Previously watched Shorts do not display progress bar

[foo404]

Checklist

• I am able to reproduce the bug with the latest version given here: CLICK THIS LINK.
• I made sure that there are no existing issues - open or closed - which I could contribute my information to.
• I have read the FAQ and my problem isn't listed.
• I have taken the time to fill in all the required details. I understand that the bug report will be dismissed otherwise.
• This issue contains only one bug.
• I have read and understood the contribution guidelines.
• I have read and understood the AI policy. The content of this bug report is not generated by AI.

Affected version

v0.28.1

Steps to reproduce the bug

1. Watch a Short from a specific channel.
2. Open the channel and go to the Shorts tab.
3. Locate the same Short.
4. Observe that no progress bar is shown, as if the video was never watched.
5. If the Short is part of a playlist, open that playlist via the Playlists tab and note that the progress bar is shown there.
6. Open the History tab and note that the progress bar is shown.

Expected behaviour

Previously watched Shorts should consistently display the progress bar in the Shorts tab.

Actual behaviour

The progress bar is missing in the Shorts tab, but present in History and within playlists.

[jstetten]

BTW, this has been a problem since at least 0.28.0

[pewpewpewter]

BTW, this has been a problem since at least 0.28.0

Since 0.27.7.
I've saved these Shorts in a Playlist for when the bug is fixed (up to 1100 now!) and the earliest are from May 2025, when 0.27.7 was released.

I'm not sure how NewPipe handles marking a video as watched, but based on this and other cases where marking a video as Watched fails, (deleted videos, videos and livestreams that haven't been premiered yet, sometimes Members-only videos, probably a few other cases), I imagine it tries to set the Watched time equal to the duration of the video, and whenever it can't get the duration this fails.

IMO, marking a video as Watched should always work. This may require adding a field in the database for whether a video has been Watched, but it would be worth it if we could reliably remove any video or stream we don't want to see from our feed.

[jstetten]

Strangely, this bug was finally fixed in 0.28.1, then quickly reintroduced in 0.28.2.

[ABJ4403]

Does this issue include no shorts duration? Bcz thats what happened to me as well, also [copy paste from my note, too lazy to make it bit cleaner] Unable to fetch duration for shorts link, and saving to playlist, both are affected by remove duplicates
Upon inspecting streams table in newpipe.db, i found these
url|duration (source)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/c4dH8MpXYH4|-1 (subscriptions tab, both rss or regular, even if you watched the video it wont resolve duration at all)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4dH8MpXYH4|47 (channel shorts tab, duration not there still, but if you open the video it can parse it)

so to fix, either:

• add ways to do simple regex replacement to replace shorts to regular link
• or the other way + fix shorts duration parsing (or replace them to regular link on demand), then optionally in frontend video can be marked shorts or smth

[jstetten]

I don't know if they're connected, but the duration of every type of media (shorts, videos, songs, streams) fails to be displayed in some cases, most notably in the recommended videos, but sometimes playlists as well. [See screenshot.]

This is a worsening of a previously rarer bug with the last update. An issue should probably be created.

[ABJ4403]

Maybe it depends on where you opened the video? (eg. Link, subscription, channel tab (video, shorts, live) and maybe type of video as well? (eg. regular, shorts, vod live stream, ongoing live stream), trending, recommended), does yt rss (fast mode) have duration as well?

What matters here is when the video is being opened (even watched), (new) duration does show up when you stream the video (not live), actual new duration doesnt get saved to db, progress might not even be saved :(

[ShareASmile]

Does this issue include no shorts duration? Bcz thats what happened to me as well, also [copy paste from my note, too lazy to make it bit cleaner] Unable to fetch duration for shorts link,

Please open a new issue about it.