One massive complaint from many fans and creators with YouTube is the odd way the system is currently handling video notifications. In a ‘Backstage at YouTube’ video, the team behind much of the system has given an update on the rollout of a fix for channel and video notifications.
In a YouTube help post and detailed video, we’re given a ton of information on the current method for sending notifications and how the new changes will affect how current and future subscribers will receive notifications from specific channels. The YouTube team also confirmed that some of these ‘pings’ were dropped due to their own processes rather than any specific user setting or settings within the YouTube mobile and desktop applications.
We’ve been working on improving our infrastructure to make our systems and networks that send out notifications more consistent and reliable with a focus on two things, making sure all notifications get sent and also ensuring notifications get sent quickly after a creator publishes.
We’ve added new monitoring systems to quickly detect any potential outages and avoid widespread issues. We’ve also made feature improvements to alleviate upload congestion on our networks – for example, adding more options for creators to choose from when scheduling video uploads.
As a result, we’ve reduced outages and decreased the number of dropped notifications across YouTube.
The team behind notifications also detailed how to check that you are still notified of new videos from your favorite channels. One of the biggest issues they have found is supposedly conflicting device notification priorities.
You may opt-in for these updates for new videos from a channel within the YouTube app or on a browser, but you may have notifications turned off at a system level on your Android or iOS device for instance.
We go and look at user settings and try and figure out what’s happened. And in some cases they’ve either got notifications turned off at the device level on their phone or perhaps in the app and there’s some reason why they’re turned off.
This seemingly creates a cycle whereby some notifications do not reach a user, which is one area that the YouTube team has sought to remove any confusion.
How to check that you have notifications enabled on YouTube
- Check that you are currently logged in to the correct YouTube account.
- Ensure you are subscribed to the channel you wish to get notifications for.
- Now click the bell or notification icon and ensure it is set to ‘All’ notifications
- Head to your device Settings to ensure that notifications for the YouTube application are enabled.
- On Android go to Settings > Apps & Notifications > YouTube > Toggle on
- On iOS go to Settings > Notifications > YouTube > Allow notifications
While this fix is welcome, YouTube Studio is also set to get analytics for video post notifications, with two new sections being added to the new YouTube Studio on desktop and mobile. YouTube creators will now be able to see the percentage of subscribers that have opted in to receive notifications for new videos and how many subscribers are eligible to receive video notifications.
This new metric is live for those using the new YouTube Studio beta, so those on the older version will not be able to get updates on who is currently using the bell notify feature.
What do you think of these new changes? Are you still having issues with YouTube notifications? Let us know in the comments section below.
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