Universal summarizer can't find transcript: yet finds transcript for slightly different URL edition

leftium

I initially got Sorry, no transcript could be found for this video. for several YouTube videos.
However, by trying the short version of the URL for the same video (notice the ID is the same) the summarizer worked.
Sometimes just toggling between "Summary" and "Key Moments" works. (However in this case "Key Moments") continues to error for both short and regular versions of the URL.

I expected the summarizer to find the transcript and render a summary regardless of

Short or long URL
"Summary" or "Key Moments"

leftium

URL's that have had this problem recently:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SM77ksjpJI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezW1gc9GqCg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HFTxHu614OU

JR

I'm seeing this behaviour too. Another example video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXexsSWrc1Q
Is this Google taking action since it's became known that AI companies are training their models on YouTube videos?

latentspace

When pasting Youtube URL in Kagi Assistant, "Transcript not found" error is coming. Many times pasting the same URL again resolves this.

Kagi assistant should have summarized youtube video

Grooty

Also happens to the extension.
Maybe it's because of the "sign in to confirm you're not a bot" thing

latentspace

Grooty yeah, that seems plausible, but i doubt "sign in to confirm" thing goes away next time when kagi tried to fetch transcripts. it usually fails for me on first try, but on 2nd or 3rd , it works.

sw

I've also had this issue in the Universal Summarizer web app

Luis

Our previous method to access Youtube transcripts no longer works. We're actively investigating alternatives and will update this thread when a solution is found.
Merging this thread with a similar report.

BillyBunn

Chiming in with a temporary solution and some findings that might help Kagi devs.

Temporary solution

I've found that I can resolve the Universal Summarizer's "Sorry, no transcript could be found for this video." response to YouTube videos by manually viewing the transcript on Youtube:

Video Description > More > Show Transcript

And then trying Universal Summarizer again. Sometimes this takes several minutes before a re-try of the tool will work, but I reckon that's due to some caching on Kagi's part.

Not sure if something is happening behind-the-scenes here with Youtube generating these transcripts on-the-fly, and this being a method to trigger that process.

I've only tested it on a handful of videos this morning, but I've had success with over a dozen videos, including these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCgD9WZYF9w
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_NBvRezBaU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvNgdF6VCMo

All of these previously were getting "Sorry, no transcript could be found for this video.", but after the steps (manually "Show Transcription") and waiting 1-4 minutes, Universal Summarizer found what it needed.

Note

I usually use the web portal for this, via !sum <video_url>, not the API.

Other observations

I find that summarize does work off-the-bat sometimes for YouTube links that have a timestamp URL parameter, but won't work without it.

Example

This worked:
!sum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvNgdF6VCMo&t=151s
This didn't (until I did the "Show transcription" thing above 👆️):
!sum https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvNgdF6VCMo

Luis

@Fracture, I'll merge this thread with a similar report. We implemented a temporary fix based on BillyBunn suggestion but are still working on a permanent solution.

hmnd

BillyBunn How strange. Can indeed confirm that this seems to work!

Fracture

No transcript can be found on youtube video to summarizer it but indeed there is a transcript

macos: 12.7.4
Firefox 128.0.3
kagi extension: 0.7.1
ublock origin extension: 1.58.0

link to video

get a summary for the youtube video

======

EDIT

Problem resolved after updating ublock origin to 1.59.0 . No option to delete this post on my part.

Peter

In the last few weeks, I got the "Sorry, no transcript could be found for this video." error almost every time I used the Universal Summarizer for YouTube videos--even if there is a transcript.

miicat_47

I'm also having this issue

Fracture

Looks like a bug. I got it again
Maybe ChatGPT servers have hiccups or underload

BillyBunn

Not a fix, but this work-around might help https://kagifeedback.org/d/4451-universal-summarizer-cant-find-transcript-yet-finds-transcript-for-slightly-different-url-edition/11

Fracture

BillyBunn

thanks for sharing

miicat_47

BillyBunn

It didn't work for me.

I guess alternative, is just to copy the transcript and prompt like this:

Summarize:
<video transcript>