diff --git a/Sources/Kaset/Views/MiniPlayerWebView+Coordinator.swift b/Sources/Kaset/Views/MiniPlayerWebView+Coordinator.swift
index cbdd2f543..9fe3ae404 100644
--- a/Sources/Kaset/Views/MiniPlayerWebView+Coordinator.swift
+++ b/Sources/Kaset/Views/MiniPlayerWebView+Coordinator.swift
@@ -24,6 +24,26 @@ extension SingletonPlayerWebView {
         return decoded
     }
 
+    /// Sanitizes the thumbnail URL reported by the playback bridge.
+    ///
+    /// `img.src` resolves relative to the document, so a player-bar image that has not
+    /// yet been assigned a source reports the YouTube Music page URL. That value fetches
+    /// successfully as HTML and then fails to decode, so it must never reach `currentTrack`.
+    nonisolated static func playbackBridgeThumbnailURLString(from value: Any?) -> String {
+        guard let raw = (value as? String)?.trimmingCharacters(in: .whitespacesAndNewlines),
+              !raw.isEmpty,
+              let components = URLComponents(string: raw),
+              let scheme = components.scheme?.lowercased(),
+              scheme == "https" || scheme == "http",
+              let host = components.host,
+              !host.isEmpty,
+              !components.path.isEmpty,
+              components.path != "/"
+        else { return "" }
+
+        return raw
+    }
+
     // MARK: - Coordinator
 
     final class Coordinator: NSObject, WKNavigationDelegate, WKScriptMessageHandler {
@@ -601,7 +621,7 @@ private extension SingletonPlayerWebView.Coordinator {
         let hasReadyMedia = body["hasReadyMedia"] as? Bool ?? false
         let title = body["title"] as? String ?? ""
         let artist = body["artist"] as? String ?? ""
-        let thumbnailUrl = body["thumbnailUrl"] as? String ?? ""
+        let thumbnailUrl = SingletonPlayerWebView.playbackBridgeThumbnailURLString(from: body["thumbnailUrl"])
         let trackChanged = body["trackChanged"] as? Bool ?? false
         let likeStatus = Self.likeStatus(from: body["likeStatus"] as? String)
         let hasVideo = body["hasVideo"] as? Bool ?? false
diff --git a/Sources/Kaset/Views/SingletonPlayerWebView+ObserverScript.swift b/Sources/Kaset/Views/SingletonPlayerWebView+ObserverScript.swift
index 0d53bd5a3..eb363e1c3 100644
--- a/Sources/Kaset/Views/SingletonPlayerWebView+ObserverScript.swift
+++ b/Sources/Kaset/Views/SingletonPlayerWebView+ObserverScript.swift
@@ -679,7 +679,11 @@ extension SingletonPlayerWebView {
 
                     // Get the thumbnail URL from the image element
                     if (thumbEl) {
-                        thumbnailUrl = thumbEl.src || thumbEl.getAttribute('src') || '';
+                        // `img.src` resolves against the document base URL, so an empty or
+                        // missing attribute reports the YouTube Music page URL instead of ''.
+                        // Gate on the literal attribute before trusting the resolved value.
+                        const rawThumbSrc = (thumbEl.getAttribute('src') || '').trim();
+                        thumbnailUrl = rawThumbSrc ? (thumbEl.src || rawThumbSrc) : '';
                     }
 
                     // Extract like status from the like button renderer
diff --git a/Tests/KasetTests/AutoplayRecoveryTests.swift b/Tests/KasetTests/AutoplayRecoveryTests.swift
index ed4b0abdd..72215e025 100644
--- a/Tests/KasetTests/AutoplayRecoveryTests.swift
+++ b/Tests/KasetTests/AutoplayRecoveryTests.swift
@@ -778,4 +778,28 @@ struct MusicPlaybackBridgeDecodingTests {
         #expect(SingletonPlayerWebView.finitePlaybackBridgeDouble(from: true) == nil)
         #expect(SingletonPlayerWebView.finitePlaybackBridgeDouble(from: "1.75") == nil)
     }
+
+    @Test("Playback bridge rejects the document URL reported by an unset thumbnail element")
+    func rejectsDocumentURLThumbnail() {
+        #expect(SingletonPlayerWebView.playbackBridgeThumbnailURLString(from: "https://music.youtube.com/").isEmpty)
+        #expect(SingletonPlayerWebView.playbackBridgeThumbnailURLString(from: "https://music.youtube.com").isEmpty)
+    }
+
+    @Test("Playback bridge rejects empty and malformed thumbnail sources")
+    func rejectsInvalidThumbnails() {
+        #expect(SingletonPlayerWebView.playbackBridgeThumbnailURLString(from: "").isEmpty)
+        #expect(SingletonPlayerWebView.playbackBridgeThumbnailURLString(from: "   ").isEmpty)
+        #expect(SingletonPlayerWebView.playbackBridgeThumbnailURLString(from: nil).isEmpty)
+        #expect(SingletonPlayerWebView.playbackBridgeThumbnailURLString(from: 42).isEmpty)
+        #expect(SingletonPlayerWebView.playbackBridgeThumbnailURLString(from: "data:image/png;base64,AAAA").isEmpty)
+    }
+
+    @Test("Playback bridge preserves real artwork sources")
+    func preservesArtworkThumbnails() {
+        let artwork = "https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/abc=w544-h544-l90-rj"
+        #expect(SingletonPlayerWebView.playbackBridgeThumbnailURLString(from: artwork) == artwork)
+
+        let fallback = "https://i.ytimg.com/vi/dQw4w9WgXcQ/hqdefault.jpg"
+        #expect(SingletonPlayerWebView.playbackBridgeThumbnailURLString(from: fallback) == fallback)
+    }
 }