Tik Tok failed to parse JSON in US

[darktrend]

Checklist

• I'm reporting a broken site
• I've verified that I'm running yt-dlp version 2021.12.27. (update instructions)
• I've checked that all provided URLs are alive and playable in a browser
• I've checked that all URLs and arguments with special characters are properly quoted or escaped
• I've searched the bugtracker for similar issues including closed ones. DO NOT post duplicates
• I've read the guidelines for opening an issue
• I've read about sharing account credentials and I'm willing to share it if required

Region

USA

Description

Tiktok having issues, in the US, using VPN or not it throws the same error.

Verbose log

yt-dlp --verbose https://www.tiktok.com/@therock
[debug] Command-line config: ['--verbose', 'https://www.tiktok.com/@therock']
[debug] Encodings: locale cp1252, fs utf-8, out utf-8, err utf-8, pref cp1252
[debug] yt-dlp version 2021.12.27 [6223f67] (win_exe)
[debug] Python version 3.8.10 (CPython 64bit) - Windows-10-10.0.19042-SP0
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 4.2.3
[debug] Optional libraries: Cryptodome, mutagen, sqlite, websockets
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[debug] [tiktok:user] Extracting URL: https://www.tiktok.com/@therock
[tiktok:user] therock: Downloading webpage
[download] Downloading playlist: therock
[tiktok:user] therock: Downloading user video list page 1
WARNING: [tiktok:user] Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0). Retrying...
[tiktok:user] therock: Downloading user video list page 1 (attempt 1)
WARNING: [tiktok:user] Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0). Retrying...
[tiktok:user] therock: Downloading user video list page 1 (attempt 2)
WARNING: [tiktok:user] Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0). Retrying...
[tiktok:user] therock: Downloading user video list page 1 (attempt 3)
ERROR: therock: Failed to parse JSON  (caused by JSONDecodeError('Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)')); please report this issue on  https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp . Make sure you are using the latest version; type  yt-dlp -U  to update. Be sure to call yt-dlp with the --verbose flag and include its complete output.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "yt_dlp\extractor\common.py", line 990, in _parse_json
  File "json\__init__.py", line 357, in loads
  File "json\decoder.py", line 337, in decode
  File "json\decoder.py", line 355, in raw_decode
json.decoder.JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "yt_dlp\extractor\common.py", line 990, in _parse_json
  File "json\__init__.py", line 357, in loads
  File "json\decoder.py", line 337, in decode
  File "json\decoder.py", line 355, in raw_decode
json.decoder.JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "yt_dlp\YoutubeDL.py", line 1353, in wrapper
  File "yt_dlp\YoutubeDL.py", line 1640, in <lambda>
  File "yt_dlp\utils.py", line 2620, in __getitem__
  File "yt_dlp\extractor\tiktok.py", line 438, in _entries_api
  File "yt_dlp\extractor\tiktok.py", line 75, in _call_api
  File "yt_dlp\extractor\common.py", line 979, in _download_json
  File "yt_dlp\extractor\common.py", line 965, in _download_json_handle
  File "yt_dlp\extractor\common.py", line 994, in _parse_json
yt_dlp.utils.ExtractorError: therock: Failed to parse JSON  (caused by JSONDecodeError('Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)')); please report this issue on  https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp . Make sure you are using the latest version; type  yt-dlp -U  to update. Be sure to call yt-dlp with the --verbose flag and include its complete output.

[rajatvermaiam]

i think tiktok changed the way they give response of aweme API.

[aidenmitchell]

Same issue in Canada.

[matthewladams]

I'm not sure if the API changes just happen to correlate with it, but the fallback to the webpage failing seems to be due to a change in framework that's being rolled out from NextJS to Sigi. I haven't got this working fully yet but seems to work for individual videos matthewladams@c494f57

[jb2170]

Same in the UK

[pukkandan]

@MinePlayersPE @llacb47 While this is fixed via the API, it might be best to look into how to fix this also in the webpage extraction. According to ytdl-org/youtube-dl#30251, the website has been experimenting with Sigi for a while now