Visiting i.ytimg.com redirects you to a secure https:// version of the url before giving you an unable to connect error.
Being a typical geek, rather than letting the matter lie I decided to find out what the message relates to. As it turns out the ytimg.com domain is owned by YouTube and I was playing a YouTube video at the time.
Apparently this server is used to serve thumbnail images into the YouTube player (YouTube IMaGe server).
Damn.
Another mystery solved.
Maybe I can make a conspiracy theory out of it? How about this: YouTube is sending subliminal messages via our browsers? Or this one: YouTube is run by aliens who are tracking our browsing habits to learn more about humanity before taking over the planet?
Can you come up with something more outlandish?
Update
If you are receiving the error "Reading i.ytimg.com" but some web pages aren't loading or YouTube videos won't play, then you will need to check your script blocking software (such as NoScript for FireFox) or anti-virus software (like Kapersky AntiVirus) and enable access to i.ytimg.com. Pages relying on it should then load and you'll be able to play your YouTube videos again.
Update 2
Youtube has a number of servers that pass various components into its player, so as well as i.ytimg.com you may see messages relating to s.ytimg.com (and possibly others too). An anonymous reader has posted the following link which returns the graphical "skin" for the youtube player as served by s.ytimg.com:
http://s.ytimg.com/yt/img
Another example image here, this time the "upload from mobile" icon:
http://s.ytimg.com/yt/img/icn_mobileupload_29x64-vfl20830.png
It isn't just images either (at least not from s.ytimg.com):
http://s.ytimg.com/yt/swf/watch-vfl43900.swf
http://s.ytimg.com/yt/css/buttons-vfl33583.css
As has been pointed out in the comments, the "read i.ytimg.com" and "read s.ytimg.com" messages are purely a FireFox issue, but the non-working youtube video caused by anti-virus or adblocking software blocking these sites will affect other browsers too.
Update 3
John has pointed out that Google own the ytimg.com domain. The explanation for that below:
Link to original press release
Update 4
Ishino has let us know that Google's anti-phishing API also uses ytimg.com. See http://code.google.com/apis/safebrowsing/ for more details on this.
This is used by Google's HTTPFox Firefox plugin to avoid phishing sites, so you may start seeing messages such as GET http://s.ytimg.com/safebrowsing/rd/goog-malware-shavar_s_(number) or
GET http://s.ytimg.com/safebrowsing/rd/goog-phish-shavar_s_(number) presumably as it is checking the links with Google.
40 comments:
Nice work tracking down "i.ytimg". I was a bit curious about it myself (obviously), but not curious enough to come up with a conspiracy theory. Only curious enough to Google it and wind up here. Ahhh, now I'll be able to sleep tonight!
But why isn't my page title or actual URL there? I'm not happy about this, I can't sleep tonight. Does everyone who visits my site see this instead of what is supposed to be there?
What's the URL of your site (I've checked the three listed on your profile, all seem fine).
If you are getting the error instead of your page then I'd guess that you have a YouTube video embedded on there somewhere. Try removing it perhaps?
Thanks for your studiousness :) I just wondered the same thing, started a google search, and here is my answer. Man, thanks a lot! I would have been trying to solve this forever.
Thanks. Thanks to you, I didn't spend the morning trying to figure this out. My wife probably thanks you even more.
I have firefox with no script plugin, and i just visited a website that had some embedded videos from youtube and they took too long to load and not all of them loaded I've given
permission to i.ytimg.com and still some don't load and when i refresh the ones who didn't load this time and one who did last time don't, and when i visit this website in ie7 it loads like that, could someone with firefox visit this website to see if they have the same problem as me.
Maybe it could be because i have vista.
Sorry i forgot to put the link to the website, :)
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/answerman/2008-03-28
Well after all it was kaspersky fault, because of its web anti-virus.
HI,
Google once proofed it's my best friend ;)
Have some video's of youtube running, now i know what this ment......
It seems "hanging" pretty long tho......
Hey thanks for the "i.ytimg" info. And here i was sifting through my blog trying to see if my blog had been hijacked.
Could you please help me locate these softwares on my computer? I can't find them ...At this point I don't know what to do.
Thanks for doing the research. I kept seeing this in my firefox status bar over and over on my website and just started to research it and found your link on it. I needed to know what it was!
Thanks again!
To be honest "Read i.ytimg" had me worried. It appeared on both my You Tube AND Blogspot sites about the same time I was being THREATENED by a Iraqi War Vet for using my 1st Amendment Rights...
tHE Vet kept writing "...when I find you I'll..."
@SpoAct
Well, at least you don't need to chalk this one down to the nut jobs. Other than those at YouTube that is!
