Generating YouTube download URLs on a web server

[davidturnbull]

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Hi,

I'm building a simple web app so I'm able to download YouTube videos via an RSS feed, and I'm hoping to achieve this by using youtube-dl on a web server to generate download URLs and then save them in a database. Then, ideally, I can download the videos via the RSS feed, directly from YouTube's servers, without first downloading them to the web server.

This seemed to be working well enough, but it seems like some download URLs just don't work, and I'm not sure what makes them different from the URLs that do work.

For example, when the server grabs the download location of this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHWqKcqfn9c ... it produces the following URL:

https://r9---sn-p5qlsn7l.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?ratebypass=yes&ei=u5tMWdyUIaTV8gSXtp2gCw&mt=1498192725&mv=m&ms=au&source=youtube&mm=31&pl=14&mn=sn-p5qlsn7l&id=o-AF4jXa0vsUGEKJBCX2DfcF7JU1wmmbZgzZOn9tqKpE5j&dur=866.034&requiressl=yes&ipbits=0&expire=1498214427&gcr=us&sparams=clen%2Cdur%2Cei%2Cgcr%2Cgir%2Cid%2Cinitcwndbps%2Cip%2Cipbits%2Citag%2Clmt%2Cmime%2Cmm%2Cmn%2Cms%2Cmv%2Cpl%2Cratebypass%2Crequiressl%2Csource%2Cexpire&initcwndbps=10517500&lmt=1497619931021468&mime=video%2Fmp4&key=yt6&itag=18&ip=54.161.139.249&clen=75792873&gir=yes&signature=D6EE9304D4ACEDA69AADE8A43A7A3A37AA05DE70.952B0C146CAD348C6A94903957A715590760CDE1

But when I visit this URL, I receive a "403 Forbidden" error.

When the server grabs the download location of this video though: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfGKNJ4mldE ... it produces the following URL:

https://r11---sn-p5qlsnsz.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?ms=au&ei=05tMWafUKcnt8wSOqZLQCQ&mv=m&pl=14&ipbits=0&source=youtube&id=o-ALihJ05DFtjlbxmdb9ZKmowLkBbUCX3B1RmrQYcJfxJg&expire=1498214451&mm=31&itag=18&mt=1498192725&mn=sn-p5qlsnsz&sparams=clen%2Cdur%2Cei%2Cgir%2Cid%2Cinitcwndbps%2Cip%2Cipbits%2Citag%2Clmt%2Cmime%2Cmm%2Cmn%2Cms%2Cmv%2Cpl%2Cratebypass%2Crequiressl%2Csource%2Cexpire&signature=06EB46796F04A5B55529B1EBDD2C5F75AF492D92.E2EC6ACEB4391167A9E4B2869A3FF5276E1D4141&requiressl=yes&initcwndbps=10510000&ip=54.161.139.249&key=yt6&gir=yes&mime=video%2Fmp4&clen=15660488&ratebypass=yes&dur=318.995&lmt=1446542239169564

And it works perfectly fine.

On the server, this is the specific command that's being run every time:

youtube-dl VIDEO_URL --format '(mp4)[height<=480]' --get-url

It's worth noting that all of the URLs work when they're generated on my local machine.

If all of the URLs were broken, I'd assume that it's just not possible to do what I want to do, but the fact that most of them work gives me hope that it's a solvable problem.

Any help would be appreciated.

:)

[davidturnbull]

Also worth mentioning that I've read the "I extracted a video URL with -g, but it does not play on another machine / in my web browser" section of the README, and it seems like the answer to my question is in that section. I'm just hoping I can get a little more guidance. (Will keep hacking away though.)

[dstftw]

#9001 (comment) may help.