All my YouTube comments have disappeared!
[Update 10/11/2012: What a relief! All my old YouTube comments appear to have been restored successfully. Thanks to the YouTube team for correcting the situation so promptly.]
[Update 10/10/2012: Some news: I received an email from the youtube team saying “A small number of YouTube users may have had their comments deleted as a result of an error on our part”. They sent a link to a reinstatement form, which I submitted, and I now wait with fingers crossed for a speedy and successful recovery. Here’s a link to that form, if you feel you’ve also been affected by this issue!]
Today I noticed something completely depressing! I was looking back at some older comments on one of my videos and I noticed that none of my comments were there. When I clicked on someone’s reply to one of my comments “in reply to John Cooper (Show the comment)”, it popped up a dialog saying “The comment no longer exists”.
I go to a lot of trouble to respond to questions, and reply to as many comments as I can on my YouTube videos. Over the last few years, I’ve written hundreds if not thousands of replies and comments. It’s sad to see all that content disappear, and all the back-and-forth conversations that now look broken and one-sided.
A few weeks ago, when I logged into my YouTube channel, it asked me change over to using a Google+ profile, and changed my YouTube username from johnplanetz to John Cooper. Ok, so I did that – it didn’t appear that I had a choice. Did that cause all my comments to be deleted? (If so, I didn’t immediately notice it). It gave me no indication that it would delete everything!
As an experiment, I just tried unlinking my account from Google+ and set it back to johnplanetz, instead of “John Cooper”. My comments are still gone. And the next time I connected, it asked me again if I wanted to link to my Google+ profile. Reading through it, it clearly indicates that my comments will NOT be deleted- just that my name on them will change from johnplanetz to John Cooper. It also indicates that I only have 64 comments, when I really should have hundreds (or thousands).
At least I have all of the YouTube comments copied at my planetz blog comments, but most people read the comments at YouTube rather than here. And now the conversations on the YouTube website itself are completely messed up!
I’ve sent a query to YouTube tech support, but it’s not likely I’ll hear back.
[Update 10/11/2012– Honestly, I’m surprised that the YouTube team was able to respond and take care of this situation so quickly. I had assumed, with the bazillions of users/comments/complaints, that I wouldn’t hear back from them quickly, if ever. This must have been a huge, top-priority data-error in their servers. Happy they were able to resolve it!]
October 20, 2012 @ 4:12 am
Same thing happened to me. I changed my YouTube username to my google + name. It said only the name on my comments would change. After a few days all my old comments have disappeared. I have literally 100’s of comments posted over the last 5 years but now they are all gone. I’ve sent the form for missing comments but im not too optimistic. This is a big glitch and hope its resolved. If there is anything else i can do – or you guys know of a solution please let me know.
Thanks in advance.
stratman
October 20, 2012 @ 7:41 am
Hi Stratman,
It’s a horrible feeling – I understand your anxiety. I suggest you also file a complaint at the forums here:
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!category-topic/youtube/homepage-channels-subscriptions-and-social-features/report-a-technical-issue/chrom
It sounds like a number of people have been affected, and they are getting resolved, thought it may take a little longer now than it took for me.
What a huge blunder on YouTube’s part! Good luck!
John
August 6, 2013 @ 10:03 am
Would appreciate your help. For the past 3 weeks any comments I make are being deleted from my youtube channel a week later. Thanks, ANthony
August 6, 2013 @ 1:35 pm
Hi Anthony,
That sounds very different from what I experienced. I have no idea what´s going on with that.
Hope you can get it sorted out!
-John
October 20, 2012 @ 9:04 am
Hi John. Thanks for getting back. I have posted the same question on the link you have provided. Yes a huge glitch on youtube. If i had known this would happen i would never have changed the name.
If you get any updates on how i can resolve this – kindly let me know.
Hope your having a good weekend.
Best wishes,
stratman
October 21, 2012 @ 9:03 pm
Hi Stratman,
Other than filing the complaint and filling out that form, I don’t have any suggestions for speeding it up. Hopefully they’ll get to it soon!
Let us know when if/when your situation gets resolved.
