Embedded YouTube videos in an uploaded file not playing

Hello, I create all of my lecture notes in Dreamweaver and upload them into the Files section and then insert them into the Modules. In these lecture notes, I have embedded YouTube videos (I used the embed codes from YouTube). For almost a decade these videos played within the file, but since the summer of 2025, I just see a black box with a message that says: "An error occurred. Try watching this video on YouTube, or enable JavaScript if it is disabled on your computer." When my school's Canvas admin asked Canvas for help, they basically said it was user error. I have been coding my own HTML pages for over 20 years and never had a problem until now. If you open the HTML page directly in a web browser (outside of Canvas), everything works fine. I have accessed Canvas through both Firefox and Chrome and see the same error. Can anybody tell me how to fix this problem? I tried adding frame busting code into the page's header to prevent it from loading within Canvas's frames, but that didn't work. So far the only workaround is using Firefox and right clicking on the page and selecting the option of loading the frame in a new browser tab. Unfortunately, not all of my students use Firefox and this seems like a clunky approach.

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Accepted answers

Adam Ware

Hi @JeffPlatt - Thank you for reaching out, my suggestion would be to navigate to the file/page in the module view and select "report a problem" from the global help nav. I'd provide the information above as part of the case notes. Reason I'd suggest this method is our support team will take HTTP Environment field information including the end user's operating system, browser version, and IP address . To interpret this string, visit the user agent string website and paste the text in the window for analysis. This will allow our support team to dive deeper into the issue and provide better solutions faster.

On another note, if you are a Canvas Studio subscriber, I thought it worthwhile sharing the upcoming product enhancement for Youtube Videos: Canvas Studio Will Soon Offer a Secure, Distraction Free YouTube Experience for Educators and Students.

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Adam Ware

dbrace

Hi @JeffPlatt,

I know that you said that you have been following those steps for years and did not have any problems but Canvas' ability to properly load and display and render code from an HTML file that was uploaded was a bit of a gray area and never officially supported.

I ask this out of curiousity and to better understand, why do you code in Dreamweaver instead of using the Canvas RCE and its HTML view?

-Doug

jyeagle

Jeff Platt

Jeff Yeagle here commenting with hopes that someone can explain what is happening to the youtube videos I have embedded into canvas..

like you my videos have functioned perfectly for 10+ years and now, suddenly a black box with error code 5 appears..

unlike you, my HTML journey is somewhat simplier as I rely on i frames to simply embedded videos into cavnas from youtube, what changed? and why

JeffPlatt

UPDATE: Today I received an e-mail from Canvas Support that finally answers why this problem is occurring. Basically, Canvas disabled this feature. Here's the response I received:

"Looking into the issue, I was able to find internal documentation indicating that awhile back there was a change to how JS is handled in an iframe in Canvas. Since then, it is disabled by default and iframes are sandboxed now.

The reason for this change was that files that included any form of javascript got cross site scripting errors when attempting to load by clicking on a link to them within a page to open an embedded preview.

I'm really sorry for the inconvenience this change might have caused for you and your students. Your current options to correctly embed Youtube videos would be to either use Pages instead of separate htm/html files and embedding the videos with the Youtube plugin accessible from the editor's (RCE) toolbar.

Another option would be to work with your institution's admins on a custom workaround for your specific workflow. To reiterate, since iframes are sandboxed now, they block javascript from running in those files. If you need any help with contacting the admins to discuss the possible options, let us know and we will forward a request to them on your behalf."

I really don't want to have to use Canvas' RCE for the reasons I mentioned in a previous post, but I guess Canvas is more concerned about supporting novice users than more experienced users. 😞

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