# Changelog of YouTube Scraper — Videos, Comments & Transcripts for AI (`yasaslive/youtube-channel-comments-transcripts`) Actor

- **URL**: https://apify.com/yasaslive/youtube-channel-comments-transcripts/changelog.md
- **Full Actor documentation**: https://apify.com/yasaslive/youtube-channel-comments-transcripts.md

## Changelog

All notable changes to this Actor are documented here. Format: [Keep a Changelog](https://keepachangelog.com/en/1.1.0/); versions follow the Apify `major.minor` build versions.

### \[1.0] — 2026-09-27

#### Added

- Scrape YouTube **channels** (Videos, Shorts and Live tabs), **playlists**, **single videos** and **search** (URLs or plain search terms).
- Per video: full metadata, top-level **comments** (Top order, pinned/hearted flags, exact total), and **transcripts** with timestamped segments, `fullText` and `wordCount`.
- Pay-per-event pricing: `actor-start` $0.01, `video-scraped` $0.002, `comment-scraped` $0.0005, `transcript-scraped` $0.005 (source of truth: `.actor/pay_per_event.json`).
- `uploadedAfter` (absolute or relative dates), `sortBy` (newest / popular), transcript language preference list.
- Run statistics (`STATS` key-value record, logged every 30 s) with categorized error counters and `budgetReached`.
- Dataset views (Overview, Transcripts) and output schema.

#### Design decisions

- **HTTP only, no browser.** All data comes from YouTube's InnerTube API (`/browse`, `/search`, `/next`, `/player`, `/navigation/resolve_url`) using the WEB client context and the API key / client version / visitor data read from the live page's `ytcfg` at start-up (with built-in fallbacks if that page is blocked).
- **Captions via the ANDROID/IOS InnerTube clients.** Since 2025, caption URLs returned to the WEB client require a browser-generated proof-of-origin (PO) token and return empty bodies without one. The mobile clients' caption URLs do not, so they are used *only* to obtain caption tracks; all metadata still comes from the WEB client.
- **Machine-translation fallback.** When none of the requested transcript languages exist, YouTube's translation (`tlang`) is attempted; because YouTube rate-limits translation aggressively, a failed translation falls back to the original-language track (`isTranslated: false`).
- **Search sort.** YouTube removed the upload-date sort from search in 2025. `sortBy: popular` maps to "Prioritize: Popularity"; `sortBy: newest` uses relevance order for search (channels still sort newest-first). Documented in the input schema and README.
- **`maxVideos` instead of `maxResults`.** The repo convention asks for `maxResults` (default 50); this Actor's specification defines `maxVideos` (default 20, per source) as the result limit, so `maxResults` is intentionally not added to avoid two overlapping limits.
- **Proxy default.** `proxyConfiguration` defaults to `{ useApifyProxy: true }` (datacenter) per repo convention; blocked/rate-limited requests rotate sessions, and the README tells users to switch to RESIDENTIAL if blocks persist.
- **Budget safety.** Budget is *reserved* before each video's expensive work (comments, transcript) so concurrent handlers can never overspend; items are pushed first and charged immediately after, only for what was emitted. Free events (non-PPE runs) are never charged, so they can't be mistaken for an exhausted budget.
- **Quota refill.** If a queued video turns out to be unavailable or older than `uploadedAfter` (by its exact publish date), its slot is refilled from the listing's backlog / next page, except for newest-first channel listings where everything after is older anyway.
- **Final-attempt degradation.** On a request's last retry, a blocked comments/transcript sub-request is recorded as `ERROR` instead of discarding the whole video.
- **Comment dates** are derived from YouTube's relative times and are approximate (`publishedTimeText` keeps the original).

#### Known limitations

- Replies are not collected (only `replyCount`).
- Age-restricted videos: metadata only (no transcript/comments).
- Live chat is not collected.