This great feature stopped working on YouTube. Google still hasn't released a fix

Not long ago, we celebrated when YouTube finally granted one of its cleverest features to people without a subscription – as we wrote in May, picture-in-picture opened up to everyone. It’s all the more frustrating now that this very feature has suddenly stopped working for some people: the video doesn’t shrink into a floating window after leaving the app; only the sound continues to play from somewhere else. And Google has not yet released any fix.

What exactly isn’t working on YouTube?

Picture-in-picture works simply: you start a video, and when you leave YouTube, for example, to the home screen, the player shrinks into a small floating window that remains above other applications. This is precisely what is failing for some people now. After leaving the app, no window appears – the image disappears, and only background audio continues. So, you can hear the video but not see it, effectively turning a clever feature into a music player. 9to5Google replicated the bug on an iPhone with YouTube app version 21.28.

Picture-in-picture is one of the features that YouTube only recently made available to everyone for free. Until then, it was a privilege for Premium subscribers, and the new feature became freely available this year. The greater the joy it brought then, the more frustrating it is now that it’s acting up.

This great feature stopped working on YouTube. Google still hasn't released a fix Adam Kurfürst News Adam Kurfürst News

The fact that this is not an isolated outcry from one angry user, but a more widespread issue, is also evidenced by a thread on the official YouTube help forum, where complaints about non-functional picture-in-picture began to accumulate en masse. The creators of the video service themselves confirmed the problem there and promised they are looking into it.

Who is affected by the problem?

Bad news primarily for iPhone owners, slightly better for the Android camp: the vast majority of reports come from iOS. On Android, the defect appears rather exceptionally, and for example, it could not be replicated on tested Pixels. However, this does not mean that the problem does not affect Android at all, but Google has recorded significantly fewer reports.

When will the fix arrive?

Google encountered the problem at the end of the week and posted a message on the forum stating that its teams are actively investigating the situation. However, nothing has changed to date – no fix has been made available, nor has an estimate been given for when it might arrive. It is not yet clear how many people are precisely affected by the defect.

Do you use YouTube’s picture-in-picture – and does it work for you, or is it also acting up?

Sources: 9to5Google, Google