"My" Youtube has been hijacked

[cbrunny]

Every time I try to play this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCdiDbIlikI

I get some stupid video in its place that is 1:14 long of a creepy looking robot. At the bottom of the image it says "http://robot.watch.impress.co.jp/"

It is 100% definitely not one of those stupid youtube ads. This shows in place of the video I'm trying to watch.

Screenshot:



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

Why is this happening? I've cleared cache, cookies, history, etc. with no luck. It's been like this for a few weeks with various videos around Youtube. Every now and then it just works, but can't find any discernible pattern. If the video runs its course for the full 1:14, it just looks like any other youtube video is being played. This is literally being played on top of what I'd like to be played. The other weird thing is that if I scroll the mouse overtop of the... red bar thing that shows the position of the video... a little preview pops up of the correct video!

I do have active virus scanning - ESET NOD32 Antivirus. It finds nothing.

Help?

Edit: Same thing happens in other browsers, not just Chrome.

 

[lxskllr]

Looks like a YouTube problem. If the address matches, and you're sure you bookmarked the right thing, YouTube has the files dicked up.

 

[cbrunny]

Looks like a YouTube problem. If the address matches, and you're sure you bookmarked the right thing, YouTube has the files dicked up.

Thanks for the reply, but that seems unlikely. I've googled around and can't find another case similar to this one, but more than that it seems to happen with every video I play. The same stupid creepy-ass robot shows up no matter what video I play. If the videos were rearranged somehow, I should be getting a variety of different videos - not the same one consistently.

 

[lxskllr]

Here's a link to the page source as I retrieved it. Compare it to what you're getting. Maybe a script is fetching the wrong video. If that's the case, you'll need to figure out where the script came from, and how to get rid of it. I'm getting ready to go out, and won't be back til this evening.

http://ubuntuone.com/0EZ53vfVDQFqSPvIQLvShX

 

[cbrunny]

Here's a link to the page source as I retrieved it. Compare it to what you're getting. Maybe a script is fetching the wrong video. If that's the case, you'll need to figure out where the script came from, and how to get rid of it. I'm getting ready to go out, and won't be back til this evening.

http://ubuntuone.com/0EZ53vfVDQFqSPvIQLvShX

Thanks. This link is taking me to the creepy robot video. I assume that it works properly for you and others, meaning the issue has something to do with my setup.... somehow when the page loads, the script is being redirected to this robot video? Hmmm.....

 

[jstrong]

Hi,
I am a teacher who uses youtube primarily for posting school-related videos and I and at least three of my colleagues have had the same problem. I have had three videos replaced with a short clip of Asian news of some sort; my colleagues have had some replaced with rap videos. Not all of my videos have been replaced yet but it seems to be continuing. Thumbnails are correct but what actually plays is not. Any suggestions about what to do beyond changing our passwords would be greatly appreciated. I have checked that the link as I originally had it (posted on my class website) has not been changed or redirected, but it now leads to another video. Thanks for any help!

 

[MrScott81]

Sounds like some sort of proxy or malware hijack.

Try running Malwarebytes AntiMalware.

 

[jstrong]

Update: when we access the videos from other IP addresses/networks they seem to be intact. It looks like it is an access problem, not actually with the videos themselves. Is your issue similar?

 

[cbrunny]

Sounds like some sort of proxy or malware hijack.

Try running Malwarebytes AntiMalware.

On it literally right now. I've run the Quick and Flash scans with zero hits. Now partway through the Full scan with zero hits so far.

 

[cbrunny]

Update: when we access the videos from other IP addresses/networks they seem to be intact. It looks like it is an access problem, not actually with the videos themselves. Is your issue similar?

I've not tried from a different IP address on the same computer... perhaps I'll give that a try. Weird though.... this is a work computer.

Other computers don't seem to have this issue behind the same network.

The issue sounds exactly the same as what I'm experiencing.

 

[jstrong]

Our IT guys have been trying to track this down too and here is what I got from them. Agree?

"YouTube/Google has thousands of servers. It looks like there is a code/tag that is triggering certain videos to point to a SPAM video overlay. All this is on YouTube/Google’s side and we cannot do anything about it. It looks like this was a minor problem back in 2010 and has gotten worse. Google employees are aware of the problem. Currently it is out of our hands."

 

[cbrunny]

Our IT guys have been trying to track this down too and here is what I got from them. Agree?

"YouTube/Google has thousands of servers. It looks like there is a code/tag that is triggering certain videos to point to a SPAM video overlay. All this is on YouTube/Google’s side and we cannot do anything about it. It looks like this was a minor problem back in 2010 and has gotten worse. Google employees are aware of the problem. Currently it is out of our hands."

If this is the case (which I doubt) HOW is this NOT more widespread?

 

[gevorg]

check your hosts file

 

[cbrunny]

Is this happen only for one video link?

No, for literally every video.

 

[cbrunny]

check your hosts file

What is a hosts file?

 

[Iron Woode]

to be safe you should run malwarebytes anti-rootkit scanner.

or maybe hijackthis.

 

[Mushkins]

Forget the hosts files and the malwarebytes for now.

Plug your PCs ethernet connection directly into your ISP's modem. Boot from a linux live CD. Test for creepy robot videos on youtube.

This cuts out *all* the config and viruses and stuff. If it still does it, it's definitely somewhere between the ISP and googles servers.

 

[cbrunny]

Forget the hosts files and the malwarebytes for now.

Plug your PCs ethernet connection directly into your ISP's modem. Boot from a linux live CD. Test for creepy robot videos on youtube.

This cuts out *all* the config and viruses and stuff. If it still does it, it's definitely somewhere between the ISP and googles servers.

This isn't possible, unfortunately. Its a work computer and any infrastructure is behind lock & key.

I just found out though that this is happening to all my co-workers across the organization, even in different buildings. Smells like IT has blocked Youtube.

 

[Matt1970]

You are not alone.

http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topic/youtube/aTTmJ2e1FFU

 

[cbrunny]

 

[cbrunny]

This issue appears to be resolved. I informed our IT department about this. They did something called "clearing the cache box" which means basically nothing to me. For a few days I was getting linked to a different video (a nice vacation from that stupid robot), but now I'm not having any issues whatsoever. Perhaps Youtube fixed this issue, or perhaps our IT department did.