Google announced that YouTube Music subscribers will now hear ads, promising an investigation.

Problem with Google Home after subscribing to YouTube Premium

Recently, YouTube Premium users began complaining on Reddit: their Google Home and Nest speakers stopped playing music from YouTube Music without interruptions, and instead of tracks ads started playing. The issue appears only on speaker devices; it is not observed on smartphones and tablets.

Who reported this?

The author of the Reddit thread said they had subscribed back when Google Play Music was still available (the service shut down in 2020) and tried rebooting the Home Hub, but the ads kept appearing.

Other participants described a similar bug:

- 30‑second pauses between songs;
- difficulties loading tracks;
- sudden silence before an ad;
- sometimes the most popular tracks played in personalized playlists even if they weren’t part of listening history;
- PC streaming stopped working.

Possible cause

At least one user noted that YouTube Music works fine on their smartphone or tablet, confirming that the problem is specific to Google Home.

Answer from Google

The official GoogleNestCommunity account confirmed that Google “is aware of a playback issue with YouTube Music on some Google Home devices” and is currently investigating the cause. The official statement did not mention ads or YouTube Premium subscriptions.

At present there is no information about the scope of the problem, its causes, or any potential link to CloudFlare outages (which affected Steam). Users are awaiting further clarification from Google.