pressing like causes infinite async loop of solvepuzzle method

[8bit-meiko]

Have you tried to find similar issues (open or recently closed)?

• Yes, this issue is not a duplicate

Browser

firefox

Browser Version

138.0.4

Extension or Userscript?

Extension

Extension/Userscript Version

3.0.0.18

Video link where you see the problem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X2dL1d_C8s

What happened?

when i press like on any uploaded video, the plugin performs the solvepuzzle method, but it infinite loops and causes high single thread cpu usage as it does not stop by itself.

attached are 2 screenshots of my about:performance breakdown whats happening.

initially i got fooled by thinking the extention has a cryptominer baked in (blaming myself for jumping to conclusions and not diving into the root cause)

what should be happening: the solvepuzzle method to not repeat infinitely.

How to reproduce/recreate?

press like on any video, see the extention's cpu usage go up on a single thread by the infinite loop.

other extentions that i run (affecting youtube) for transparency: ublock origin, dark reader and nuxify.

Will you be available for follow-up questions to help developers diagnose & fix the issue?

Yes

[KibbeWater]

Exactly what are your steps when this issue occurs, does it still occur? do you do any specific actions after navigating to the page?

What exactly are you measuring when you show the performance graphs? There are loads of options to measure from in about:performance.

[8bit-meiko]

for getting the issue to occur, i press the like button on said video (or really any video i tried),
while monitoring cpu usage (in both task manager and about:performance on firefox) and they both go up. which caused me to use the firefox profiler on the extentions process in about:performance (the little icon next to the text "extentions".
said profiler then records 5 seconds of events on said process.
there it then takes you to the profiler analysis pages (where the 2 screenshots are from).
which allowed me to look at whats causing the high process usage of a single thread on my processor.
which is where i found the solvepuzzle being called repeatedly in a infinite loop or infinite cryptographic check.

i also uploaded exact steps on how i found out about issue in video format. hope this helps visualize it a bit?

ryd.bug.issue.mp4

edit: beyond encountering this bug i have no knowledge of how the code works for this extention so i wont be able to do a pull request on fixing it myself. also thank you for helping me with this encountered thing.

[KibbeWater]

Can't seem to repro on my own installation.

I'm curious if maybe it's cause of the challenge input returned from the server, could you do the following steps and run a script to check what is being sent from the server?

1. Enter the firefox extension debug page about:debugging#/runtime/this-firefox
2. Click inspect on "Return YouTube Dislike"
3. In the new window, enter the console and paste the script from below
4. Take a screenshot of the output

(async () => {
	console.clear();
	console.log('Start logging');

	const { userId } = (await browser.storage.sync.get(null)) ?? {};
	if (!userId) return console.log('No UserID has been saved/generated');

	const voteResponse = await fetch(`https://returnyoutubedislikeapi.com/interact/vote`, {
		method: 'POST',
		headers: {
			'Content-Type': 'application/json',
		},
		body: JSON.stringify({
			userId,
			videoId: '8X2dL1d_C8s',
			value: 1,
		}),
	}).then((response) => response.text());

	console.log('Vote Response', voteResponse);

	const registrationResponse = await fetch(`https://returnyoutubedislikeapi.com/puzzle/registration?userId=${userId}`, {
		method: 'GET',
		headers: {
			Accept: 'application/json',
		},
	}).then((response) => response.text());

	console.log('Register Response', registrationResponse);
})();

The script will try to check the challenge info returned by both puzzle endpoints, it wont leak any userIds. This should allow me to test the behavior locally. Also make sure the issue appears when visiting the original video link provided before trying to run the script

[8bit-meiko]

as requested, here's the output in a log file.
console-export-2025-7-11_16-46-35.txt

edit, i think this log file isnt what you need by looking at it. ill show deets of one of the errors (as they repeat anyway)

error message.txt

i am going to check that my network firewall setup isnt blocking any access in some way and retry right now. ill edit this message with my findings once done
update: the behaviour still exists after doing this

[KibbeWater]

Looks like somehow your "user" was removed or something? A temporary solution to get this fixed could be to go into the console using the previous instructions, but instead of the old script, just run the command browser.storage.sync.clear() and then restarting your browser, this should generate and register a new user automatically.

In the future there could be a debug or some hard reset using some hidden switch to force the extension to reset itself. Another alternative would be to verify registration in cases where 401 Unauthorized is being returned when requests fails.

[8bit-meiko]

Looks like somehow your "user" was removed or something? A temporary solution to get this fixed could be to go into the console using the previous instructions, but instead of the old script, just run the command browser.storage.sync.clear() and then restarting your browser, this should generate and register a new user automatically.

This sadly did not fix the issue on my end, as after relaunching the browser, the issue persists. though i think the root cause might be a issue specific to me. as reinstalling the entire plugin did not work either.

so in short, i think the issue is my browser installation at this point. but the debug thing / hard reset option would be welcome to have just in case of, and prevents unneeded cpu cycles being wasted.

i feel this issue can be marked as in progress or closed assuming there will be a reset switch added and the root cause being just my local browser? if not, feel free to leave it open and we'll go from there. :)

[KibbeWater]

I found the cause for the infinite looping which should be able to be fixed, but there seems to be some other underlying issue causing you from even registering an account to begin with (yet still returning success when registering) and then getting unauthorized errors when you try to vote, causing the same register and vote loop all over.

I will open a pull request soon fixing the issue which you can track implementation progress on

My recommendation for now is to disable the extension for the time being, and then as the fix is merged into main, install the development version of the package or wait for release via Firefox's extension store later on