[BUG]: "New to you" only showing 4-5 (mostly) stale videos

[demux4555]

Checklist

• I made sure that there are no existing issues - open or closed - which I could contribute my information to.
• I have read the FAQ and my problem isn't listed.
• I have taken the time to fill in all the required details. I understand that the bug report will be dismissed otherwise.
• This issue contains only one bug.

Affected version

26.11

Device Type

Smart TV/Box

Affected Android

Android TV 11 (Nvidia Shield)

Steps to reproduce the bug

(It's permanent. There are no steps to reproduce.)

Actual behavior

The Recommended section "New to you" seems to be utterly broken.

We have another Nvidia Shield device using a different Google account, and I'm seeing the same behavior there as well. This issue has existed for the entire time we've been using SmartTube (and the previous app which I forgot the name of).

I don't know much about how this app retrieves and parses data from our YouTube accounts, so to be honest, I'm unsure if it's the app that is bugging, or if YouTube is to blame due to how data might be presented to the app.

Firstly, most of the time "New to you" is showing a severely low number of videos. Usually it's exactly 5 videos. And often it might not show any at all (the section will be gone). Sometimes (very seldom)... it might show 15-20 videos (hooray!). And then immediately it will go back to 5 videos again.

Secondly, the videos being listed in "New to you" are stale. The same videos will keep showing up over and over endlessly. It gives the impression that it's "rotating" maybe 20'ish videos, that are veeery slowly being refreshed as the week progresses.

Thirdly, the "New to you" section will disappear completely for long periods of time. As I am writing this, I was gonna show you some screenshots... but it is now gone, and refuses to appear no matter how many times I refresh.

If I open the YouTube website in a desktop browser, and check the "New to you" section there, it will usually have 50-100 videos listed. And to be honest, I usually cannot see any of the same stale videos that the app is showing in that list. Refreshing the webpage will indeed refresh many the videos shown, but many will still be the same as before. But that's not really an issue when there are a big number of videos to pick from.

I've played around a lot with various settings that are somewhat related to the app's Home screen (for example "Hide unwanted content" and similar stuff) just to see if I can find something that triggers/affects this issue. I've yet to find anything.

Clearing watch/search history will immediately fix the problem for a very brief period of time. But watching some videos to let YouTube recommendation be narrowed down based on your interests, it will be back to only showing 4-5 videos again within a couple of days.

I have tried resetting the app's settings and configuring everything manually again several times over the last few years out of frustration, but it does not help with the issue.

I cannot be the only one with this problem... :-(

Additional information

No response