In an effort to get Sesame St playing on youtube for my toddler I've had to work out how to get youtube search to work. Basically - the plugin has one API key shared by everyone in the world, and it gets heavily used, resetting each day. So you need your own API Key.

There's a good guide about how to get the API key here, and a guide about how to enter it in Kodi here.

Here's a copy of the second guide in case it disappears.

First uninstal the YOUTUBE addon (you probably don't have to do this but it was just cleaner this way I didn't have to delete any folders)

Then reinstal the YOUTUBE addon... don't sign in

Close KODI


Thent go to
https://console.developers.google.com/apis/

Click on Credentials, then New Credentials, then API key, and select Browser Key, give it a name and click Create (this creates the KEY)

Then back to Credentials
Click on Credentials, then New Credentials, then OAuth Client ID, select Other, give it a name and click Create (this creates the ID and SECRET)

At this point you've got 2 sets of credentials. You'll need both.

Edited 02/06/16
Verify that the Youtube API is enabled

Go to
https://console.developers.google.com/apis/enabled
Verify that you see YouTube Data API v3 in the list

If it is NOT in the list go to
https://console.developers.google.com/apis/library

Click on the link for YouTube Data Api
Click on Enable API at the top

Go back to
https://console.developers.google.com/apis/enabled

Verify that YouTube Data API v3 is now in the list

End of edit 02/06/16


Locate the file - login_client.py
 - On Windows it's located here - C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Kodi\addons\plugin.video.youtube\resources\lib​\youtube\client

 - On Linux / Pi it's located here - /storage/.kodi/addons/plugin.video.youtube/resources/lib/youtube_plugin/youtube/client

Within the file login_client.py find the section that corresponds to the version of KODI that you're using in my case I'm running version 15.2

youtube-for-kodi-15': {
'system': 'Isengard',
'key': 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa',
'id': 'bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb.apps.googleusercontent.com',
'secret': 'ccccccccccccccccccccccccccc'

Note from Timmmmay - from memory mine was in a section called "main" and I had to remove some other lookup guff that was there. I'll try to remember to edit this later to say exactly.

aaaaa = API key

bbbbb = OAuth thing ending in apps.googleusercontent.com

cccc = other oauth thing

Set the Key to the Browser API key you created first
Set the ID to the OAuth Client ID you created second
Set the Secret to the Client Secret shown in OAuth Client ID

(Make sure that you're copying and pasting these between the quote marks)

Save the updated login_client.py file

Then launch KODI
Select the YOUTUBE Addon
Select SIGN IN

Then do the activation thing twice where you go to
youtube.com/activate

Enter the code from KODI, click NEXT then click ALLOW
Then enter the second code from KODI, click NEXT, then ALLOW

And that should be it... mine seems to be working...