If this "read" problem is a common occurrence for just the Firefox users, it has to do with the web browser or the firefox version of the Adobe flash plugin itself. I'm pretty sure of that much, but I am not sure which of the two is at fault. Probably a mix of both since the plugin and the browser have a good share of flaws. Since youtube uses flash on their sites to display their videos, this will happen in Firefox 2.
Basically, whatever, domain is hosting the flash file will say something like "Transferring Data From..." and then at some point it will say "Read..." even though the flash file has been fully downloaded. There's really no solution I know of if we're dealing with flash and firefox with regards to the status bar. The only way to make it go away is make sure the flash file has been fully streamed/downloaded, then open up a new tab, click on the tab and then switch back. That refreshes the status bar so it should say "done". No more "Read" message. It gives you a better idea if something is still streaming data.
Try it in any other browser and it starts to point to Firefox and the Firefox Flash plugin.
Thanks.. was wondering wtf that was after embedding a youtube vid on my website.. still don't like it much, but at least the mystery is solved. Maybe will d/l source .flv file and try embedding it from my own server and see if it still happens.
Thanks man peace on earth and beyond heaven! รด^^ *<-bingo*
To be honest, I have NO idea what most of you are writing about, especially that last post (04 May 2008 16:18 by Anonymous) What the #*~/?
I'm political ORGANIZER and writer NOT as "tech" savvy as all you geniuses. (lol) Seriously, don't be SO dry, snide, droll, etc., about all the conspiracy BS...
Take it from one who KNOWS, there's a LOT of fascist police state violations going out on the American scene, YOU'RE just NOT HEARING ABOUT IT.
I suggest reading "Standing up to the Madness" by Amy & David Goodman. Read about the Conn. Librarians the U.S. Government choose to VIOLATE and BE SCARED, BE VERY SCARED...
Now, I'm NOT ALLOWED to talk about IT... but #*~/ the Homeland Security Dept., I'm going to tell you anyway.
A radical activist friend of mine in New Mexico has documented PROOF that the Fed "stiffs" secretly set him up with FREE internet access just to keep track of his "activities". EVEN WORSE, his Comcast cable box was examined by experts and found to have a hidden camera placed inside.
So don't tell me there's ANY expert opinions about this sort of subject matter because the George W. Bush Administration has taken ALL Americans to the edge of MADNESS...
...as far as Constitutional Rights go, anyway
"Read i.ytimg.com" will still appear in Firefox even if you try to host the flv flash file on your own server. It will just say "Read yourhost.com" instead of Youtube's i.ytimg.com server.
The "Read..." status bar message will never go away unless you select different tabbed windows in your web browser and then switch back. If you still can't relate to what I'm talking about, then you shouldn't be conjecturing things about Youtube's use of flash technology in the first place.
It's a firefox/flash plugin thing not a Youtube thing. There's just so much jumping to conclusions by some folks these days that it's frustrating as it is misleading. And some people are just so ignorant and they don't mind being ignorant so long as they get to push ahead their own personal agenda. Search Mozilla/Adobe forums and you'll see this a technology related bug. Anyway, thanks to the author who posted about this because I was curious what "i.ytimg.com" is specifically.
I think I understand why the address is different from the youtube.com domain. It probably has to do with security because users are uploading files. You don't want the upload area and the actual YouTube site on the same server, if you know what I mean.
Thank you for this useful explanation about i.ytimg.
I have just installed firefox and seen this message. I was nearly uninstalling firefox. But now it seems to be Ok. :)
Thanks. Mystery solved. i.ytimg has been irritating me for a while as it seemed to be the culprit slowing down page loads. I was just about to scrap my blog and start over, just to get rid of it. I'm glad I found you first. Thanks for saving me the trouble.
Nice work, Thank you!
Ha ha, I just noticed the same message. I thought it might be the explanation for how some people upload videos that are half an hour or more long. Darn.
check this out:
http://s.ytimg.com/yt/img/master-vfl44411.gif
This is the result of a search in ytimg.com looks very Google Just thought you might like to know...
; <<>> DiG 9.3.4-P1 <<>> any ytimg.com
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 55726
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 5, AUTHORITY: 4, ADDITIONAL: 4
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;ytimg.com. IN ANY
;; ANSWER SECTION:
ytimg.com. 3161 IN SOA ns1.google.com. dns-admin.google.com. 2008051600 21600 3600 1209600 300
ytimg.com. 345161 IN NS ns4.google.com.
ytimg.com. 345161 IN NS ns2.google.com.
ytimg.com. 345161 IN NS ns3.google.com.
ytimg.com. 345161 IN NS ns1.google.com.
