Updating this post with new information, since I don't want to create a new one

If you're still seeing embedded ads on Twitch streams, update to the latest Streamlink version, which is currently 1.6.0, and see the Streamlink changelog.

• https://streamlink.github.io/install.html
• https://github.com/streamlink/streamlink/releases/latest
• https://github.com/streamlink/streamlink/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md

Since I've been getting a lot of questions over the past couple of days, I've decided to open this issue and talk about the recent changes on Twitch regarding the ads and what can be done in order to return to a more pleasant viewing experience.

Embedded ads

A couple of days ago, Twitch has started to embed ads directly into the streams. This wasn't the case previously and ads were simply loaded from an external source by their web player, which meant that Streamlink wasn't affected by this, as it's just a simple HLS client which doesn't have to follow their advertisement rules.

These new ads however are put directly into the HLS stream (with metadata) and replace the HLS segments of the regular live stream you're watching. Since there's no way around that, you're forced to watch the ads and have to wait for Twitch to resume providing you with regular stream data. Unfortunately, there's no ultimate fix for that, so we all will probably have to deal with ads in the future on Twitch, either by watching them or by filtering them out and accepting a gap in the live stream.

When I built Streamlink/Livestreamer Twitch GUI, the intention was never to bypass their ads when watching streams. It was meant as a simple front-end for watching streams efficiently in your local video player via Streamlink/Livestreamer. Therefore, I never had and still don't have anything against ads and I think they have their purpose (for the most part). Unfortunately though, due to the nature of how Streamlink works, these embedded ads can cause issues with certain players like VLC when the stream data changes (eg. different encoding, resolution, framerate, bitrate, etc). Their web player doesn't have this problem, because it consumes the HLS stream directly and can parse the included metadata, which is telling it to reset its decoding/rendering state whenever a new block of ads starts or ends. When using Streamlink, your local player needs to be able to do that just from reading the stream data alone. I've seen people complaining that VLC often crashes while switching to ads, but in my experience, MPV was working fine on my system all the time. So if you're seeing ads and are fine with that, you should consider switching to MPV.

Preventing ads from being shown

Please upgrade to the latest releases of Streamlink and Streamlink Twitch GUI and make sure that you're using Streamlink or Streamlink (Windows) as streaming provider in the streaming settings menu. Then simply enable the "disable ads" option further down in the menu.

I will upgrade this post with more infos later and will also move it to the wiki once finalized