youtube-dl/faq.html

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<title>youtube-dl: Frequently Asked Questions</title>
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<table class="heading"><tr>
	<td class="title"><a href="index.html">youtube-dl</a></td>
	<td class="subtitle">Frequently Asked Questions</td>
</tr></table>

<div class="toc">
<h1>Questions</h1>

<ul>
<li><a href="#q-bugs">The program has stopped working / I want to suggest a feature.</a></li>
<li><a href="#q-best-option">Can you please put the -b option back?</a></li>
<li><a href="#q-http-402">I get  HTTP error <code>402 Payment Required</code> when trying to download a video. What's this?</a></li>
<li><a href="#q-play-video">I have downloaded a video but how can I play it?</a></li>
<li><a href="#q-g-links">The links provided by youtube-dl -g are not working anymore</a></li>
<li><a href="#q-no-fmt_url_map">ERROR: no fmt_url_map or conn information found in video info</a></li>
<li><a href="#q-unable-to-download-video">ERROR: unable to download video</a></li>
<li><a href="#q-syntax-error-non-ascii">SyntaxError:Non-ASCII character</a></li>
</ul>

</div>

<h1 id="q-bugs">The program has stopped working / I want to suggest a feature.</h1>

<p>Please report the problem in the <a href="https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues">issuetracker</a>. Your bug report should include:</p>

<ul>
<li>Your exact command line, like <code style="white-space: pre;">youtube-dl -t "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHlDtZ6Oc3s&amp;feature=channel_video_title"</code></li>
<li>The output of <code>youtube-dl --version</code>. If you have made any changes, please provide it. In many cases, simply updating (with <code style="white-space: pre;">youtube-dl --update</code>) fixes the problem.</li>
<li>The output of <code>python --version</code>. We support Python 2.6, 2.7, and 3.3+.</li>
<li>The name and version of your Operating System ("Ubuntu 11.04 x64" or "Windows 7 x64" is usually enough).</li>
</ul>

<p>If you're suggesting a feature, any details can help:</p>

<ul>
<li>If it's an option: How would you call it? What should the help text be?</li>
<li>If it's support for a new site: Mention an example video URL. If you can describe the download process, that's a huge plus. But don't worry if you can't - we love a good challenge ;).</li>
<li>For programmers: Providing code that implements the change will speed up the integration process. <a href="https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/fork">Fork youtube-dl</a> on github, and <a href="http://help.github.com/send-pull-requests/">send us a pull request</a>.</li>
</ul>

<h1 id="q-best-option">Can you please put the -b option back?</h1>

<p>Most people asking this question are not aware that youtube-dl now defaults to downloading the highest available quality as reported by YouTube, which will be 1080p or 720p in some cases, so you no longer need the -b option. For some specific videos, maybe YouTube does not report them to be available in a specific high quality format you're interested in. In that case, simply request it with the -f option and youtube-dl will try to download it.</p>

<h1 id="q-http-402">I get HTTP error <code>402 Payment Required</code> when trying to download a video. What's this?</h1>

<p>Apparently YouTube requires you to pass a CAPTCHA test if you download too much. At this moment, there is no plan to solve this issue, as youtube-dl is a command line program that is many times used without X and in an unattended fashion, so there's no easy way of solving this, in my humble opinion. I have no plans to solve it at this moment, but let me know your ideas and code if you come up with something.</p>

<h1 id="#q-play-video">I have downloaded a video but how can I play it?</h1>

<p>If you used youtube-dl to download a video and it wrote the video file to your hard drive, finishing with a completion message of 100%, the video is downloaded, so youtube-dl has finished its job and usually it's not to blame for problems that happen later. Not every video player supports FLV or MP4 files and every codec out there needed to play YouTube videos. In Linux, for example, I am generally pleased with <a href="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/">MPlayer</a>. In Windows, I tend to use <a href="http://www.videolan.org/">VLC</a>. Those usually work flawlessly.</p>

<h1 id="q-g-links">The links provided by youtube-dl -g are not working anymore</h1>

<p>Due to changes in YouTube, youtube-dl is now forced to provide the final video URL directly instead of the ones it used to provide, which were based on the "get_video" resource. The new URLs are real and work too, but they need to be used in combination with the <code>--cookies</code> option to be useful for external applications. <a href="https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/closed#issue/41">Issue 41</a> in the issue tracker contains a bit more information about the problem.</p>

<h1 id="q-no-fmt_url_map">ERROR: no fmt_url_map or conn information found in video info</h1>

<p>youtube has switched to a new video info format in July 2011 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with <code style="white-space:pre;">sudo youtube-dl --update</code> (or <code>python youtube-dl --update</code>).
</p>

<h1 id="q-unable-to-download-video">ERROR: unable to download video</h1>

<p>youtube requires an additional signature since September 2012 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with <code style="white-space:pre;">sudo youtube-dl --update</code> (or <code>python youtube-dl --update</code>).</p>

