YouTube videos will not play on my iPad since updating to iPad OS 17.7.3

My iPad is 6th gen, just updated to iPadOS 17.7.3 yesterday, has of 69 GBs of available storage. Every since the update, YouTube videos will not play, either in the YT app or via Safari. Once I click on any video thumbnail, I get the spinning wheel, like it's buffering. I even let it run in this state for 3 hours and a video never started playing. This happens whether the video is set to launch immediately or an ad is set to run first, same with shorts or regular long form video. Here are the steps I've taken thus far:

restart iPad (multiple times)

reset iPad settings

Delete and reinstall YouTube app

Delete YT app and attempt video play in Safari

Delete browsing history in Safari

Removed all websites from storing data for tracking purposes

Reset router

This began the day I updated the OS to the current 17.7.3 so it seems clear to me that it's an issue with the OS (had no trouble before the udpate). I have other Apple devices (apple TV and MacBook) for which YouTube works fine. Just the iPad, so it's clearly not a YT service issue either. Other video sources (Instagram Reels, Tik Tok) work fine as well.

Anyone else experiencing this? This is somewhat catastrophic for me as the iPad is 50% used for YouTube video. Any suggestions beyond "update the app" "update the OS" "restart the iPad" all of which have been done to no avail.

Thank you