Fix a failed YouTube summary.

YouTube summary failures come from one of four places: the transcript or captions are missing or still processing, the video is restricted (age-gated, private, member-only, region-locked), the transcript is very long and the AI provider rejected it, or the YouTube page hadn't fully loaded when you clicked Reduz. The fix path depends on which one — and none of them are actually a Reduz bug. This page walks through the diagnostic checks in the order that fixes the most cases fastest, then covers what to do when the issue is the AI provider rather than the video itself.

Check these first

• The video has no auto-captions and no uploaded subtitles — without transcript text, no summarizer can work.
• The video is age-gated, private, member-only, or region-locked for your YouTube session.
• It's a live stream still in progress — captions are partial and not yet finalized.
• It's a YouTube Short where auto-captioning hasn't completed yet.
• The transcript is very long (3+ hour video) and the AI provider rate-limited or rejected the size.
• YouTube's caption track loaded after Reduz tried to read it — happens on slow connections or right after page navigation.

Fix it in this order

1. 1

   Confirm the video actually has captions

   On the YouTube watch page, click the gear icon then Subtitles/CC. If no caption track is listed (including auto-generated), the video has no transcript to summarize. Reduz cannot create a transcript from audio it can't see.

2. 2

   Reload the YouTube page and wait for captions to load

   Refresh the tab, let the video and caption track load completely (the CC button becomes available), then click Reduz. Auto-captions on newly published videos can take a few minutes to generate; wait if the video is brand new.

3. 3

   Check if the video is restricted

   Age-gated, private, member-only, and region-locked videos may not expose transcript data to extensions. Reduz cannot bypass YouTube content restrictions. If you can read the captions in YouTube's UI, Reduz can summarize them; if YouTube blocks the captions for your session, Reduz can't see them either.

4. 4

   For long videos, use selected transcript text

   For 3+ hour podcasts or panels, the full transcript can exceed the AI provider's the model can fit. Open YouTube's transcript view, select the relevant portion, then right-click "Summarize text with Reduz" to summarize just that section.

5. 5

   Switch to a larger-context provider

   For long-but-not-extreme videos (60-120 minutes), switch Reduz to a provider with a larger the model can fit — Claude Sonnet 4.6 or GPT-5.5 handle long transcripts more comfortably than smaller models. Open extension settings, switch the active provider, and retry.

6. 6

   Check the AI provider, not the video

   If the transcript loaded but generation failed, the issue may be the AI provider (rate limit, capacity, quota). Check the provider-specific troubleshooting pages (ChatGPT capacity, Claude rate limit, etc.) and consider switching providers.

Diagnosis

Transcript first, provider second

No AI provider can summarize a transcript that's not available. If the YouTube CC button shows no caption track, no fix on the AI side will help.

Live streams and Shorts are partial

Live-stream transcripts are incomplete during the broadcast and finalize after the stream ends. YouTube Shorts auto-captions are usually fast but not instant — wait a few minutes for new Shorts.

Restricted content stays restricted

Age-gated, private, member-only, and region-locked videos exist for YouTube policy reasons. Reduz uses your existing YouTube session — if you can't see the transcript in YouTube, neither can Reduz.

Long videos hit provider limits

A 3-hour podcast can produce a 30,000+ token transcript. On smaller models, that exceeds the the model can fit. Either select a section or switch to Claude Sonnet 4.6 / GPT-5.5 with larger context.

Browser-state dependent

On slow connections or right after SPA navigation, YouTube's caption track may not be loaded yet. Reloading and waiting fixes more cases than you'd expect.

Keep failed videos in the workflow

When the YouTube transcript is genuinely unavailable (no captions, age-gated, live-only), nothing can summarize it — that's a YouTube content limit, not a Reduz limit. For everything else, Reduz keeps your multi-source workflow moving. Selected-text mode handles long transcripts by letting you summarize just one section. Provider switching moves the same source to a larger-context model when the original provider rejected it. Transcript summarizer mode handles pasted transcripts when YouTube's caption track isn't accessible — paste the transcript from another source and Reduz treats it as a regular transcript source.

Frequently asked questions