[1/*] Today I decided to try to get the world's most popular video website (YouTube) working on the world's most popular console (PS4). I'd like to chronicle how that went for everyone out there who still thinks software isn't engines-out, on-fire spiraling towards the ocean.
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[3/*] So obviously, I did not feel it was a safe software security step to put the primary username and password for Molly Rocket into a PlayStation in the living room, which would - according to Sony - "link it directly to my PSN account".
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[4/*] My first thought was, well, YouTube Premium allows me to upgrade to a "family membership", which would allow me to add other accounts. That would allow me to make a proxy account on gmail, add it to my "family", and use that for the login.
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[5/*] So I tried hitting the "upgrade" to family button - which by the way is a huge button on the front page if you go to YouTube Premium, logged in as me. That took my to a page that simply said, you cannot use the Family feature with G Suite.
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[6/*] OK, Google. Well, it might have been nice to _not have a giant ad for the family plan with an upgrade button if I can't use it_. But, whatever. So I cancel my Premium subscription.
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[7/*] I then go to a personal GMail account. You may ask why I have that. I have that because, even though now you can, you could not get Google Fi with G Suite originally, because that didn't work for several years. So I _already had_ a second account because of that nonsense.
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[8/*] I signed up for YouTube Premium on that account. That seemed to work fine. So far, so good. I hit the "upgrade" button, and this time, it worked. It let me pay the upcharge and have a Family.
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[9/*] I created a dummy account on GMail that was just for logging into the PlayStation, and I added it to my family. I also, just to see, tried adding my G Suite account to the family. It of course let me. And it even sent the invitation.
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[10/*] But then when I clicked to accept the invitation, it brought me to a page saying that I couldn't join my family, because I was on G Suite. No big surprise there!
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[11/*] So now I believe I am ready to log in to YouTube on the PlayStation, having insulated myself from the rather obvious security hole that neither Google nor Sony seems to think is concerning (which is especially amusing, considering Sony has had major hacks in the past).
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[12/*] I click "TV & Video" on the Sony menu bar. This brings me to a menu, but YouTube is oddly absent. YouTubeTV is in its place, I guess because they are pushing that for the Olympics? So I go into the Apps and launch YouTube from there.
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[13/*] I select "Sign In" from the menu, and it comes up with a EULA. I agree. It comes up with _an embedded web browser - the slowest one you can possible imagine_, and shows the Google sign-in.
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[14/*] I enter my Google mail address into the prompt. I hit "next". I click on the password field, and, unthinkingly, enter my password, and hit "next". It says the username and password are incorrect.
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[15/*] What?? I know I entered it correctly. What happened? Well, as I try it again, I realize what happened. The password field DEFAULTS TO AUTO CAPITALIZING THE FIRST LETTER. So it helpfully capitalized the first letter of my password which (hax0rz take note!) wasn't caps.
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[16/*] OK, I do it again. I undo the helpful auto-caps this time, and it "works", in that it goes to the next screen. But then, the web browser is replaced by simply a Sony error code. It literally just says "Error WS-something-something". That's it.
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[17/*] So I'm like, OK, maybe that was just a mistake, let me try again. I close the YouTube app, I do the whole process over again. Same error. So this time, I notice there is a triangle cue at the bottom for looking up the error on Sony's website. I press triangle.
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[18/*] This brings me to Sony's website with the error code in the URL. The website says... and I kid you not... "error code not found". THEY DO NOT EVEN HAVE THEIR OWN ERROR CODES ON THEIR OWN WEBSITE.
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[19/*] OK, well, hmm. Let me think. What might be going on here? What's the most likely problem? And then I think, you know what, that's probably the step where it tries to do the thing I didn't actually want in the first place, which is link my YouTube to my PSN.
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[20/*] And then I remember, oh right, the PS4 was probably just logged in to someone else's user, that doesn't even have a PSN account. I checked, and it was. So that error message - the one that they DO NOT DOCUMENT - is just, "you don't have PSN". Isn't that very common???
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[21/*] So now I'm like, OK, no worries, I just log out of that user, and I log in as my user which does have my PSN. Nobody ever uses that user, but like, I do have it for me buying games. So now I'm super confident this is going to work!
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[22/*] I go to the video apps menu again, and this time - I swear I am not making this up - it shows all the icons but they're just little spinny arrows, like it hasn't loaded yet, and then POOF - the screen goes black. Period. Done. Hard crash - so hard that it doesn't reboot.
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[23/*] So now I have to kill the power to the PS4, because there's no other way to get it back on. Of course, if you do that, now the PS4 decides it needs to fsck, so, I get to sit there and wait for a few minutes while the little "checking the disk" bar trolls along.
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[24/*] It finishes, and then I am presented with the offensive "you know, you should learn to power off devices properly" screen, which always enrages me because in my entire life I have never shut down a PS4 improperly. THAT SCREEN ONLY HAPPENS BECAUSE YOUR STUFF CRASHES, BRO.
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[25/*] I get the thing back on, I get back to the apps, I click YouTube. You would think that would launch YouTube. Hahahahahahahhaha... very funny! What a sense of humor you have.
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[26/*] No, of course not. Instead of launching YouTube, it brings up a dialog box telling me that I don't have _permission_ to run YouTube, because YouTube was downloaded by _another_ user of the PS4. This is a real dialog box that really opened. On a consumer device.
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[27/*] So it provides a link to the PlayStation Store, and tells me, if _I_ want to run YouTube, well then I am going to have to download it _again_. Now that may sound ridiculous to you, but we're only getting started.
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[28/*] I click OK, sure, bring me to the PlayStation Store, and I go and I click on the "Download" button below the YouTube logo. Surely that will do the trick.
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[29/*] Nope. Time for dialog box #2. This dialog box lets me know - and I double swear I am not making a single step of this process up - This dialog box lets me know that I cannot download YouTube because... wait for it... IT HAS ALREADY BEEN DOWNLOADED ON THIS PS4.
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[30/*] THERE IS LITERALLY A DIALOG BOX TELLING YOU THAT YOU CANNOT RUN A PROGRAM ON THE PS4 THAT YOU DIDN'T DOWNLOAD YOURSELF, AND THEN WHEN YOU TRY TO DOWNLOAD IT YOURSELF, IT TELLS YOU IT'S ALREADY DOWNLOADED. This is a thing that actually exists in the real world.
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[31/*] But thank god for small favors, dear reader, because for whatever reason, after that second dialog box, the "download" button magically changes into a "start" button, and when I click the "start" button, it launches YouTube!!!!
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[32/*] Now remember - I literally haven't actually accomplished _a single thing_ a this point. Everything you just read was just me _trying to get back to the YouTube app as a different PS4 user_. That's ALL I WAS DOING.
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