<h1 id="q-syntax-error-non-ascii">SyntaxError:Non-ASCII character</h1>

<p>The error

<code style="white-space:pre; display: block; margin: 1em 2em;">File "youtube-dl", line 2
SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\x93' ...</code>

means you're using an outdated version of Python. Please update to Python 2.6 or 2.7.</p>

<div class="note">
<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US">
<img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0"
src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/3.0/80x15.png" /></a><br />
Copyright © 2006-2014 Ricardo Garcia Gonzalez</div>
</body>
</html>
Switch to HTML5 doctype 2011-09-28 09:49:19 +02:00			`<!DOCTYPE html>`
Make web pages valid HTML and remove a few glitches 2010-11-02 21:28:56 +01:00			`<html>`
Initial pages commit, using the wiki contents 2010-10-31 23:50:48 +01:00			`<head>`
Make web pages valid HTML and remove a few glitches 2010-11-02 21:28:56 +01:00			`<meta http-equiv="Content-type" content="text/html;charset=UTF-8">`
Reorganize website 2010-11-19 18:19:41 +01:00			`<title>youtube-dl: Frequently Asked Questions</title>`
Make web pages valid HTML and remove a few glitches 2010-11-02 21:28:56 +01:00			`<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css" type="text/css">`
Initial pages commit, using the wiki contents 2010-10-31 23:50:48 +01:00			`</head>`
			`<body>`

Reorganize website 2010-11-19 18:19:41 +01:00			`<table class="heading"><tr>`
			`<td class="title"><a href="index.html">youtube-dl</a></td>`
			`<td class="subtitle">Frequently Asked Questions</td>`
			`</tr></table>`

			`<div class="toc">`
			`<h1>Questions</h1>`

Update documentation and FAQ 2011-09-28 09:47:54 +02:00			`<ul>`
			`<li><a href="#q-bugs">The program has stopped working / I want to suggest a feature.</a></li>`
			`<li><a href="#q-best-option">Can you please put the -b option back?</a></li>`
Clarify 402 2012-02-28 02:00:00 +01:00			`<li><a href="#q-http-402">I get HTTP error <code>402 Payment Required</code> when trying to download a video. What's this?</a></li>`
Update documentation and FAQ 2011-09-28 09:47:54 +02:00			`<li><a href="#q-play-video">I have downloaded a video but how can I play it?</a></li>`
			`<li><a href="#q-g-links">The links provided by youtube-dl -g are not working anymore</a></li>`
			`<li><a href="#q-no-fmt_url_map">ERROR: no fmt_url_map or conn information found in video info</a></li>`
Add recent breakages to FAQ (#433) 2012-09-27 23:29:40 +02:00			`<li><a href="#q-unable-to-download-video">ERROR: unable to download video</a></li>`
			`<li><a href="#q-syntax-error-non-ascii">SyntaxError:Non-ASCII character</a></li>`
Update documentation and FAQ 2011-09-28 09:47:54 +02:00			`</ul>`

Reorganize website 2010-11-19 18:19:41 +01:00			`</div>`

Update docs 2011-09-27 21:17:50 +02:00			`<h1 id="q-bugs">The program has stopped working / I want to suggest a feature.</h1>`
Initial pages commit, using the wiki contents 2010-10-31 23:50:48 +01:00
Make FAQ valid HTML 2011-09-28 09:52:01 +02:00			`<p>Please report the problem in the <a href="https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues">issuetracker</a>. Your bug report should include:</p>`
Initial pages commit, using the wiki contents 2010-10-31 23:50:48 +01:00
Updated bug reporting instructions in the FAQ 2011-09-27 20:58:37 +02:00			`<ul>`
			`<li>Your exact command line, like <code style="white-space: pre;">youtube-dl -t "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHlDtZ6Oc3s&feature=channel_video_title"</code></li>`
			`<li>The output of <code>youtube-dl --version</code>. If you have made any changes, please provide it. In many cases, simply updating (with <code style="white-space: pre;">youtube-dl --update</code>) fixes the problem.</li>`
Drop 2.5 support 2012-11-28 03:30:44 +01:00			`<li>The output of <code>python --version</code>. We support Python 2.6, 2.7, and 3.3+.</li>`
Updated bug reporting instructions in the FAQ 2011-09-27 20:58:37 +02:00			`<li>The name and version of your Operating System ("Ubuntu 11.04 x64" or "Windows 7 x64" is usually enough).</li>`
			`</ul>`