;; AUTHORITY SECTION:
ytimg.com. 345161 IN NS ns2.google.com.
ytimg.com. 345161 IN NS ns1.google.com.
ytimg.com. 345161 IN NS ns3.google.com.
ytimg.com. 345161 IN NS ns4.google.com.
;; ADDITIONAL SECTION:
ns1.google.com. 106577 IN A 216.239.32.10
ns2.google.com. 106577 IN A 216.239.34.10
ns3.google.com. 106577 IN A 216.239.36.10
ns4.google.com. 106577 IN A 216.239.38.10
;; Query time: 40 msec
;; SERVER: 209.68.1.11#53(209.68.1.11)
;; WHEN: Wed Jul 16 07:05:11 2008
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 272
WWW Whois Results
ytimg.com[Querying whois.crsnic.net]
Registrant:
DNS Admin
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View CA 94043
US
dns-admin@google.com +1.6506234000 Fax: +1.6506188571
Domain Name: ytimg.com
Administrative Contact:
DNS Admin
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View CA 94043
US
dns-admin@google.com +1.6506234000 Fax: +1.6506188571
Technical Contact, Zone Contact:
DNS Admin
Google Inc.
1600 Amphitheatre Parkway
Mountain View CA 94043
US
dns-admin@google.com +1.6506234000 Fax: +1.6506188571
Created on..............: 2007-12-11.
Expires on..............: 2008-12-11.
Record last updated on..: 2008-06-08.
Domain servers in listed order:
ns1.google.com
ns4.google.com
ns3.google.com
ns2.google.com
how do I know this explanation is not part of the cover up conspiracy???
:-?
M
Thanks for solving the mystery surrounding this domain, i too noticed it in firefox, and a qick google search led me here.
I use HTTPFox as a Firefox plugin, and when I leave this running a regularly see lines like
GET http://s.ytimg.com/safebrowsing/rd/goog-malware-shavar_s_(number) and
GET http://s.ytimg.com/safebrowsing/rd/goog-phish-shavar_s_(number)
They just popup out of nowhere city, so not related to reading pages or even youtube links. I'm not so sure this is related to the above, so I hope I can get some sleep in the coming days
check out http://code.google.com/apis/safebrowsing/
This is tha API responsible for the ytimg requests ;) I just had a quick look, but it states it can be used by webmasters to avoid phising-links
greetz
Hi Marco,
I'm seeing the same thing as marco. It's kind of troubled me, as I'm seeing on sites that I do for work that are under development, some on a local intranet. I'm using firefox v3 btw.
I must admit after reading about Gmail, which actually scans incoming and outgoing messages to better tailor background advertisements google is losing a lot of support from me.
Alternatively here's my conspriacy theory: personally I agree with this blog, it's almost certainly an HTTP savvy alien tracking my browsing habits via some mind control device. Or perhaps it's the browser requesting info and forcing me to consume.
Either way if anyone has some answers, or should I stop using firefox?
Andy
Hi Ishino,
Seems you answered my question while I was busy concocting conspiracy theories.
Fantastic blog entry btw. and some interesting comments.
Andy
Yes, thanks for this - I was wondering what the heck i.ytimg.com was!
All the best from Italy,
Alex
whatever it is, it's down right now for me and therefore all youtube is down.
Thanks for the concise info and updates as you learned more. There is quite a few links for a google search for ytimg.com but thankfully your post is on the first page as most of the others don't have sensible info like you.
I noticed the i.ytimg.com a long time ago and every time I open youtube (because I have slow internet) it says waiting/downloading/reading something.ytimg.com.something.
I thought about it and got to the conclusion that it is youtube image (img) and they conceled it quiet well, as if you go to ytimg.com, it seems as it doesn't exist :)
Here is one good argument from Dr Web to confirm your conspiracy theory.
Read the article posted at:
http://magikbus.cyme.org/blog/?cat=28
About how Macromedia Flash is using your own browser to access both your camera & microphone.
There's a fix for it but you'll need to read the article.
Leave us a comment if that information has helped you.
Cheers
Dr Web
http://drweb.cyme.org
hey guys, i got a annoying problem. When i ever go to like some websites etc. login in yahoo or gmail it says this exception thingy thats says to get the f**k out of the website. i have to click like get to the website anyways but like everytime!! ALSO, when i go to the exceptional website, it does not show pictures. like only words heelllp?!
My website has suddenly stopped loading fully. I use FireFox 3. www.just-tow.co.uk. When I run the tamper data plug in it shows i.ytimg trying to load. I am completely usure to what this is.
Can somebody check my website on their machine using FF3? If they can load it I can narrow it down to my anit-virus.
Please help.
Nice detective work!
Whew. Thats another one solved Dr. Watson. Or is it?
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