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Comment by adminu | Hacker News Reader

Last activity in the repository shows today for me. Why do you think it is dead?

For the sake of testing, I just downloaded youtube-dl from Github [1]. I then tried to run the program, but it failed with:

   /usr/bin/env: ‘python’: No such file or directory

Okay, the script can't deal with "python" vs "python3", whatever - I'll change the script's first line and move on. Next attempt:

   $ youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pV8WFvSNYE
   [youtube] 5pV8WFvSNYE: Downloading webpage
   ERROR: Unable to extract uploader id; please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug. Make sure you are using the latest version; type  youtube-dl -U  to update. Be sure to call youtube-dl with the --verbose flag and include its complete output.

I knew I would get this error because I got it two weeks ago already. And considering that the version number is `2021.12.17` that looks suspiciously close to a dead project, or at least for a project whose very description is "download videos from youtube.com or other video platforms".

Edit: I went through the repo and found that this bug has been reported two months ago [2]. I understand that the project is not dead in the sense that they are still looking at bugs, but if a major feature is not working for two months now then I think it's reasonable for people's faith in the project's future to be shaken.

[1] https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl#installation

[2] https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/31530

I think if you have python installed but no 'python' executable in PATH, your install is broken.

No the issue is that python on its own meant python2 for a long time and there are still distributions still using python2

I you need python3 the you need to put python3 in the shebang

That depends on who "you" are. Linux distros these days tend to ship modern python package with a python3 executable, no python executable. Many distros still support a python2 package, some install that as a python exeutable, some as a python2 executable.

iirc. homebrew on OSX installs python as a python3 executable, no python exeutable.

Hopefully no-one should support python v2 in 2023 ?

Yup. For example, debian based distro users need to install this [1] to make python be python 3.

[1] https://packages.debian.org/bullseye/python-is-python3

AFAIK, at least Arch symlinks python to be python3

    $ file /usr/bin/python
    /usr/bin/python: symbolic link to python3

I think this is by default, I don't remember doing anything special in my setup. `python2` exists for packages still needing python 2.7 et al.

Arch doing this is what fucked it up for everyone else!

Hah, sorry? If you don't use, you shouldn't be impacted by the decisions Arch does :) Unless I'm missing that you were joking.

There are people who write programs on Arch that use the python3 -> python symlink.

Then when that program is packaged for other distros, you get this error.

Not a huge deal by any means, but the non-standard behavior can add a bit of friction.

Fedora does the same. Must have been 3 or 4 years ago Python 2 was removed as a dependency from the core system packages and "python" started resolving to a Python 3 release.

I expect this has filtered down to RHEL9 now.

Multiple version are supported with "python2.7", "python3.9" etc. if a version older than the current default is required.

Varies by distro. On Gentoo a python binary exists.

Expecting python3 to be available as 'python' means that _your_ install is broken (until the time when python3 re-implements all the syntax and semantics and stdlib of Python 2.7 so that code may run unmodified).

Relying on `python` being compatible with whatever python version your scripts target is foolish.

> /usr/bin/env: ‘python’: No such file or directory

Your install is not configured properly. This is a googleable fix. (One example is to use `which python3` as part of your command https://stackoverflow.com/a/73610228)

> ERROR: Unable to extract uploader id;

This is a known bug and already has a fix but has not been packaged or released for youtube-dl but you can fix it yourself or use a different pacakge. https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/31530

Now in the first week of this issue I half recall the line in the code was pointed out, (possibly it's the one that's now being claimed as not a good fix still listed in the above) in one of the many people reporting the bug, with that being all that needed to be changed ... I didn't feel like at the time, grabbing the source, finding the offending line, and then compile it and besides there would probably be a working binary fix available for download that might have resolved a few other issues. I'd been following along every few days to a week to see there were any links to working forks compatible with older gear ...

That link above as it is presently ... issues/31530 ... lists the following as the fix, below - https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/31530#issuecom...

Now my problem is I'm not running Win 13 or the latest linux distro but still I have the best up to date browser I've yet to find that runs on my old system ... and that link does nothing ... if I put the link in another it simply opens back at the top of the parent.

I figure I could copy every recent file one by one from the git repo and play at fooling with my own, but since someone commenting on this topic actually compiled the given source - only to land some old 2021 problem - sigh.

