Embed Private Youtube Videos with Widget Connector

[Andrew Legrand]

I have a playlist on Youtube that is set to Private but is shared with my G Suite domain. The videos are mostly "how to" videos for staff.

I currently have them embedded using the Widget Connector in our Confluence Cloud instance. I can watch these embedded videos when I am logged into Youtube and Confluence.

My staff is having issues accessing them, however. When they attempt to watch them, they see the thumbnail for the video, but upon clicking play get a "this video is unavailable" message.

The videos on Youtube do have "allow embed" checked.

[Shannon S · Accepted solution]

Hi Andrew,

If they're private, then you do need to be logged in to watch the videos on YouTube.

Have you considered setting them to unlisted instead? This way you only need the direct URL to the video in order to watch it.

Regards,

Shannon

[Andrew Legrand]

Hi Shannon,

The videos are hosted on my account, and when I'm logged in (to both Youtube and Confluence), I can view them in-line in Confluence.

But when my staff is logged in (using their domain account) the videos aren't viewable in-line.

I have considered leaving them unlisted, but I would prefer to have them listed as private and shared with the domain, so folks have to login to view them.

[Shannon S]

Andrew,

When you say your staff can't view the videos when they're logged in using their domain account, do you mean they're logged into Confluence and YouTube?

You'll want to make sure they're logged into YouTube as well, with an authorized YouTube account. 

If they can confirm they're logged into YouTube and still cannot view the video, then you will want to connect with Google/YouTube to see why they might not be able to view the videos.

Shannon

[Andrew Legrand]

When you say your staff can't view the videos when they're logged in using their domain account, do you mean they're logged into Confluence and YouTube?

Yes, that's correct.

I think our workaround here is to just paste the URL to the video below the video in Confluence. It's not as smooth as having it in-line, but certainly easier than trying to get support from YT/Google.

[Shannon S]

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for confirming that.

I'm running some tests on my end right now, but my videos are taking longer than usual to upload to YouTube.

I'll let you know what I find out, but it's likely to be a YouTube/browser issue rather than Confluence. It does seem from my research that it's supposed to work, provided they are logged in with the correct YouTube account, so I want to see what else it might be.

I'll update you with my findings!

Shannon

[Shannon S]

Andrew,

Thank you for your patience. YouTube never completed uploading my videos so I had to do it via my mobile device.

Here's what I've done so far:

1. Uploaded a video to YouTube, and set it to Private.
2. Created a playlist on YouTube, set that to Private, and then added the one video to the playlist.

I can share the video or playlist via Google+, but my only options are Public, My Circles, only me, or custom (which is just more circles). 

It's not clear on how I can share a playlist or video with only my Google domain. Can you let me know what steps you took to do so? I tried searching online for Google's documentation, but it seems to be out of date and not the same view I am experiencing.

I also have a few questions for further clarification:

1. Are you embedding the entire playlist or individual videos on Confluence?
2. Are all the videos plus the playlist shared with your Google domain? Or are you only sharing the playlist itself but the individual videos haven't been shared?
3. When you embed into another site using the same method, are your users able to watch the video?

Thank you for your help! I just want to determine that this is indeed Confluence causing the permissions issue, and not something with YouTube outside of our control.

Regards,

Shannon

[Andrew Legrand]

1. This is correct. In the Beta version of Creator Studio, there doesn't appear to be an option to "Share with Domain." That option still appears in Creator Studio Classic, so you have to explicitly click out of the new Beta Creator Studio. Here's a video of how I did that.

2. I have the playlist set to "Unlisted" because the "private" option on playlists doesn't give me the option to share with the domain.

Follow Up Q's:

1. Just the videos themselves.

2. Videos are shared, playlists are unlisted.

3. I have not tested this yet, but we'll test that on our website now.

[Shannon S]

Hi Andrew,

Thank you for explaining that.

I was able to share the video with the rest of Atlassian.com, and I had a few of my colleagues log into their YouTube accounts with their Atlassian domain to test.

They confirmed that they are able to view them directly on YouTube.

I then embedded the video URL using Widget Connector (and also the iFrame macro). Each of the users I tested this with are able to watch the private video embedded in Confluence which has been shared with the Atlassian domain.

The only issue I had was testing as my user in Incognito Mode, but I quickly realized I wasn't logged into YouTube anymore. 

I'm not able to replicate the same problem you're having, but I also can't tell if I'm doing anything differently.

Shannon

[Andrew Legrand]

OK. Thank you for following up and testing.

I shared the video on a page on our site, and my employee was not able to watch it there either.

There must be some sort of issue with logging into YouTube on our end.

May I ask which browser are you using? We are on chrome

[Shannon S]

Andrew,

Thank you for letting me know the results of your test. It's very odd, maybe it's not keeping the sessions for some reason? 

I'm using Google Chrome version 70.0.3538.102, which seems to be the latest.

Are all of your users using the same browser? If you disable all add-ons in Chrome, does the issue persist? What if it was tested outside of your network, on a personal computer (if there's any firewall or proxy that might be controlling connections)?

Regards,

Shannon

[Andrew Legrand]

Shannon,

Thank you for investigating this. For now, it looks like this is definitely an issue on our end because you were able to successfully test.

We’re going to look into it, but for an hour simple workaround is to just put a link to the video itself below the actual video. It won’t be as “clean,” But easily solve the problem

[jason martin]

I realize this is a bit old, but I recently figured out that I couldn't get to private (but shared with GSuite) videos from Confluence if I were blocking 3rd party cookies in my browser. Allowing 3rd party cookies would allow the video (embedded) to play fine. May or may not help you.