# YouTube embed error 153 \[AnkiMobile\]

**URL:** <https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/youtube-embed-error-153-ankimobile/67390>\
**Category:** Help\
**Created:** [November 9, 2025, 7:00pm UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/youtube-embed-error-153-ankimobile/67390 "2025-11-09T19:00:44Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 9\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mellow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f6c823/32.png) [@Mellow](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/Mellow)\
**Post date:** [November 9, 2025, 7:00pm UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/youtube-embed-error-153-ankimobile/67390/1 "2025-11-09T19:00:44Z")

</div>

I have created a number of YouTube video html embedding which work in desktop and android but not on iPhone 17.

I get the error:

_Error 153  
Video player configuration error_

There seem to be no entries in the forum on this. And nothing comes up on google for Anki. ChatGPT is saying it’s a iOS security thing.

To be useful, I need to have the video display inside the app. Otherwise too much work jumping back and forth between Anki and YouTube.

Any ideas?

The embedding follows this structure:

iframe width=“560” height=“315” src=“youtube link” title=“YouTube video player” frameborder=“0” allow=“accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share” referrerpolicy=“strict-origin-when-cross-origin” allowfullscreen=“”\>\</iframe

Edit: just realized, might be because this is a work phone and I work with high security limitations.

Edit 2: problem now confirmed on my private iPad. Hence, problem is NOT work security related.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Danika\_Dakika](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/forums.ankiweb.net/danika_dakika/32/17815_2.png) [@Danika\_Dakika](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/Danika_Dakika)\
**Post date:** [November 9, 2025, 9:08pm UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/youtube-embed-error-153-ankimobile/67390/2 "2025-11-09T21:08:27Z")

</div>

I’ve moved this to #Anki > Card Design , because if the problem isn’t with YT, I think it could be in your iframe code or in how iframes are handled for security reasons.

It would probably be useful if you pasted that embed code –  
```

```plaintext
in a code/preformatted-text block

```

```  
– so folks can see exactly what you’re doing. It’s too hard to tell if things like smart quotes and obviously missing brackets are your errors or things that the forum is doing to your text.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nymvaline](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f04885/32.png) [@nymvaline](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/nymvaline)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2025, 5:09pm UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/youtube-embed-error-153-ankimobile/67390/3 "2025-11-14T17:09:27Z")

</div>

```auto
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/hnH3rnLZCKE?si=r7HCYKnQPsgnAHMx" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

```

```auto
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/0UmvUy1LziE?si=GDaJH3N-rEtfYSyA" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>

```

I’ve been running into this too. It used to be (a few weeks/months ago) that I could close and reopen AnkiMobile and it would fix itself, which is annoying, but now a lot of them are having this issue. Working fine on desktop.

The second one is an embed that used to be working on AnkiMobile and now isn’t, the first one is a video I tried to embed just now and ran into this because I haven’t recently tried to review the other cards with embedded youtube videos on them on mobile. The code from the first one was just now copied from youtube’s share → embed, and should show that the code hasn’t changed on youtube’s end.

edit: different app, but perhaps this could be relevant? [Reddit - The heart of the internet](https://www.reddit.com/r/obs/comments/1olfb8k/solution_to_youtube_error_153_fixing_browser/)

> YouTube recently made changes to it’s enforcement of minimum supported browser functionality requirements when viewing videos/streams. (See full technical details here: [YouTube API Services - Required Minimum Functionality &nbsp;|&nbsp; Google for Developers](https://developers.google.com/youtube/terms/required-minimum-functionality#embedded-player-api-client-identity)). The tl;dr is that YouTube needs to see some form of referrer value in the http request header before it will serve you the video player.

I don’t know how to tell what it’s sending as the origin in both cases, but I’m guessing it’s different somehow between anki desktop and AnkiMobile.

edit edit: It also still works on ankiweb.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![nymvaline](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f04885/32.png) [@nymvaline](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/nymvaline)\
**Post date:** [November 14, 2025, 11:36pm UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/youtube-embed-error-153-ankimobile/67390/4 "2025-11-14T23:36:52Z")

</div>

OK I’m not 100% sure I’m doing this right, but I got the referrer property for the iframe.