Now I have flipped though what I see in the above ... no fix info ... fucked and bye bye time. The next option touted as the fix sadly does not run on my old system, it could work with the online server but ... how long until ...

It is of course easier for people like me who are no longer or were ever competent programmers, let alone being well versed in python, to pick some other program - I've been told such as IDM will handle youtube antics fine as well as being compatible with older systems, so it may well be worthwhile to purchase a copy.

Oh well youtube-dl .. thanks for the fish.

I can't follow this post very well. yt-dlp I think has this fixed. There is also ways to fix this without having to download youtube-dl file by file as you mention. (see this: https://stackoverflow.com/a/55562973 as a single example) there are are many easy ways to get around this issue. You can do it! Good luck.

Thanks. Unless you're inferring it works in interactive mode, I'll take it as a guide to rebuilding youtube-dl. Is there a link with all the updates in one pack or do I have to create a github account to gain access? Other than that, as an outline of a fix, the stackoverflow link as a solution seems vague to me.

There's a reply made to the current thread here which, to me anyhow, means the listed full source code at github has not been updated.

There are updated individual components - however it's been in the order of 16 years I've decompiled and adjusted and recompiled. It might be worth the effort ... if only youtube-dl was going to keep on sailing onwards. The nah moving to something else commentary informs me that sooner or later updates will probably get slower until such point people won't bother reporting issues - better for my old system to make the move sooner rather than later.

yt -dlp is probably relevant to the cheap online server I use with the latest python installed. I generally didn't use youtube-dl on it, unless the download was going to take some time and better to let the server accumulate it over a few hours. yt-dlp supposedly fixes the trick youtube used to try and discourage cli downloaders.

The last official release was 2021.12.17.

The I can't believe it's not youtube-dl quasi unofficial fork yt-dlp has a most recent stable release 2023.03.04 (last month).

Of the two one is keeping up with the month by month twists and turns of websites altering their video embed methodologies to defeat CLI rippers .. and the other one isn't.

both their release cycles and what they consider as stable might differ and not necessarily mean one is better.

yt-dlp still claims to keep track with the parent project. Most would use it for the additional functionalities it provides over youtube-dl.

ytp-dl is also many, many times faster than the original, in my experience. youtube-dl is almost unusable for mass downloading by comparison.

There is much much more to the code base than simply youtube ripping, both can (in theory) also rip from (say) ABC Australia's iView, from the Royal Institute Christmas Lecture series, from redtube, etc (hundreds and hundreds of variations of websites).

That shim layer between the core ripping engine(s) and the manifold ways of embedding access to a stream is what is being kept current in yt-dlp releases (and -U updates).

Original most recent official youtube-dl (December 2021 release) can no longer find its update service.

> both their release cycles and what they consider as stable might differ and not necessarily mean one is better.

You're making it very difficult to take you seriously. Have you actually used youtube-dl?

A while ago youtube-dl broke and wasn't fixed. yt-dlp fixed the problem.

Granted, I haven't kept up on whether original youtube-dl eventually got around to getting its primary functionality to work. The several-month interregnum that definitely occurred seems like a good reason to consider it "dead".

Not sure which problem you refer to but it is an active repo that has worked well for the past few months atleast.

> Not sure which problem you refer to

It stopped being able to download videos from youtube. That's not the only functionality, but -- given the name of the software -- I'd say it should have been fixed. All the repo activity in the world won't balance out the inability to do the only thing you advertise that you can do.

Have you tried yt-dlp? I remember what made me switch. YouTube downloading didn't break, but became extremely slow when compared to my actual network speeds. YouTube seems to do something to fuck with the speeds every so often. yt-dlp is quick to hop on those issues.

It's been fixed but the new maintainer refuses to release a new version until someone manages to help him figure out how to get automated builds running (which seems to have been the problem for the past year and he refuses to just do a manual build so that youtube-dl at least works with YouTube).

yt-dlp is a better maintained fork.

youtube-dl only works for some people around the globe, as youtube is apparently running A/B testing. Yeah there's a sort of fix ... that's been tucked away at github by way of go nowhere link, but there's the given idea it's time to ditch the cheap computer or online server and try and get something else to run instead. I read that sort of sentiment as that yup it's probably dead and maybe time to move onto more expensive toys that programmers really give a fuck, well that year ... or just ignore youtube for the time being. It's sad because what I generally viewed on youtube was of no interest to the music industry.

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