I have not had that problem. But, you do have to specifically wait for the actual air time to come and go before you're able to play it with fast-forward capability.

Once that's done, I've never had an issue with fast-forward. The UI does differentiate between "recorded" and "on-demand" content.

What I have run into:

- Something I recorded is no longer available, I assume because some contract expired.

- Something that's immediately available as on-demand isn't scheduled to air "Live". I can still click the thing that says to record it, but it never airs and so never records. That's pretty rare, but it's happened.

Even if you ‘record’ something to your YouTube TV DVR, if there is an on-demand (with ads) version available from the network, your DVR recorded version will be replaced and you will be forced to watch the on-demand (with unskippable ads) version

Maybe it depends on the channel, but in my experience you can pick which version you want to watch. Take this screenshot from SNL for example: https://i.imgur.com/s7eCDi8.png

There are 3 versions currently available to me for S46 E16: two DVR and one VOD. If I select either of the two DVR versions, I can skip commercials as expected. The VOD version forces me to watch commercials (also as expected, I guess).

I can't reproduce that. I wonder if it's on some specific channels.

Possibly. I have seen it happen for some shows but not necessarily across the board

See also:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/youtube-tv-will-force-you-to-wa...