Make FAQ valid HTML 2011-09-28 09:52:01 +02:00			`<p>If you're suggesting a feature, any details can help:</p>`
Update docs 2011-09-27 21:17:50 +02:00
			`<ul>`
			`<li>If it's an option: How would you call it? What should the help text be?</li>`
Fix stray </a> in FAQ 2011-09-28 09:50:04 +02:00			`<li>If it's support for a new site: Mention an example video URL. If you can describe the download process, that's a huge plus. But don't worry if you can't - we love a good challenge ;).</li>`
Update docs 2011-09-27 21:17:50 +02:00			`<li>For programmers: Providing code that implements the change will speed up the integration process. <a href="https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/fork">Fork youtube-dl</a> on github, and <a href="http://help.github.com/send-pull-requests/">send us a pull request</a>.</li>`
Close <ul> in first FAQ question 2011-09-28 09:29:19 +02:00			`</ul>`
Initial pages commit, using the wiki contents 2010-10-31 23:50:48 +01:00
Update documentation and FAQ 2011-09-28 09:47:54 +02:00			`<h1 id="q-best-option">Can you please put the -b option back?</h1>`
Initial pages commit, using the wiki contents 2010-10-31 23:50:48 +01:00
			`<p>Most people asking this question are not aware that youtube-dl now defaults to downloading the highest available quality as reported by YouTube, which will be 1080p or 720p in some cases, so you no longer need the -b option. For some specific videos, maybe YouTube does not report them to be available in a specific high quality format you're interested in. In that case, simply request it with the -f option and youtube-dl will try to download it.</p>`

Clarify 402 2012-02-28 02:00:00 +01:00			`<h1 id="q-http-402">I get HTTP error <code>402 Payment Required</code> when trying to download a video. What's this?</h1>`
Initial pages commit, using the wiki contents 2010-10-31 23:50:48 +01:00
			`<p>Apparently YouTube requires you to pass a CAPTCHA test if you download too much. At this moment, there is no plan to solve this issue, as youtube-dl is a command line program that is many times used without X and in an unattended fashion, so there's no easy way of solving this, in my humble opinion. I have no plans to solve it at this moment, but let me know your ideas and code if you come up with something.</p>`

Update documentation and FAQ 2011-09-28 09:47:54 +02:00			`<h1 id="#q-play-video">I have downloaded a video but how can I play it?</h1>`
Initial pages commit, using the wiki contents 2010-10-31 23:50:48 +01:00
			<p>If you used youtube-dl to download a video and it wrote the video file to your hard drive, finishing with a completion message of 100%, the video is downloaded, so youtube-dl has finished its job and usually it's not to blame for problems that happen later. Not every video player supports FLV or MP4 files and every codec out there needed to play YouTube videos. In Linux, for example, I am generally pleased with <a href="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/">MPlayer</a>. In Windows, I tend to use <a href="http://www.videolan.org/">VLC</a>. Those usually work flawlessly.</p>

Update documentation and FAQ 2011-09-28 09:47:54 +02:00			`<h1 id="q-g-links">The links provided by youtube-dl -g are not working anymore</h1>`
Initial pages commit, using the wiki contents 2010-10-31 23:50:48 +01:00
Update documentation and FAQ 2011-09-28 09:47:54 +02:00			`<p>Due to changes in YouTube, youtube-dl is now forced to provide the final video URL directly instead of the ones it used to provide, which were based on the "get_video" resource. The new URLs are real and work too, but they need to be used in combination with the <code>--cookies</code> option to be useful for external applications. <a href="https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/closed#issue/41">Issue 41</a> in the issue tracker contains a bit more information about the problem.</p>`
Add copyright notice at the bottom of every page 2010-11-01 08:23:57 +01:00
Update documentation and FAQ 2011-09-28 09:47:54 +02:00			`<h1 id="q-no-fmt_url_map">ERROR: no fmt_url_map or conn information found in video info</h1>`
Add question about option -g to the FAQ 2011-01-03 10:54:07 +01:00
Update documentation and FAQ 2011-09-28 09:47:54 +02:00			`<p>youtube has switched to a new video info format in July 2011 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with <code style="white-space:pre;">sudo youtube-dl --update</code> (or <code>python youtube-dl --update</code>).`
			`</p>`
Add question about option -g to the FAQ 2011-01-03 10:54:07 +01:00
Add recent breakages to FAQ (#433) 2012-09-27 23:29:40 +02:00			`<h1 id="q-unable-to-download-video">ERROR: unable to download video</h1>`

			`<p>youtube requires an additional signature since September 2012 which is not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl with <code style="white-space:pre;">sudo youtube-dl --update</code> (or <code>python youtube-dl --update</code>).</p>`

			`<h1 id="q-syntax-error-non-ascii">SyntaxError:Non-ASCII character</h1>`

			`<p>The error`

			`<code style="white-space:pre; display: block; margin: 1em 2em;">File "youtube-dl", line 2`
			`SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\x93' ...</code>`

			`means you're using an outdated version of Python. Please update to Python 2.6 or 2.7.</p>`

Add creative commons license to webpages 2011-09-27 20:17:34 +02:00			`<div class="note">`
Documentation license change (fixes #768) 2013-04-03 20:09:38 +02:00			`<a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en_US">`
Add creative commons license to webpages 2011-09-27 20:17:34 +02:00			`<img alt="Creative Commons License" style="border-width:0"`
Documentation license change (fixes #768) 2013-04-03 20:09:38 +02:00			`src="http://i.creativecommons.org/l/by-sa/3.0/80x15.png" /></a><br />`
release 2014.01.03 2014-01-03 12:18:39 +01:00			`Copyright © 2006-2014 Ricardo Garcia Gonzalez</div>`
Initial pages commit, using the wiki contents 2010-10-31 23:50:48 +01:00			`</body>`
			`</html>`