblock Plus said it’s investigating the issue and said “it would appear to be an issue on YouTube’s side.” We asked West Coast-based YouTube for comment; we’ll update the post when they do.
For now, it’s unclear if the message is simply an error or if the Google-owned company is trying to clamp down on users of the popular ad blocking software since it interferes with its bottom line. Or perhaps, more cynically, it’s a ploy to push people to subscribe to its paid, ad-free service YouTube Red.
People are voicing their displeasure on Adblock Plus’ message boards and Reddit, with many of them posting workarounds to prevent people from seeing the error message. Regardless, the message is clear that they’re not pleased with the inconvenience: “I’ll bail on YouTube before I’ll bail on my ad blocker,” one person wrote.
More in Media
Creators say it’s difficult to make money from news — with platform rules and brand guidelines
With more people getting news from creators than traditional media, those creators are still trying to build sustainable businesses.
Why CNN International is building for agentic ad market that barely exists yet
CNN International is still chasing its first agent-sold dollar by Q1.
Media Briefing: The transatlantic push to rein in stealth bots is gathering pace
U.S. and U.K. publishers are pushing for laws to crack down on stealth AI crawlers as bot scraping surges and demands for transparency grow.