Downloaded images contain the text "URI signature match failed" - An issue with the links reddit provides

[ipaqmaster]

All i.redditmedia links appear to "Download Successfully" for me however catting them, all their contents are the ascii text URI signature match failed

This reddit post from last year matches and describes the problem as &amp appearing in the URLs fetched rather than just '&'. This started happening to me on the 18th of Feburary 2018.

[ipaqmaster]

I solved this by performing to following change to index.js's downloadImage function located at the bottom of the file:

Original:

function downloadImage (url, filename, callback) {
  var urlfixed = url.replace("&", "&");
  url = urlfixed
  request(url)
  .pipe(fs.createWriteStream(filename))
  .on('close', () => {
    console.log(url, chalk.green(' downloaded successfully'))
    callback(null, filename)
  })
}

New: including a new change at the top of the function.

function downloadImage (url, filename, callback) {
  var urlfixed = url.replace("&", "&");
  url = urlfixed
  request(url)
  .pipe(fs.createWriteStream(filename))
  .on('close', () => {
    console.log(url, chalk.green(' downloaded successfully'))
    callback(null, filename)
  })
}

By adding

  var urlfixed = url.replace("&", "&");`
`  url = urlfixed

..to the top of the function I'm able to remove the &'s from the download task. Trash fix I know, but it seems to be doing the trick.

This script was working earlier and has not been updated in a little while so I imagine this was the doing of reddit's engineers for whichever reason.