top | item 26415379

Ask HN: Is Your Spacebar Working on YouTube?

48 points| easterncalculus | 5 years ago

I noticed this earlier, and I'm not the only one, I've asked around and people have tried using it in the search bar on Firefox and it just doesn't work.

48 comments

order
[+] beiller|5 years ago|reply
Space bar is hilarious for me on YouTube/Firefox. Some times it gets into a certain focus state (play button focussed?) and hitting space bar will briefly pause it, then resume playback. Hilarity ensues as I scramble, pausing a few times to realize the issue, and change the focus to something else by clicking the video canvas then press spacebar again for success.
[+] capableweb|5 years ago|reply
This hits something that I've come across before. Web pages are actually 3D with focus, always. But it's not clear, because the representation is 2D and the focus is either limited to certain elements (like <input/>) or has to be manually implemented by the developer. And sometimes, like with YouTube, even long lived websites with supposedly lots of experience get it wrong.

And this is hard to think about as a developer, imagine how it is for someone non-internet native, who barely understand the mouse-abstraction we all gotten so used to.

I do think touchscreens have made technology possible for a lot of groups who didn't understand it before. Maybe we need something similar for desktop and laptop to avoid 3D in 2D jam we're in now.

[+] ASalazarMX|5 years ago|reply
It's disconcerting when you press the spacebar and the video doesn't pause, but the video settings open... until you remember you went to settings to look for subtitles, but there were none, and you closed it without changing the focus to the page or video.

It happens with other video sites, so it's not evil Google handicapping Firefox users.

[+] mtmail|5 years ago|reply
Three users submitted that to HN in the last 15 minutes, seems to be tracked at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1697551
[+] colpabar|5 years ago|reply
I imagine it has something to do with the keyboard shortcuts for video player controls, which I'm going to list because I think they're neat and was very excited when I discovered them.

space - play/pause

j - skip back

k - play/pause

l - skip forward

0-9 - skip to the n/10th point of the video

m - mute

f - fullscreen

t - "theater mode" which is the bigger-but-not-full-screen video size

I'm sure there are others, but those are the ones I use often enough to remember. I like to use K to play/pause because I never end up accidentally scrolling down into the comments section.

[+] mmcclure|5 years ago|reply
I noticed this this AM and assumed it was something around Firefox or otherwise specific to me. The situation for me was not being able to create a new playlist when saving a video because it would trigger all of the keyboard shortcuts while typing. It would mostly work...until you get to a letter like "f" and fullscreen blows away the modal.

This is a bit of a cautionary tale around the dangers of hijacking "normal" behavior: when a bug happens, you break really, really basic things.

[+] hexo|5 years ago|reply
It is fascinating that people file this as bug to firefox bugzilla when it is clearly bug on youtube side
[+] cpeterso|5 years ago|reply
How does one file a YouTube bug? :)
[+] alucardo|5 years ago|reply
I use k instead of the space bar for a long time.
[+] sidpatil|5 years ago|reply
That only works for controlling the video player. This bug affects the usage of the spacebar in the search field as well.
[+] tvanantwerp|5 years ago|reply
Same. I can't remember why exactly I switched, but I recall space bar being more of a gamble whether I would pause/unpause or scroll down the screen. K seemed to work better.
[+] zoid_|5 years ago|reply
Google are so clumsy accidentally leaving in these hard to find bugs throughout their products eh?

I guess the only solution is for us all to switch to Chrome, everything works fine that way.

[+] dhimes|5 years ago|reply
psst- you forgot your /sarcasm tag!
[+] sidpatil|5 years ago|reply
This isn't the first time I've encountered this bug before—I've seen it while using LinkedIn's messenger as well.
[+] recursive|5 years ago|reply
No.

Version 86 on Windows.

Also space to toggle pausing during playback has worked only intermittently for some time. Always solid in Chrome. I think it depends what's focused, but never figured out the details.

[+] aequitas|5 years ago|reply
Reading the headline I was afraid YouTube started disabling the Spacebar for play/pause because of some vague UX reason. But it's the other way around.
[+] AlphaGeekZulu|5 years ago|reply
I can not enter space in the search widget on

- MacOS/Firefox - Ubuntu/Firefox

I can enter space in the search widget on

- Ubuntu/Chrome - Ubuntu/Brave - Ubuntu/Opera - Ubuntu/Vivaldi

[+] frankzander|5 years ago|reply
Open the developer tools, disable the caching in the network tab and reload. at least here now the spacebar is working again.
[+] superfamicom|5 years ago|reply
On macOS 10.15.7 (19H114):

- Chrome: Yes (89.0.4389.72 (Official Build) beta (x86_64))

- Safari: No (14.0.2 (15610.3.7.1.10, 15610))

- Firefox: No (86.0 (64-bit))

[+] exabrial|5 years ago|reply
How about is your cursor working on Google search or was that "optimized"?
[+] ryanwhitney|5 years ago|reply
Nope. Can’t use space in search.

Safari on Mac.

[+] pensatoio|5 years ago|reply
Broken AF. Was about to restart my computer.

It’s hilarious that something so simple can break.

[+] rjsw|5 years ago|reply
Broken, it did work yesterday and haven't updated Firefox.
[+] dathinab|5 years ago|reply
Maybe, but I don't have the problem (Linux, FF, wayland).
[+] dhimes|5 years ago|reply
No. But Alt 32 will give the space (Win 10 Firefox)