Is Youtube causing all the heachaches then?
No, the Google takeover has...........
Just do an internet search on Youtube and Google problems and there are millions of complaints out there........
That appears to be the case. They have evidently introduced some sort of new download mode for 1080p (and 4k, if some posts are to believed), and the various extensions and downloader utilities have been tripping over it. E.g., before the most recent update, the one I was using was showing 1080p but erroring out if you tried to use it. It still can't download 1080p, but at least it no longer claims it can.
A google for youtube download 1080p shows some interesting results, such as this recent Reddit discussion.
Yes.