26.01.2010
First, thank you for the bug reports. Without them, new & enhanced versions simply won’t come out.
The plugin now has better video detection capabilities, and a serious bug regarding the auto thumbnailing feature is fixed.
You can download the new version at:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/youtube-thumbnailer/
Any bug reports, feature requests or comments are welcomed in the comments section below.
Related posts
- YouTube Thumbnailer Plugin Should Now Actually Work
- Post Editor Buttons Updates 1.1,1.2,1.3
- WordPress 2.8.1 is out
- Why should I upgrade to WordPress 2.8?
- Post Editor Buttons
Comments
Leave a Reply

Ken (1 comments) on 01.28.2010
Hi I am trying to use your youtube plug in however it does not seem to work for me. It is active and is in my tools menu. how exactly do I post the vidoe so that the plugin sees it
Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 01.29.2010
Just post or update a post as you would normally do.
Kermit Woodall (5 comments) on 02.02.2010
Will this work if you embed local videos, for example with FLV Embed, as well?
Thanks!
Kermit Woodall
Managing Editor
GadgetNutz.com
Kermit Woodall (5 comments) on 02.02.2010
Hmmm… I’m not actually seeing this work. Part of the problem may be that I don’t know what you mean by “embed your Youtube videos the way you usually would” since the built-in system didn’t work, Youtube Embed plugin didn’t work. Nothing I’ve tried for embedding the videos seems to be recognized by your plugin to make thumbnails.
Also…does it generate WP 2.9.1 compliant thumbnails or just copy the thumbnail location to the custom field? Also — do you use the HD version of the thumbnail from Youtube?
Kermit Woodall
Managing Editor
GadgetNutz.com
Josh (4 comments) on 02.03.2010
Hello,
I too am trying to figure out where these thumbnails are? I want to have these thumbnails as a sidebar widget, i see this plugin is not a widget, so what widget should i use that will pull from these thumbnails?
Thanks,
Josh
Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 02.03.2010
These thumbnails are saved in a custom field named “thumbnail” or whatever you change it to in the settings page.
I don’t know what widget, sorry.
The plugin detects the HTML embed code you get from YouTube.
Kermit Woodall (5 comments) on 02.03.2010
Oren – did you have an answers for my questions?
Thanks!
Kermit Woodall
Managing Editor
GadgetNutz.com
Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 02.03.2010
It just copied the URL to the custom field.
I am not sure about the image quality. I use the following template:
http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/$video_key/default.jpgAnd as for the detection process – the plugin just fetches the first YouTube video link that exists in the post. Well not exactly, only if the URL is in an HTML attribute like a link (href) or an embed tag (src).
Josh (4 comments) on 02.04.2010
Hello Everybody, Kermit, and Oren,
Thanks Oren, by the way for this plugin! It is a huge help!
Here is a good explanation that could help people figure this plugin out. What is meant by “embed your Youtube videos the way you usually would” is going to youtube, and getting the “embed code” off to the right, and inserting that whole block into your post. Hit puplish or update, and you will now see a custom field with the URL of the thumbnail. You can use a plugin like “Advanced Most Recent Posts” Widget to grab that URL from the custom field and give you a sidebar widget that shows the thumbnails of your recent posts!
Hope that helps everyone!
Josh
Kermit Woodall (5 comments) on 02.07.2010
That’s the key! See, there are so many ways to embed Youtube videos that are specific to WordPress I had no clue what was meant. The most obvious way, since I was thinking WP, was the Media Uploader and use it’s URL option but that wasn’t the right way obviously.
This works very well now! Thanks Oren.
Now if I can only find something that will automatically tag a locally uploaded FLV with a thumbnail I’m set.
Kermit Woodall
http://kermitwoodall.com
Josh (4 comments) on 02.13.2010
Orem,
I am trying to modify your plugin to look for the format used by many youtube embedding plugins, which just has you insert the full youtube URL instead of the youtube embed code
Youtube URL looks like: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLd77Zk7QyM
The URL inside of embed code looks like: http://www.youtube.com/v/WLd77Zk7QyM
I see your plugin scanning for that embed URL, so how do i modify for it to do the same magic but for the “watch?v=” version instead of the “v/” version?
Thank you very much!!!
Josh
Josh (4 comments) on 02.13.2010
I got it!
My youtube embedding plugin (Vipers Video Quick Tags) formats the youtube video embed like this:
[youtube] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXXXXX/youtube
so i changed the code in two spots to this:
if (preg_match(‘#http://www\.youtube\.com/watch\?v\=([^&"\' ]*)\[\/youtube]#
it used to be this:
if (preg_match(‘#http://www\.youtube\.com/v/([^&"\' ]*)#
Hope this helps further the success of this plugin!
Oren, could you have your plugin do its search for the youtube url in a post searching for it in different formats, and do an if/else situation to know how to format the thumbnail image?
