YouTube’s recent UI overhaul has definitely caused a stir, with some finding the radical changes cleaner, while others remain upset about the platform’s essentially transformed identity. Amid the back and forth, users are now grappling with a new YouTube UI bug — one that entirely removes UI elements from one section of the app.
Some might actually prefer the way this ‘bug’ makes the UI appear, even though it severely limits some functionality.
The specific section of the app I’m referring to is YouTube Shorts, with users reporting the short-form segment’s entire interface has vanished on mobile devices (via Android Authority). This comes soon after YouTube rolled out custom like-button animations for different video genres.
The entire right-aligned bar, alongside the bottom-aligned bar with the title/channel name, has gone missing for some. This includes the thumbs up/thumbs down buttons, the comment icon, the share button, remix, and more. The result is undeniably very clean, stripped of all social clutter, but functional only if you want to view videos, and not interact with them.
Multiple users have confirmed seeing the change. “Not only comment section but also share button remix button. Nothing seems to be visible anymore,” wrote one user, while a different one said, “just noticed this myself. You can’t even like them. There’s no options for any of that. It’s just gone.”
For what it’s worth, users have been reporting this issue since September, and Google has since been aware of it. According to an official Google Support post from late September, the issue had been widely reported by Android users, and has since been fixed. “This is fixed! You should now be able to see all key buttons while watching Shorts videos. Let us know here if you’re still having any issues,” wrote the tech giant in an update. That, however, is clearly not the case.
Although there doesn’t seem to be a sure-shot fix for the issue, some users have reported success with clearing the app’s data and force stopping it. The UI ‘bug’ doesn’t affect my YouTube app, so I can’t confirm or deny whether the temporary workaround will fix the UI issue.
Has YouTube Shorts’ UI disappeared for you? Let us know in the comments below.
