[Discovery] TLC.com videos not downloading

[brianjz]

Make sure you are using the latest version: run youtube-dl --version and ensure your version is 2017.03.07. If it's not read this FAQ entry and update. Issues with outdated version will be rejected.

• I've verified and I assure that I'm running youtube-dl 2017.03.07

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• Bug report (encountered problems with youtube-dl)
• Site support request (request for adding support for a new site)
• Feature request (request for a new functionality)
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If the purpose of this issue is a bug report, site support request or you are not completely sure provide the full verbose output as follows:

Add -v flag to your command line you run youtube-dl with, copy the whole output and insert it here. It should look similar to one below (replace it with your log inserted between triple ```):

[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['https://www.tlc.com/tv-shows/who-do-you-think-you-are/full-episodes/courteney-cox', '--verbose']
[debug] Encodings: locale cp1252, fs mbcs, out cp437, pref cp1252
[debug] youtube-dl version 2017.03.07
[debug] Python version 3.4.4 - Windows-10-10.0.14393
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg N-80999-gf41e37b, ffprobe N-66742-gf6777ce
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[Discovery] courteney-cox: Downloading JSON metadata
ERROR: courteney-cox: Failed to parse JSON  (caused by ValueError('Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)',)); 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.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmpvin3ute2\build\youtube_dl\extractor\common.py", line 660, in _parse_json
  File "C:\Python\Python34\lib\json\__init__.py", line 318, in loads
  File "C:\Python\Python34\lib\json\decoder.py", line 343, in decode
  File "C:\Python\Python34\lib\json\decoder.py", line 361, in raw_decode
ValueError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmpvin3ute2\build\youtube_dl\extractor\common.py", line 660, in _parse_json
  File "C:\Python\Python34\lib\json\__init__.py", line 318, in loads
  File "C:\Python\Python34\lib\json\decoder.py", line 343, in decode
  File "C:\Python\Python34\lib\json\decoder.py", line 361, in raw_decode
ValueError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmpvin3ute2\build\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 761, in extract_info
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmpvin3ute2\build\youtube_dl\extractor\common.py", line 427, in extract
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmpvin3ute2\build\youtube_dl\extractor\discovery.py", line 67, in _real_extract
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmpvin3ute2\build\youtube_dl\extractor\common.py", line 654, in _download_json
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmpvin3ute2\build\youtube_dl\extractor\common.py", line 664, in _parse_json
youtube_dl.utils.ExtractorError: courteney-cox: Failed to parse JSON  (caused by ValueError('Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)',)); 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.

Description of your issue, suggested solution and other information

Just trying to download a video from TLC.com which flags as [Discovery] in youtube-dl

[masonelmore]

the Discovery extractor is a bit out of date. I did some testing to see what sites still work with the extractor, and this is what I found:

These sites no longer work for this extractor:

• tlc.com
• velocity.com

These sites still work for this extractor:

• discovery.com
• animalplanet.com
• ahctv.com

These sites are covered by the DiscoveryGO extractor:

• investigationdiscovery.com
• discoverylife.com
• destinationamerica.com
• sciencechannel.com

It appears that adding ?flat=1 to the end of the URL used to provide the JSON data needed to extract the video information. This does not work anymore for TLC or Velocity.

[jonas5]

use tlcgo.com

[brianjz]

A bit late on this, but using tlcgo.com worked. Thanks.