King Tripple Whopper
Sometimes a small update can mess up little things regarding YouTube updates to the app. But, I’m very glad it was fixed. 
Tracey D
Update, the problem has been solved on its own—I'm not joking! I did not do anything at all—I tried it again today by accident, and it works like it should now. I wonder what was going on!
King Tripple Whopper
This looks like a bug
Manjunath✨
I have an iPhone 12pro max running on iOS 26.1. I’ve tested it by clicking on a link from the WhatsApp app and the video opened up in YouTube as expected. I then went to the AppStore and saw an update to the app pushed for today. I did the update and tested it again and I still don’t see this issue. Marble was talking about this exact issue on this app the other day. You might want to search for her profile on here and look at the post she made and reach out to see if she’s figured it out somehow
Tracey D
I've had the latest version of iOS for a while, but the problem has only occurred for a day. When I'm taken to a browser, I get the usual behaviour where there is an option to unmute the video etc. But every time I'm taken to the Youtube app, instead of playing right away, the links never open! I'm only taken to the app and that's it.
King Tripple Whopper