It looks like on desktop the referrer property is:

```auto
http://127.0.0.1:56796/_anki/legacyPageData?id=1790549630864

```

(the id and port are different after closing and reopening)

On ankiweb it’s this:

```auto
https://ankiuser.net/study

```

On Ankimobile, however, it’s something completely different:

```auto
ankifile://reviewer/

```

I’m guessing this is what Youtube is now rejecting when it wasn’t rejecting before. Why is it not http/https in ankimobile? Any chance this could/will be changed?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/uploads/anki2/original/1X/8f1279ababc5879d54e4838989f606cfe55af8c7.jpeg) [@system](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/system)\
**Post date:** [December 14, 2025, 11:37pm UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/youtube-embed-error-153-ankimobile/67390/5 "2025-12-14T23:37:05Z")

</div>

This topic was automatically closed 30 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Danika\_Dakika](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/forums.ankiweb.net/danika_dakika/32/17815_2.png) [@Danika\_Dakika](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/Danika_Dakika)\
**Post date:** [April 16, 2026, 3:53pm UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/youtube-embed-error-153-ankimobile/67390/6 "2026-04-16T15:53:35Z")

</div>



---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![brae09](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/forums.ankiweb.net/brae09/32/33053_2.png) [@brae09](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/brae09)\
**Post date:** [April 28, 2026, 4:55am UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/youtube-embed-error-153-ankimobile/67390/7 "2026-04-28T04:55:42Z")

</div>

I encountered the same issue trying to create a video player using YT Iframe API. The code works without a problem on Anki Desktop and AnkiWeb, but on AnkiMobile, I get the same Error 153.

Is this caused by the “referrer” header, as proposed by @nymvaline and is there any chance for a fix?

My code looks like the following:

```auto
        try {
            player = new YT.Player('video-container', {
                videoId: videoId,
                playerVars: { start: startSec, autoplay: 1, controls: 1 },
                events: {
                    onReady: (e) => e.target.playVideo(),
                    onStateChange: onStateChange,
                    onError: onPlayerError
                }
            });
        } catch (e) {
            showError(`Player initialization failed. Video ID: ${videoId}`);
        }

```

None of my error handling is triggered. I get a dark gray box where the video player should have been that says:

```auto
Watch video on YouTube
Error 153
Video player configuration error

```

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Danika\_Dakika](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/forums.ankiweb.net/danika_dakika/32/17815_2.png) [@Danika\_Dakika](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/Danika_Dakika)\
**Post date:** [May 9, 2026, 10:05pm UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/youtube-embed-error-153-ankimobile/67390/8 "2026-05-09T22:05:03Z")

</div>

Logged –

> <https://github.com/ankitects/ankimobile-issues/issues/17>
>
> From a \[private report\](https://anki.tenderapp.com/discussions/private/39508-you…tube-embedding-error-on-ankimobile):
> 
> \> The problem I ran into with AnkiMobile is when my card creates a YouTube player using the YouTube Iframe API, an error occurs: "Error 153 / Video player configuration error". The same code works on Anki desktop and AnkiWeb without any issue.
> \> 
> \> I found the following discussion in the public forum, but it was closed without a resolution.
> \> 
> \> \[https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/youtube-embed-error-153-ankimobile/67390/3\](https://anki.tenderapp.com/discussions/private/39508/r?go=aHR0cHM6Ly9mb3J1bXMuYW5raXdlYi5uZXQvdC95b3V0dWJlLWVtYmVkLWVycm9yLTE1My1hbmtpbW9iaWxlLzY3MzkwLzNcMTc3ODI4MDA4NS40OA%3D%3D&exp=1778280085.48)
> \> 
> \> I wonder if you concur with the proposed cause of the issue, that is, the http header "referrer" was not set to what YouTube required. If so, is it in the plan to fix it?
> \> 
> \> Being able to embed a video in the card and control the play is quite a useful feature for the shadowing practice.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Danika\_Dakika](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/forums.ankiweb.net/danika_dakika/32/17815_2.png) [@Danika\_Dakika](https://forums.ankiweb.net/u/Danika_Dakika)\
**Post date:** [August 4, 2026, 7:40pm UTC](https://forums.ankiweb.net/t/youtube-embed-error-153-ankimobile/67390/9 "2026-08-04T19:40:03Z")

</div>

This topic was automatically closed after 110 days. New replies are no longer allowed.