Troubleshooting

There are many reasons why you might encounter issues with CyTube. Below are some common steps to isolate and identify the problem.

  • Try a different browser. CyTube is tested in Firefox and Chromium, but you may find a browser-specific issue I don't know about
  • Make sure HTTPS Everywhere (if you have this extension) is disabled for YouTube. This is known not to be compatible
  • Try clearing your cookies and cache
  • Disable all extensions, see if it works, and enable them one by one until you figure out which extension conflicts

If you do encounter issues, please report them. You can open an issue on GitHub or join the #synchtube channel on 6irc.


Chat Commands

Command Rank Result
/sp Spoiler Alert!
Anyone Spoiler Alert!
/me does something
Anyone username does something
/afk
Anyone Toggles your AFK (away from keyboard) status. While AFK, your name will appear in italics with a clock icon.
/say This is important!
Moderators This is important!
/kick username
Moderators (username is kicked from the room)
/ban username
Moderators (username is banned from the room)
/ipban username
Moderators (username is IP banned from the room)
/unban name|ip_address
Moderators (The user is unbanned from the room)
/poll Title,Option 1,Option 2,etc
Moderators

Title

Option 1
Option 2
etc
/poll
(no parameters)
Moderators A poll editor is popped up allowing for easy creation of the poll, and allowing commas in the poll title and options
/clear
Moderators The chat buffer is cleared

There are also some other chat features. When your name appears in a message, the message will be highlighted. If you type the beginning of someone's name in chat, pressing tab will attempt to autocomplete the name.

Queue Controls

Queue Controls are only visible to moderators by default. A moderator can unlock the queue to make the controls visible to everyone.
Below is an example of the queue controls. On your channel, simply paste a link of one of the following accepted formats and press "Next" to add it after the current video, or "End" to add it at the end of the playlist. If Voteskip is enabled in Channel Options, then pressing voteskip indicates you would like to skip the current video. If a majority of connected users does this, the video will be skipped.

Acceptable URLs
  • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=(videoid)
  • http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=(playlistid)
  • http://www.vimeo.com/(videoid)
  • http://www.soundcloud.com/(songid)
  • http://www.dailymotion.com/video/(videoid)
  • http://www.twitch.tv/(channel)
  • http://www.justin.tv/(channel)
  • http://www.livestream.com/(channel)
  • http://www.ustream.tv/(channel)
  • rtmp://(stream url)
  • jw:(stream url) - uses a JWPlayer embed (use this for audio streams)
You can also queue multiple items at once by separating the URLs with commas.

Below is an example of an entry in the playlist. Please note the control buttons only appear if you are a moderator or if the queue is unlocked. The button with vertical arrows is for moving videos in the playlist. Click and hold the button and drag the mouse up and down to move the video in the playlist. The red "X" button will remove the video from the playlist. The green play button will jump the playlist to that video. The arrow button will move the video to the next position after the currently playing video. The flag button will toggle whether the video is temporary (temporary videos are auto-removed after playing once).

  • Title
    00:00

Moderators will also see the "(Un)Lock Queue" button. This button can be used to toggle whether anyone can add videos, or just moderators.

Userlist Controls

Function Description
Ignore User Ignores incoming chat messages from this user
Make Leader Assigns leadership of the media to this user. When someone is assigned leadership, the server follows their video/audio and syncs other clients to them. This allows for seeking within the video. By default, the server leads by itself.
Take Leader Revokes leadership from this user and the server takes over
Kick Kicks this user from the room
IP Ban IP bans this user from the room. This can be reversed using the /unban chat command or from the ban list interface
Promote Increases this user's rank in this channel by 1. All users start with rank 0. Moderators have rank 2, channel owners have rank 3. When you register a channel, you are assigned rank 10.
Demote Decreases this user's rank in this channel by 1. All users start with rank 0. Moderators have rank 2, channel owners have rank 3. When you register a channel, you are assigned rank 10.

Synchronization and Leaders

Synchronization is handled a little bit differently from Synchtube. By default, media synchronization is managed by the server, which sends out synchronization updates every 5 seconds. This means if you attempt to seek your client manually, it will be jumped back to the server's position. If you need to seek the video, you can assign leader to someone (see Userlist Controls). Giving someone leader makes the video follow their client, so any seeking they do will be broadcast to everyone in the channel.
When someone is leader, they also get partial moderator powers temporarily. Leaders can open polls, use /say, and manage the queue, but cannot kick/ban, change channel options, or change chat filters. This is useful if you want to leave someone in charge but not make them a full moderator. Leadership is revoked upon refresh, or you can revoke it manually.


Channel Options

Moderators have access to a menu (at the bottom of the page) for toggling various channel options. This is pretty self explanatory. The "Channel Options" tab contains various channel settings, the "Ban List" tab allows you to view and lift IP Bans, and the "MOTD" tab allows you to edit the message of the day. The "Chat Filters" tab is explained below.


Chat Filters

Moderators can apply various filters to chat messages using Regular Expressions. The first column contains a button to remove filters. The second is a name to identify the filter. The third is the regular expression to match in the message. The fourth is the regular expression flags (g = replace all, i = not case sensitive, gi is the combination of the two, etc). The fifth is the replacement text, and the last is a checkbox for toggling the filter on/off. Regular Expressions are given in Javascript syntax. The following example replaces money amounts of the form "$amount" to "amount dollars":


Name Regex Flags Replacement Active
The dollar filter \$([0-9\.]+) g $1 dollars

Ranks

Rank Name Numeric Rank
Website Administrator 255+
Channel Administrator 3-254
Channel Moderator 2
User 1
Guest 0

Third party tools

Name Description Link
CyNaoko CyTube version of Naoko SychTube bot Link