u/ClassicAd4285

YouTube Android TV: Focus gets stuck on empty channel pages

I realize this is an edge case, but I’ve found a navigation bug on Android TV that makes certain pages unusable. If a channel has no content (no videos, shorts, or playlists), the D-pad focus gets completely trapped in the empty body of the page.

It doesn’t matter if it's a standard channel that hasn't uploaded anything yet, one where all content was deleted, or an official Topic channel. If the feed is empty, you can't move the focus up to interact with the header.

How to reproduce:

  1. Open YouTube on Android TV.
  2. Navigate to any channel with no content (empty profiles, deleted content, or empty Topic channels).
  3. Try to move the focus up to reach the Subscribe/Unsubscribe or About buttons.
  4. The focus stays stuck in the empty middle area. You can't reach those buttons no matter how many times you press up.

Tested on Xiaomi Mi Box 4 (Cobalt 25) and Next/4K Google TV Stick (Android 14, Cobalt 26). Same behavior on both. Since Cobalt is still being updated, this focus-handling bug seems like something that should be caught.

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u/ClassicAd4285 — 4 days ago