Live Stream fails after 30 seconds

[Saco-de-patatas]

Checklist

• I am able to reproduce the bug with the latest version given here: CLICK THIS LINK.
• I made sure that there are no existing issues - open or closed - which I could contribute my information to.
• I have read the FAQ and my problem isn't listed.
• I have taken the time to fill in all the required details. I understand that the bug report will be dismissed otherwise.
• This issue contains only one bug.
• I have read and understood the contribution guidelines.
• I have read and understood the AI policy. The content of this bug report is not generated by AI.

Affected version

0.28.8 intalled both in my Android TV and my phone.

Steps to reproduce the bug

1. Just click a live stream, either from feed or channel.
2. The stream will play for around 30 seconds.
3. Then the image freezes. The wheel keeps spinning for a while...
4. Then a "An error ocurred, check notification" message appears.
5. The stream cannot be played again until you clear cache from settings, but the the process repeats from step 1....

Expected behavior

I would expect for the streams to not fail playing...

Actual behavior

The live stream stops after 30 seconds of playing. Not every streams fail, but once one does, you can't get it load again until you clear metadata cache. Sometimes It works and you finally can watch the live stream, but most of time, the bug repeats.

Screenshots/Screen recordings

No response

Logs

Exception

• User Action: play stream
• Request: Player error[type=ERROR_CODE_IO_BAD_HTTP_STATUS] occurred while playing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxUntJxQ6hM
• Content Country: ES
• Content Language: es-ES
• App Language: es_ES
• Service: YouTube
• Timestamp: 2026-07-21T19:01:10.789+02:00
• Package: org.schabi.newpipe
• Service: YouTube
• Version: 0.28.8
• OS: Linux Redmi/sea_eea/sea:15/AP3A.240905.015.A2/OS2.0.209.0.VHZEUXM:user/release-keys 15 - 35

Crash log

com.google.android.exoplayer2.ExoPlaybackException: Source error
	at com.google.android.exoplayer2.ExoPlayerImplInternal.handleIoException(r8-map-id-1be563feaba4a3cfc509c2ed643962b6ef6b98519cc2d4ab49b069e9c8994f63:17)
	at com.google.android.exoplayer2.ExoPlayerImplInternal.handleMessage(r8-map-id-1be563feaba4a3cfc509c2ed643962b6ef6b98519cc2d4ab49b069e9c8994f63:317)
	at android.os.Handler.dispatchMessage(Handler.java:103)
	at android.os.Looper.loopOnce(Looper.java:249)
	at android.os.Looper.loop(Looper.java:337)
	at android.os.HandlerThread.run(HandlerThread.java:85)
Caused by: com.google.android.exoplayer2.upstream.HttpDataSource$InvalidResponseCodeException: Response code: 403
	at com.google.android.exoplayer2.upstream.DefaultHttpDataSource.open(r8-map-id-1be563feaba4a3cfc509c2ed643962b6ef6b98519cc2d4ab49b069e9c8994f63:260)
	at com.google.android.exoplayer2.upstream.DefaultDataSource.open(r8-map-id-1be563feaba4a3cfc509c2ed643962b6ef6b98519cc2d4ab49b069e9c8994f63:161)
	at com.google.android.exoplayer2.upstream.StatsDataSource.open(r8-map-id-1be563feaba4a3cfc509c2ed643962b6ef6b98519cc2d4ab49b069e9c8994f63:11)
	at com.google.android.exoplayer2.source.chunk.ContainerMediaChunk.load(r8-map-id-1be563feaba4a3cfc509c2ed643962b6ef6b98519cc2d4ab49b069e9c8994f63:71)
	at com.google.android.exoplayer2.upstream.Loader$LoadTask.run(r8-map-id-1be563feaba4a3cfc509c2ed643962b6ef6b98519cc2d4ab49b069e9c8994f63:35)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor.runWorker(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:1100)
	at java.util.concurrent.ThreadPoolExecutor$Worker.run(ThreadPoolExecutor.java:624)
	at java.lang.Thread.run(Thread.java:1572)

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Affected Android/Custom ROM version

Android 15

Affected device model

Xiaomi Redmi Note 12s and TCL Google TV

Additional information

No response

[absurdlylongusername]

I can confirm I can reproduce this issue

[sm455]

Yeah same problem here too

[djchittoor]

Reproducible for me on Android TV pretty consistently (v0.29.0), haven't check on phone yet reproducible in the same manner on the phone as well (edit).

[djchittoor]

Reproducible for me on Android TV pretty consistently (v0.29.0), haven't check on phone yet reproducible in the same manner on the phone as well (edit).

I added some temporary debug logging for live source selection and ExoPlayer HTTP failures and it looked like the issue originated from an audio DASH segment (itag=140), rather than the manifest itself.

responseCode=403 responseMessage=Forbidden
path:itag=140
path:mime=audio/mp4
path:live=1
path:dur=5.000
path:sq=674484
X-Head-Seqnum=[674484]
Content-Length=[0]

Because the requested sequence matched the head reported by YouTube, I initially thought that ExoPlayer was trying to access the current unfinished segment before YouTube made it fully available so I tried to conceal the last explicit SegmentTimeline entry from ExoPlayer which places playback one segment behind the live edge.

This adjustment changed the requested segment but did not resolve the issue. YouTube still rejected a segment that was two sequence numbers behind the reported head so I don't think the issue was merely about ExoPlayer requesting an unfinished live-edge segment, looking into it further.