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Ask HN: What's the Situation with YouTube-Dl?
I wanted to download some lectures [1] off youtube as I'm going to be without internet or a long period, and but A) just apt install get me a version which is too old, and I get ERROR: Unable to extract uploader id; please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug . Make sure you are using the latest version; see https://yt-dl.org/update on how to update. and B) going to the update url I see Access denied; Due to a ruling of the Hamburg Regional Court, access to this website is blocked.
So, what's the situation with youtube-dl? How do I get it working? As a separate question, how else can I download something off youtube?
I guess last resort I'll have to dig into the python to figure out why that regex is failing and what else I can do about it, but that's not sustainable.
[1] if anyone is curious, just discovered this from HN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tNOu-SEacNU&list=PLDcUM9US4XdPz-KxHM4XHt7uUVGWWVSus&index=5
- tjrgergw 3y agoSearching reddit I found a subreddit: https://old.reddit.com/r/youtubedl/ https://old.reddit.com/r/youtubedl/ Man google sucks.
- paradoxyl 3y agoIt doesn't suck, it's been destroyed for the sake of control.
- stop50 3y agoYou can use youtube-dlp: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp its an activ maintained fork
- tjrgergw 3y agoRight, I found that in the subreddit, and furthermore here's release files https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#release-files https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#release-files I downloaded the release binary for linux, and it's downloading now. Thank you.
- Saphyel 3y agoyoutube-dlc is not maintained. youtube-dl is not maintained but not very active because is stable. yt-dlp uses youtube-dl as a core, so if something breaks still needs to go to the youtube-dl and fix it.
- Stagnant 3y agoyt-dlp is not dependent on youtube-dl. yt-dlp is simply a fork of youtube-dl that happened some years ago due to the maintainer of youtube-dl refusing any updates that would break compatibility with python 2. yt-dlp has since been the most active youtube downloader repo on github with pretty much daily commits and instant fixes when changes to youtube happen.
- roblabla 3y ago> yt-dlp uses youtube-dl as a core, so if something breaks still needs to go to the youtube-dl and fix it. No, they don't. yt-dlp is a fork - if something break, they can just fix it in their own codebase without needing to go through yt-dl. yt-dl is still somewhat active, but almost all their commits are backports of fixes from yt-dlp[0]. [0]: https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commits/master/ https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/commits/master/
- chrisjj 3y agoYouTube Downloader works fine.
- thefz 3y agoOpen Video Downloader works for me, manual installation of ffmpeg may be required though.
- II2II 3y agoThe last time I checked, youtube-dl and yt-dlp can both be obtained via (Python) pip. To my knowledge, these will be the latest releases.
- AugustoCAS 3y agoAbout youtube-dl, I think the version in pip is about a year old. For now the best way is to get the code and build it (which is just to run `make`)
- cpach 3y agoyt-dlp/youtube-dl depends on APIs defined by Google. Those APIs can be changed at any point in time, so I’m not sure it’s sensible to include this package in Debian stable, where packages aren’t expected to change often. Glad to hear you found a newer version!
- rc00 3y agoAs discussed recently[1], Debian provides yt-dlp in backports[2]. 1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37211579 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37211579 2. https://packages.debian.org/stable-backports/yt-dlp https://packages.debian.org/stable-backports/yt-dlp
- eska 3y agoJust get the standalone yt-dlp from github and occasionally update it with yt-dlp -U since Google constantly tries to interfere with the download mechanism.
- artik 3y agoIndeed, "eska!" & Here are the two (most widely known-to-date) ports of "youtube-dl": "yt-dlp" and "youtube-dlc" However; in order to avoid any issues. For both, you're gunna want to completely uninstall "youtube-dl" and remove any remnants of it from your system. To do so, For those using Linux, start by removing the "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl" directory; Then, if found on your system, remove "/etc/youtube-dl" too. For those using Windows, uninstall "youtube-dl" entirely by removing the "youtube-dl" directory found in your "\Program Files\" folder, manually using explorer or via the command prompt. (Or which ever directory that your installer or build had previously installed "youtube-dl" to). Finally, now you may being your journey--to the PROMISE LAND! DANIEL SON! Go ahead and now install one of the following "youtube-dl" ports (Installation instructions are included in the documentation provided by both forks) I) https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc & II) https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp Cheers! x()x()__@zyp.LOL__O.o
- whateveracct 3y agoI have an alias to pop a nix-shell -p yt-dlp pointed at nixpkgs master.
- pajko 3y agoAs a last resort, you could try https://yt5s.io/en90 https://yt5s.io/en90. It worked for me every time I had to download something.
- xbmcuser 3y agouse pip install not apt
- dbcooper 3y agoyt-dlp is its successor, but I'm having a lot of trouble with it too. I've been having more success with JDownloader2.
- Vvector 3y agoAs a last resort, you could subscribe to YouTube Premium, which allows you to download the content. I don't mind paying for ad-free content.
