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Use the YouTube Live Streaming API to check two separate signals: whether YouTube is receiving your video input, and whether the viewer-facing broadcast is in its expected live state. An active input alone does not prove that viewers can see the event. Check the stream’s status and health, then check the associated broadcast’s lifecycle status.
What “online” means on YouTube
YouTube represents an automated live stream with two related resources. A liveStream represents the incoming video feed; a liveBroadcast represents the event viewers watch. Google’s API documentation describes these separately: LiveStreams and LiveBroadcasts.
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| Signal | What it answers | What to inspect |
|---|---|---|
| Incoming stream | Is YouTube receiving data from the encoder or automated source, and does YouTube report known configuration or delivery issues? | liveStream.status.streamStatus and liveStream.status.healthStatus |
| Viewer-facing broadcast | Is the event in the lifecycle state your monitoring expects, such as live? | The associated liveBroadcast lifecycle status |
Report these separately—for example, “input received; broadcast not live”—rather than reducing both to an unqualified “online” result. That distinction helps separate an encoder or input problem from a broadcast that has not reached the intended audience-facing state.
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Check the input stream’s status and health
Read the stream resource’s status object. Its two fields serve different purposes: streamStatus indicates whether data is arriving, while healthStatus helps diagnose stream configuration or delivery issues.
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Interpret streamStatus
active: YouTube is receiving data via the stream. This confirms input receipt, not that the broadcast is live for viewers.inactive: YouTube is not receiving data.ready: The stream has valid CDN settings, but this does not mean data is currently arriving.created: The stream has been created but does not have valid CDN settings.error: An error condition exists.
Interpret healthStatus
good: No configuration issue has warning severity or worse.ok: No issue has error severity.bad: One or more issues have error severity.noData: YouTube’s live-streaming backend has no health-status information.
The health object also includes the timestamp of its most recent update and any configuration issues, including their types, severity, reason, and description. Use those details to diagnose a problem rather than treating health as a second on/off switch. Documented issue examples include low video bitrate, frame-rate mismatch, and missing audio.
Check the broadcast viewers are meant to see
Identify the expected broadcast and its bound stream. The broadcast resource includes a bound stream ID; use it to connect the broadcast with the relevant liveStream. Then inspect the broadcast’s lifecycle state independently of the input stream status.
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For monitoring, define the expected broadcast state explicitly. A check that only finds an active input can report success while the viewer-facing event is not in the expected live state. Conversely, broadcast state alone does not diagnose whether YouTube is receiving the intended feed. Use both signals to identify which part of the chain needs attention.
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Retrieve broadcast information with the API
The YouTube Data API’s broadcast-list method requires OAuth authorization. It accepts a broadcastStatus filter of active, all, completed, or upcoming; alternatively, query by broadcast id or use mine=true to limit results to broadcasts owned by the authenticated account. Exactly one of broadcastStatus, id, or mine must be supplied. See the official LiveBroadcasts API reference.
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- Authorize access. Use an OAuth scope supported by the list method, such as
https://www.googleapis.com/auth/youtube.readonly. Keep credentials private; do not place tokens or client secrets in public code or logs. - Find the intended broadcast. Query by its ID when known, or list the authenticated owner’s broadcasts with
mine=true. A list filtered bybroadcastStatus=activecan help find active broadcasts, but confirm you have the expected event rather than assuming any active result is the one to monitor. - Get its bound stream ID. Read the broadcast’s bound stream information and identify the corresponding
liveStream. - Read both resources. Inspect the stream’s
status.streamStatusandstatus.healthStatus, then inspect the broadcast lifecycle status. Record the results independently. - Apply your own alert rules. Decide which combinations should notify an operator—for example, an inactive input or an unexpected broadcast state. YouTube’s API references do not establish a universal polling interval, detection latency, or quota budget. Check current quota guidance and validate your implementation before choosing an interval or promising alert speed.
If the account is not enabled for live video, the list method may return liveStreamingNotEnabled. Resolve the account’s live-streaming eligibility before treating that response as a stream outage.
Do not use a state-changing endpoint as a health check
The broadcast transition endpoint changes the broadcast’s state; it is a control operation, not a passive monitoring check. YouTube documents that the bound stream must be active before a broadcast can be transitioned to testing or live. A monitor should read resource state rather than trigger a transition just to test whether the stream is online.
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Common monitoring results and what to do
| Observed result | What it means | Next check |
|---|---|---|
streamStatus=active, broadcast not in expected live state |
YouTube is receiving input, but the audience-facing event has not reached the expected lifecycle state. | Confirm you selected the correct broadcast and inspect its lifecycle state. Do not infer viewer-visible live status from input receipt. |
streamStatus=inactive |
YouTube is not receiving data via this stream. | Check whether the automated source or encoder is running and sending to the stream associated with this broadcast. |
healthStatus=bad |
YouTube reports at least one configuration issue with error severity. | Read the issue details—type, reason, severity, and description—and address the identified problem, such as a reported bitrate or audio issue. |
healthStatus=noData |
The backend has no health-status information. | Do not interpret this value as proof that the feed is healthy or failed. Consider it separately from stream receipt and broadcast state. |
API returns liveStreamingNotEnabled |
The account is not enabled for live video. | Resolve account eligibility and authorization before evaluating stream health. |
| Stream is active but health is not good | Input is arriving, but YouTube also reports a health or configuration concern. | Inspect the health object’s issue descriptions; keep the input-received and health results as separate alerts. |
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