Thanks,
Josh
Peter (1 comments) on 03.03.2010
Hello Oren,
Thanks Oren, by the way for this plugin!
I have installed it in my blog but it is not working. I am using Studio press Lifestyle 4.0 theme. Has anyone got it work with this theme?
Thanks
matt (7 comments) on 03.08.2010
using viper quick tags plugin and your fix josh gave my fatel error, right on the line of the fix
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_VARIABLE in /home/ozcorps/public_html/bmrs/wp-content/plugins/youtube-thumbnailer/youtube_thumbnails_script.php on line 55
not really sure where to go from this
Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 03.08.2010
@matt May I see your line 55?
Matt (7 comments) on 03.08.2010
There considerable difference from firefox where it shows NO images to IE where it shows one failed inmage and the rest are x out
line 55 is below
if (preg_match(‘#http://www\.youtube\.com/watch\?v\=([^&"\' ]*)\[\/youtube]#’,$p->post_content,$match) )
thanks for your help
Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 03.08.2010
You need to add a “{” at the end of that line (without the quotes).
matt (7 comments) on 03.08.2010
Thanks for the reply, i did i didnt copy that in the paste. is there a difference between firefox and IE view?
also when calling it up do i still have o use extended fields options in the post or does it automatically just add it in excerpt im totally confused, if you want i can give you access to the admin side of things of the site. lemme know
once again thanks for the help
matt (7 comments) on 03.08.2010
seems like it wont call anything with vipers plugin
im guessing too much cross code confusion also, to know or not to know if im supposed to modify the theme code to support this i have managed to get it to work by placing in my theme
<img src="ID, “thumbnail”, true);?>” />
above the
now i add in the posts custom field
thumbnail – http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/vGhj1utme6k/default.jpg
works fine shame though the plugin only worked by itself using the youtube embed code would have saved me alotta work manually adding but i cant go back and modify all the 100 or so post i have
if you manage to find a fix or want to gain access on my admin side ill contibue to work but the more i test the worse it seems to get
Thanks for your time
Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 03.08.2010
Give me access and I’ll try to do my best.
Matt (7 comments) on 03.08.2010
whats yah email or something ? ill give yah the admin there
i really do appreciate this btw
will make the major difference to the site
Matt (7 comments) on 03.08.2010
Oren yOU ARE awsome, ITS looks GREAT
Thank you so much
diff (1 comments) on 03.17.2010
Oh, but please share the solution here also :)
I have the exact same problem as Matt did
Thanks in advance
mssbee (3 comments) on 03.24.2010
I am not able to get the thumbnails to show. I am making a leap of assumption that some script must be added to my theme template to grab the thumbnail. I am currently trying timthumb, which is not working with the address of the thumbnail. I have tested the address in my browser and can see the thumbnail, any help would be appreciated.
Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 03.25.2010
@mssbee Email me with admin access to your website and I’ll try to solve the issue for you.
& @diff May you please post the problematic code line here? Or email it to me.
mssbee (3 comments) on 03.25.2010
I just found out the answer on the web. Timthumbs doesn’t work with images called from outside urls. I inserted this custom field call and now I have images:
ID, ‘thumb’, true); ?>
<img src="” alt=”" />
(I renamed my field thumb)
Thank you for the your generous offer of help and the wonderful plugin.
mssbee (3 comments) on 03.25.2010
Some of the code got cut off:
ID, ‘thumb’, true); ?>
<img src="” alt=”" />
EDIT:Some of the code got cut off: ID, ‘thumb’, true); ?> <img src="” alt=”" />
EDIT2:Well perhaps you should moderate out that code as I can’t seem to get it to print out the php parts, sorry.
Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 03.25.2010
I’m sorry, try placing the code in
tags.Jeff (3 comments) on 04.13.2010
Hi Oren
Thanks for this plugin – very handy. However, I have a problem.
In my case I’m running the Smart Youtube plugin by Vladimir Prelovac, so for me the Youtube URL must be changed to “httpv” rather than just “http”. Thanks to Josh’s post, I also edited the script on lines around 107 and 149 to:
[code]'#httpv://www\.youtube\.com/watch\?v\=([^&"\'? ]*)#'[/code]
The thumbnail is generated, but unfortunately doesn’t show. I think this has something to do with my theme activating the thumbnail due to WordPress 2.9.
Does this sound right?
Any help would be much appreciated!
Regards,
Jeff
Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 04.14.2010
The appearance of the thumbnail is totally up to your theme.
The plugin saves the URL of the thumbnail image in a custom field.
Jeff (3 comments) on 04.14.2010
Hi Oren
Ok, thanks for that explaination – I’ll try and find out where in my template it’s going wrong!
Kira (2 comments) on 04.21.2010
Thank you for this very useful plugin!
Is there a way to alter the image size?
thanks a million.
Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 04.21.2010
I don’t know any other way to retrieve a larger image from YouTube.
So.. nope.
I’d be glad to be corrected.
Kermit Woodall (5 comments) on 04.22.2010
Oren – which image are you retrieving from Youtube? They offer an HD image that’s pretty large.
Kermit Woodall
Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 04.22.2010
You are right.
I can use this pattern:
http://img.youtube.com/vi/nQMgfhE3Nzc/0.jpg
I don’t know if I should implement it in my next update because most people use small thumbnails.
Kira (2 comments) on 04.22.2010
Perhaps – for a future update – it is possible to add definitions for width (resp. height) in the thumbnailer settings. The larger thumbnail you linked to earlier could be resized. That would be awesome!
Mary (1 comments) on 05.11.2010
Hi Oren -
I’m creating a website for a client and would like to use your plugin. The site also uses a featured content slider and we’d like to be able to add posts that have youtube videos to the slider. The slider takes the value of a custom field and then uses timthumb to resize the images to fit nicely in the slider. (Currently I have this turned off, the slider is using the actual size of the image rather than uses timthumb to resize.
So basically my problem is that I’d like to be able to use your plugin but have it create the thumbnail on our server so that timthumb can be used with the thumbnail.
I tried changing your code:
$img=”http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/{$match[1]}/default.jpg”;
to this:
$img=”http://hellocupcakeonline.com/news/wp-content/uploads/thumbs/{$match[1]}/default.jpg”;
and made sure the permissions were set correctly on the server but no files get created in the thumbs directory.
Can you please help me with this or maybe point me in the right direction?
Please let me know if you need more information from me.
Thanks!
Mary
Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 05.11.2010
Hey Mary,
”http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/{$match[1]}/default.jpg”Is the path to the thumbnail image hosted on YouTube.
What I believe you want to do is to download the image to your server and then save it in your desired location, which is I guess:
”http://hellocupcakeonline.com/news/wp-content/uploads/thumbs/{$match[1]}/default.jpg”Read on file_get_contents and curl. They might help you download the image.
Good luck,
Oren.
Japanese Commercial (2 comments) on 05.13.2010
Hi Oren
First of, thanks for the plugin, it’s really REALLY useful!
It’s been working great on my site, except one annoyance. Ever once in a while (and I haven’t pinpointed why it does this), it inserts the URL for the thumbnail, but it puts the URL onto 2 lines, and often inserts part of the code from the actual post, so that it will look like:
http://i2.ytimg.com/vi/Uu_vq0lK3xo
h2./default.jpg
When it does this I have to deactivate the plugin, edit the URL, and then reactivate the plugin – if I didn’t, every time I edit the URL it just changes back to the incorrect one.
Any ideas why it’s doing this?
Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 05.14.2010
I think it’s somehow related to the way the YouTube video is embedded.
If you give me access to that specific post, I may be able to pinpoint the issue and fix it.
Japanese Commercial (2 comments) on 05.16.2010
Hi Oren
Sorry for the late reply.
How do I give you access to the specific post? It hasn’t published yet – it’s scheduled to go out on the 1st June…..
Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 05.16.2010
You can give me admin access. Only if you want to.
Niema Bryson (2 comments) on 05.26.2010
This plugin seems to be what I’m looking for but I can’t get it to work. I installed it now what. I already have a video embedded in my post and a image. Please someone help so I can play with my kids. Thanks
Oren Yomtov (55 comments) on 05.26.2010
Check to see if the plugin populates the custom fields or not. Look for a custom field named “thumbnail”.
Niema Bryson (2 comments) on 05.26.2010
Thanks for responding so quickly. I still don’t understand. I’m new at computers. I was reading the forums earlier today and the information is just all over the place. I’m doing something wrong. I’ll keep trying for awhile until I get tired. Thanks for your help, but I would really like to use your plugin though.
Thanks
Mike (3 comments) on 06.07.2010
What I did to get this working was:
Creating a new posted I pasted the entire embed code from Youtube and also pasted the url from the address bar on a seperate line. Published or updated the post…..then returned and removed te entire ember code just leaving te url and it’s working great
neon (1 comments) on 06.30.2010
hi, I am using theme “news magazine” and it uses post thumbnails. i installed your plugin (very easy to use!). I see the correct youtube thumbnail link in the custom fields box, but the thumbnail custom box information is still not communicating with the theme. Still no youtube thumbs on the site.
Cathi (1 comments) on 08.29.2010
I have a video inserted in my post using Smart YouTube where the http adds a v, so it is an httpv://…….. video. I have installed Thumbnailer v1.1.1 and clicked run. The Thumbnailer custom field name says Thumbnail. The add thumnail posts when saved or updated says yes. I update the post. When I go to my blog the video does not show up as a thumbnail. It still shows as regular size. Am I doing something wrong? Thank you.