- tempaccount1234 3y agoCan you confirm if the end cards overlays that ruin music videos and other short films go away if you pay for premium? Are there any of the other annoying overlays still active? I prefer yt-dlp downloaded videos mainly because you get to actually see the complete videos without overlays…
- Vvector 3y agoI can confirm I don't get any overlays on the two videos I downloaded.
- vimarsh6739 3y agoit isn't a real download, because you don't have access to the raw file.
- Vvector 3y agoIt solves OP's problem. Why is that bad?
- rwmj 3y agoDoes YT Premium work offline? The OP says they will be going without internet which is why they need to download them.
- shortcake27 3y agoYeah with Premium downloaded videos can be watched offline, but you need to connect to the internet every 30 days. It’s a nice no-fuss solution if you just want to watch some videos offline (as mentioned, it’s not suitable for archival) and the device is iOS/Android.
- simonw 3y agoIt looks to me like apt might be a poor fit for a package like youtube-dl - unless I'm reading this wrong it looks like the packaged version is a couple of years out of date: https://packages.ubuntu.com/lunar/youtube-dl https://packages.ubuntu.com/lunar/youtube-dl Due to its nature something like youtube-dl needs to be constantly updated, as it's scraping websites that are constantly changing. So best to install it through other mechanisms like pip instead.
- em-bee 3y agothis is one of the very few apps where i don't even bother to install a distribution package. since it is a single script it is not difficult to install anyways. just download, run, and update occasionally.
- brucethemoose2 3y agoThis is a microcosm of my experience with Ubuntu. Install something with apt, run into an issue... Oh, the version is ancient, and its fixed in official releases. Then my options are: - Fight with apt/.deb packaging and try to roll it forward, maybe breaking my system. - Figure out how to compile it from source, and manually integrate it until its kinda like the system package.
- Aardwolf 3y agoOn Archlinux that problem doesn't exist, everything is a recent release
- brucethemoose2 3y agoHence I am running CachyOS on desktop, and Clear Linux on a little server :P I don't mind Ubuntu as much on servers, as stuff is often done through containers or manual downloads anyway, and its not as prone to breakage as desktop software.
- qudat 3y agoOr there’s an AUR -git equivalent
- dharmab 3y agoOr you can create one yourself by writing a short pkgbuukd file
- toastal 3y agoA CLI tool is something trivial to get from Nixpkgs since greater integration with OS’s GUI isn’t required.
- laputan_machine 3y agoThis is my experience with any linux distro I've used, I'd prefer a smaller, regularly updated repository instead of my (2023) distro being shipped with ancient versions of, e.g. node, python, openssl, etc...
- m348e912 3y agoFor those on macOS, if you use homebrew to install the latest version of yt-dlp you can download the whole playlist provided above without any issues.
- CobaltFire 3y agoConfirming this, as it’s what I use.
- overtomanu 3y agoOne popular hack to download files manually in the browser is to replace "youtube" in the URL with "ssyoutube". It redirects you to another website which has the download option
- marcolucidi 3y agoi installed `yt-dlp` once with: $ wget https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest/download/yt-dlp && chmod +x yt-dlp && mv yt-dlp "$HOME/bin/" (actually this command is in my "install script" that i run when i install a new distro) when something doesn't work, i run `yt-dlp -U` and 8 times out of 10 it automatically upgrades itself to a new version with the fix, if it still doesn't work i wait a few days and usually the fix arrives :) note: `$HOME/bin` comes first in my `$PATH` so that programs like `mpv` always uses the newer version of `yt-dlp` and not the obsolete version installed by the package manager.
- IndigoIncognito 3y agoI have found that using YTDLP, (a fork of YT-DL) with no throttling works flawlessly. I recommend using a frontend: https://www.reddit.com/r/youtubedl/wiki/info-guis/#wiki_gui.27s_for_yt-dlp_.2f_youtube-dl https://www.reddit.com/r/youtubedl/wiki/info-guis/#wiki_gui.... GUIs can be better in this situation since they show you all the cmd line options like -embed-metadata, -embed-chapters, and show you all the resolutions you can download at, I would really checkout a frontend if you plan to download multiple files or a playlist
- nyarlathotep_ 3y agoJust downloaded a bunch of things last night. My approach is typically using docker. Considering the rate at which a version has failures/low-bandwidth, I don't bother installing it on my host system: `docker run -it --name ubuntu-mantic -v path/to/your/videodir/:/VideosDir ubuntu:mantic /bin/bash` Install stuff needed on the container, typically curl python3 etc and the install from GitHub: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Installation https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Installation and you're good to go. I've honestly found this easier than fighting with my host system and constantly reinstalling broken versions etc.
- AugustoCAS 3y agoThe best way is to download the source from github, run `make`, and copy the the file to $HOME/bin . There hasn't been a release for about a year now and the files on the distro repos are even older (I think). Also YouTube has been doing some changes lately on the the player and a lot of the tools fail to download audio or video. For example, in the last couple of weeks there have been some issues with a redirect to a 'consent page' : https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/32499 https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/32499
- animeshz 3y agoFor about a year its hasn't updated the expired token, yt-dlp has been forked out of it by the community to provide a continuous support.