YouTube Error 153: Video Player Configuration Error when embedding YouTube videos

Question

When embedding YouTube videos using the IFrame API or direct embed URLs, the player occasionally displays the message “Error 153: Video Player Configuration Error” instead of loading the video. This issue occurs inconsistently, particularly in Angular Capacitor iOS apps, where it previously worked fine without any problems.

Additional steps were taken to resolve the issue — including pre-validation using the oEmbed API, adding referrerPolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin", and even trying the privacy-enhanced embed URL (https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/ScMzIvxBSi4) — but the error still persists.

Attached 2 images first plays on ipad and other on web.

Answer 1

You need to either add this header:
'Referrer-Policy': 'strict-origin-when-cross-origin'

Or you can add the following to your embed element:
referrerpolicy='strict-origin-when-cross-origin'

Either should work for you to get them back up and running.

See YouTube documentation here:
https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/required-minimum-functionality#embedded-player-api-client-identity