Android - WebView not playing YouTube videos

Question

I have some WebView code with which I am trying to play YouTube videos on a YouTube channel. But all it is doing is showing the spinner icon on a video and never actually st

Answer 1

Use

<application
        android:hardwareAccelerated="true"
        android:allowBackup="true">
</application>

Perfectly working.

Answer 2

Have you tried using your own WebChromeClient? This question seems relevant. WebView and HTML5 <video>

You'll need to create one of these and implement it yourself, similar to what you're doing for the WebViewClient.

webview.setWebChromeClient(new WebChromeClient() {
    @Override
    public void onShowCustomView(View view, CustomViewCallback callback) {
        super.onShowCustomView(view, callback);
        if (view instanceof FrameLayout) {
            FrameLayout frame = (FrameLayout) view;
            if (frame.getFocusedChild() instanceof VideoView) {
                VideoView video = (VideoView) frame.getFocusedChild();
                frame.removeView(video);
                a.setContentView(video);
                video.setOnCompletionListener(this);
                video.setOnErrorListener(this);
                video.start();
            }
        }
    }
});

Make sure you add webview.getSettings().setPluginsEnabled(true); to your webview settings.

And most importantly, for any webpage to load in a WebView, be sure to have the INTERNET permission in your Manifest:

<uses-permission android:name="android.permission.INTERNET"/>

Answer 3

Using WebView to play YouTube videos would require extensive testing and debugging on different Android OS versions due to the difference in functionality and bugs between Android 2.x and 4.x.

A less bug-prone approach that gives you more control is to use YouTube Android Player API to embed a YouTube video into your own app, they have sample app so it shouldn't be too difficult if you follow their steps.