IMHO I don't think this question is a duplicate of that one due these reasons:
- Let's begin by considering the titles: How can I update youtube-dl?, clearly focuses on a single application/update procedure instead a report of a download failure not focused on only one application.
- Tags: This question: video, downloads, youtube. The other: apt, updates, youtube. They only have the youtube tag in common.
- The two questions have overlapping topics, but they are not identical questions because the other question's topic is a subset of the topic of this one.
Now let's see more arguments (in parentheses):
I'm trying to download some YouTube videos first by Firefox + Video DownloadHelper, then by VLC and finally by youtube-dl program and there's something that is blocking them.
(The other:"I use youtube-dl to download videos for watching later offline", again this question focuses on download blocking in YouTube regardless of the application and the other, in a single application (youtube-dl) )
On the description screens I don't see any restriction about download.
(This is not mentioned in the other question.)
An example: I'm trying to download 2 videos with same category/license, the first works fine and the second returns an exception:
luis@jupiter:~$ youtube-dl "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wo6Sq1h2DI4"
[youtube] wo6Sq1h2DI4: Downloading webpage
[youtube] wo6Sq1h2DI4: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] wo6Sq1h2DI4: Extracting video information
[youtube] wo6Sq1h2DI4: Downloading MPD manifest
WARNING: Requested formats are incompatible for merge and will be merged into mkv.
[download] Destination: SÂNSCRITO - Aula 6 (Consoantes Mudas Dentais) com Jonas Masetti-wo6Sq1h2DI4.f137.mp4
[download] 100% of 142.54MiB in 04:11
[download] Destination: SÂNSCRITO - Aula 6 (Consoantes Mudas Dentais) com Jonas Masetti-wo6Sq1h2DI4.f251.webm
[download] 100% of 8.75MiB in 00:16
[ffmpeg] Merging formats into "SÂNSCRITO - Aula 6 (Consoantes Mudas Dentais) com Jonas Masetti-wo6Sq1h2DI4.mkv"
Deleting original file SÂNSCRITO - Aula 6 (Consoantes Mudas Dentais) com Jonas Masetti-wo6Sq1h2DI4.f137.mp4 (pass -k to keep)
Deleting original file SÂNSCRITO - Aula 6 (Consoantes Mudas Dentais) com Jonas Masetti-wo6Sq1h2DI4.f251.webm (pass -k to keep)
luis@jupiter:~$ youtube-dl "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbbhZl8xqVY"
[youtube] BbbhZl8xqVY: Downloading webpage
[youtube] BbbhZl8xqVY: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] BbbhZl8xqVY: Extracting video information
[youtube] BbbhZl8xqVY: Downloading js player en_US-vflHuW2fm
ERROR: Signature extraction failed: Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/youtube_dl/extractor/youtube.py", line 905, in _decrypt_signature
video_id, player_url, s
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/youtube_dl/extractor/youtube.py", line 820, in _extract_signature_function
res = self._parse_sig_js(code)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/youtube_dl/extractor/youtube.py", line 883, in _parse_sig_js
initial_function = jsi.extract_function(funcname)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/youtube_dl/jsinterp.py", line 241, in extract_function
raise ExtractorError('Could not find JS function %r' % funcname)
ExtractorError: Could not find JS function u'Ny'; 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. Be sure to call youtube-dl with the --verbose flag and include its complete output.
(caused by ExtractorError(u"Could not find JS function u'Ny'; 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. Be sure to call youtube-dl with the --verbose flag and include its complete output.",)); 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. Be sure to call youtube-dl with the --verbose flag and include its complete output.
Is it a YouTube restriction, a video encoding issue or an Ubuntu signature problem? If this is a YouTube restriction, is this a restriction for all YouTube videos or does the restriction operate selectively, for example for newly uploaded videos, but not for videos that were uploaded years ago?
The output of the other question:
ERROR: Unable to extract info section; please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug . Be sure to call youtube-dl with the --verbose flag and include its complete output. Make sure you are using the latest version; type youtube-dl -U to update.
(The output's a little bit different, isn't it?)
Finally there are two more issues to be considered:
- Although the upgrade of youtube-dl has helped me to solve my problem, it didn't answer this item of my question: I'm trying to download 2 videos with same category/license, the first works fine and the second returns an exception.
- The other question was written in 2013, and I believe that since then some things have changed in YouTube service and applications' way of accessing it.