AJAX links break whenever the cache is cleared

I am using VEF to embed YouTube videos, with the Colorbox option. VEF module creates links like this:

http://www.example.com/vef/load/46178ba5f870b53f62a65cf837475ecc?width=6...

The problem we're seeing is that any time the cache is cleared, these links stop working. The only way to fix the broken links is to re-load a page where they appear. But eventually if nobody re-visits the page, the links are broken again.

We first noticed this problem when these VEF links stopped working while viewing the page the links were on. On our site, we've seen that the links usually only work for the first 30 seconds or so after loading the page. If we wait longer than that, the links are broken and we have to re-load to fix them.

Obviously this is a problem on a busy site such as ours, and it also causes problems when we share the links on social media. It ought to be possible to right-click a video thumbanil, copy the link, and share the link with no worries that the link will be broken in the future.