Video embeds work in backend, but are not parsed in frontend

When I try to embed a YouTube video using one of the following ways:

• By entering a YouTube URL
• By entering an shortcode
• By adding a video through the media browser (which results in an shortcode)

I am seeing the video just fine in the editor view:

But in the frontend view, using this code:

 $content_desktop = do_shortcode(get_the_content());

I am seeing

• when entering a pure URL: the unparsed URL

• When entering an shortcode or using the WYSIWYG editor: literally nothing

Things I’ve checked:

• I’m the admin user so there should be no problems with rights
• Other shortcodes work fine
• The DOM literally shows what I show above, there is no CSS interference
• The YouTube videos I’m trying to embed allow external embedding
• There are no options for me to check in “Settings” > “Media” (apparently it used to be that you had to explicitly turn on media embedding there, but no more)

Is there something well known that could be causing this?

I’ve just looked at the source of the WP_Embed class, and it appears they are not actually registering a shortcode, but hooking into the the_content filter.

Change your code to

$content_desktop = apply_filters("the_content", get_the_content());

or manually trigger their filter with something like

$content_desktop = WP_Embed::run_shortcode(get_the_content());

or, if you prefer to have an object:

$myembeds = new WP_Embed;
$content_desktop = $myembeds->run_shortcode(get_the_content());

See also WP_Embed::run_shortcode in the codex, and the source code of class-wp-embed.php.