[BUG]: Sidebar Thumbnails are disappearing slowly

[jkr4m3r]

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

26.27 beta and recent

Device Type

Smart TV/Box

Affected Android

Androind TV 11

Steps to reproduce the bug

1. No steps, just over the last weeks, here and there, a sidebar thumbnail will become blank. Over time many of them remain blank.

Actual behavior

Blank thumbnails on sidebar where they disappeared. See attached pic.

Additional information

Nvidia Shield, latest update, issue started before recent Shield update, however.

[Getfree]

I have the same problem. Each week I see more and more grey squares instead of the channel icons. My sidebar at this point is mostly grey squares.

I suspect that the issue is caused by the URL of those icons returning a 404 error. That is, the URL is no longer valid. Possibly the channel icon was changed by the channel's author or perhaps Youtube just changed the URL for whatever technical reason.
Whatever the case, it's safe to assume that an icon URL is not permanent, it can become invalid at any point. It would be great that SmartTube tried to automatically re-obtain the new icon URL if the existing one returns an error code.