-John
October 21, 2012 @ 5:43 pm
Same problem here, just reported in their help forum today. VERY frustrating discovering hundreds of comments gone from the past six years. I can’t believe a major corporation like Google doesn’t do testing before they roll out some major feature like an account merge? What in the world?!
I pretty much ONLY use YouTube to comment on videos. So that means now effectively my entire account is gone. They really need to put a warning up or just disable the merge feature till this is fixed.
October 21, 2012 @ 8:16 pm
Got a reply from someone with the same problem. Here’s the thread that provides a resolution.
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!topicsearchin/youtube/bug$20with$20real$20name$20feature/youtube/q5aQjkDJzCs
October 21, 2012 @ 9:01 pm
Thanks for the update Randall. Yes, that thread mentions the the same form which I linked at the top of this post (in my Update 10/10/2012). For anyone just tuning in, here’s that link again:
https://docs.google.com/a/google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dG5ZcmdyTlUwa3RIQmVwVS1Qc05pSVE6MQ
Let us know when if/when your situation gets resolved. Hopefully quickly!
-John
May 7, 2013 @ 10:42 am
Well, I finally got my comments restored. I submitted the request in October and it took until February! Obviously you can see where their priorities are. I think part of the reason they resolved my issue is because I kept on their YouTube Support Forum.
What irks me the most is that a company like Google will put an obviously untested system into production, and then not even disclose the known flaws, leaving users to discover long long after the fact that Google lost their data. What kind of business does that?
How hard would it be to simply do an SQL query for accounts that were recently updated with Real Names, and corresponding comment fields with null text? That’s the scary part! They know full well each and every user that has been affected by this bug, yet they would rather keep a tight lid on the issue.
Even after they did restore my comments, I was never notified. So it could have been sometime in January that my request was fulfilled. You’d think Google could generate an automated PM notification. Oh wait, that would be a lot to ask for a company that does not even appreciate me enough to admit that they lost the comments in the first place.
May 7, 2013 @ 11:15 am
Wow- I can’t believe it took so long.
So frustrating to hear that this bug is still ongoing, and that they are so unresponsive in fixing it, and taking care of their users.
Talk about Goliath vs the little guy 🙁
Glad you finally got it restored.
John
May 21, 2013 @ 8:39 am
Hi! I have the same problem, and your link seems to be not working.
Where can I get a new one to restore the comments?
Max
May 21, 2013 @ 9:08 am
Try posting a complaint to
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!categories/youtube/homepage-channels-subscriptions-and-social-features/report-a-technical-issue
December 7, 2012 @ 5:13 am
Thanks a bunch mate, the precise same thing happened to me and you saved my day. I just submitted my info to that Google Docs form and now I’m crossing fingers.
December 7, 2012 @ 7:32 am
I’m surprised they still haven’t fixed that bug!
Hope they restore your account quickly.
John
March 23, 2013 @ 9:52 am
OOO I CAN’T THANKYOU ENOUGH SAME THING HAPPENED TO ME I SEARCHED THE WHOLE WEB BUT FIND NOTHING USEFUL WHICH CAN SOLVE MY PROBLEM….:):D
April 6, 2013 @ 9:55 pm
Cool- I hope you got it resolved!
-John
May 4, 2013 @ 3:41 pm
Same thing happened to me, but I just noticed it today. The link to the form that you filled out is no longer valid. Any idea how I can get this problem resolved?
May 6, 2013 @ 12:08 pm
Sorry to hear that. It appears they’ve removed or changed the link to that form. I suggest you try posting a complaint to:
http://productforums.google.com/forum/#!categories/youtube/homepage-channels-subscriptions-and-social-features/report-a-technical-issue
Hope you get it resolved quickly!
-John
May 13, 2013 @ 1:03 pm
Ah, i’m having the same problem!!
How long did it take for somebody to respond to you and help you?
No one has responded to me on that forum yet.
May 13, 2013 @ 2:10 pm
It took a few days for mine to get fixed, but recent comments here imply that Google is being much less responsive about it now 🙁
So frustrating!
John
January 5, 2017 @ 5:53 am
Reading these comments it’s not surprising that this problem STILL exists 4 years later. Does anyone know a new way to resolve this problem? And I’ve already posted on the forum.