Unable to download JSON metadata: HTTP Error 404: NOT FOUND

[pushpikaa]

Make sure you are using the latest version: run youtube-dl --version and ensure your version is 2017.12.02. 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 Issues with outdated version will be rejected.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 2017.12.02

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• At least skimmed through the README, most notably the FAQ and BUGS sections
• Searched the bugtracker for similar issues including closed ones

What is the purpose of your issue?

• 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)
• Question
• Other

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Successful Attempt

youtube-dl --verbose   -u <removed> -p <removed>  -f best  -o './videos/%(playlist)s/%(chapter_number)s - %(chapter)s/%(playlist_index)s-%(title)s.%(ext)s'  https://www.udemy.com/git-started-with-github/learn/v4/content

[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: [u'--verbose', u'-u', u'PRIVATE', u'-p', u'PRIVATE', u'-f', u'best', u'-o', u'./videos/%(playlist)s/%(chapter_number)s - %(chapter)s/%(playlist_index)s-%(title)s.%(ext)s', u'https://www.udemy.com/git-started-with-github/learn/v4/content']
[debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs UTF-8, out UTF-8, pref UTF-8
[debug] youtube-dl version 2017.12.02
[debug] Python version 2.7.12+ - Linux-4.8.0-41-generic-x86_64-with-Ubuntu-16.10-yakkety
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 3.0.7-0ubuntu0.16.10.1, ffprobe 3.0.7-0ubuntu0.16.10.1, rtmpdump 2.4
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[udemy:course] Downloading login popup
[udemy:course] Logging in
[udemy:course] git-started-with-github: Downloading webpage
[udemy:course] 500632: Downloading course curriculum
[download] Downloading playlist: Git Started with GitHub
[udemy:course] playlist Git Started with GitHub: Collected 16 video ids (downloading 16 of them)
[download] Downloading video 1 of 16
[udemy] Downloading login popup
[udemy] 2918876: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2918876: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-35-12c3028c43d1b1f7c2518d407c58fc4d/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209160906&token=0992a7baca27bddc3728f'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/1 - Introduction/01-Course Introduction.mp4
[download] 100% of 4.84MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 2 of 16
[udemy] 2965863: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2965863: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand2.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-35-1a05cc0d77cac3eaeef5c96df86fe9ca/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209160909&token=015495a81f112a4b5784b'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/1 - Introduction/02-Why Git.mp4
[download] 100% of 3.21MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 3 of 16
[udemy] 2918890: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2918890: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand2.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-36-3cdf360fc901f2fbe265b2e29aba1a30/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209160910&token=08186496951bea0016e84'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/1 - Introduction/03-Core Concepts.mp4
[download] 100% of 9.27MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 4 of 16
[udemy] 2965875: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2965875: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-19-953d552dca3deb5b0a2e29eb9de1d4b3/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209160911&token=0bae72fe2da1c75682f86'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/1 - Introduction/04-Going Command Line.mp4
[download] 100% of 4.20MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 5 of 16
[udemy] 2918894: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2918894: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-21-d000aae0e143973d889c25c15f208bc9/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209160913&token=05de9f560fdea3221db93'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/2 - Installation/05-Installation Overview.mp4
[download] 100% of 1.73MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 6 of 16
[udemy] 2965881: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2965881: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand.udemy.com/2016-01-25_23-00-29-70f303a92c92b0b2163f79638eaaf821/WebHD_1080.mp4?nva=20171209160914&token=01b29f2c77416c9cd9794'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/2 - Installation/06-Installing Git for Windows.mp4
[download] 100% of 26.87MiB in 00:02
[download] Downloading video 7 of 16
[udemy] 2919330: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2919330: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand2.udemy.com/2016-01-25_22-58-55-7597a6ea61236ca2b0fff72b54eda595/WebHD_1080.mp4?nva=20171209160917&token=0416c0dbf25b70cb6804f'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/2 - Installation/07-Git on Mac OS X.mp4
[download] 100% of 4.87MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 8 of 16
[udemy] 2965885: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2965885: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand2.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-36-de21b1ef817c92475a435bd2c22fcdcb/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209160919&token=0038e52a5c84cd1a704d7'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/3 - Basic Git Workflow with GitHub/08-Welcome to GitHub.mp4
[download] 100% of 8.95MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 9 of 16
[udemy] 2965889: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2965889: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-27-d613d25b10b5fccc1e2f17eba5f39bfd/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209160921&token=0c4b3b340d1c9bdd5682d'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/3 - Basic Git Workflow with GitHub/09-Setup the Project Folder.mp4
[download] 100% of 2.78MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 10 of 16
[udemy] 2965897: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2965897: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-25-5c74adf058bfd422aa928a247d171c11/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209160922&token=0f4f055da9f945c251bea'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/3 - Basic Git Workflow with GitHub/10-Git Configuration (User Name and Email).mp4
[download] 100% of 2.33MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 11 of 16
[udemy] 2965913: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2965913: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand2.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-36-97e803aa07d99f3b99e20825d9a7877a/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209160923&token=039b176487324e0cfadb6'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/3 - Basic Git Workflow with GitHub/11-Copy the Repository from GitHub to Your Local Computer (git clone).mp4
[download] 100% of 8.21MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 12 of 16
[udemy] 2965919: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2965919: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand2.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-37-38af7832c73617e7c5eea7c41683ceb4/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209160925&token=0a443002713b709bbd5c8'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/3 - Basic Git Workflow with GitHub/12-The First Commit.mp4
[download] 100% of 13.20MiB in 00:01
[download] Downloading video 13 of 16
[udemy] 2965921: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2965921: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-36-07efaa228a31ce5dbff3e68e2b8b1bbc/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209160927&token=0b6dc4cb8e162165ead8a'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/3 - Basic Git Workflow with GitHub/13-Publishing Changes back to GitHub (push).mp4
[download] 100% of 7.70MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 14 of 16
[udemy] 2939626: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2939626: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand2.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-33-b015ae3f8836401fe6b14c08dde94240/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209160929&token=0e10e2c524c741bf90d7c'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/4 - Conclusion/14-Course Review and Conclusion.mp4
[download] 100% of 2.01MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 15 of 16
[udemy] 2939630: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2939630: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-53-b96ac6189d575d3aabeefb96cdddb4f6/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209160930&token=06eb24d7053d4cef745f2'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/6 - Bonus - Alternative Ways to Start a Git Repository/15-Create a New Repository Locally.mp4
[download] 100% of 21.20MiB in 00:01
[download] Downloading video 16 of 16
[udemy] 2939632: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2939632: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand2.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-51-3b15d506c53d6b5c48946085358dcdea/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209160933&token=0004587c6fd627969437e'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/6 - Bonus - Alternative Ways to Start a Git Repository/16-Add Git to an Existing Project.mp4
[download] 100% of 28.17MiB in 00:02
[download] Finished downloading playlist: Git Started with GitHub

Failed Attempt

cd videos
rm -rf Git\ Started\ with\ GitHub/
cd ..

youtube-dl --verbose   -u <removed> -p <removed>  -f best  -o './videos/%(playlist)s/%(chapter_number)s - %(chapter)s/%(playlist_index)s-%(title)s.%(ext)s'  https://www.udemy.com/git-started-with-github/learn/v4/content
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: [u'--verbose', u'-u', u'PRIVATE', u'-p', u'PRIVATE', u'-f', u'best', u'-o', u'./videos/%(playlist)s/%(chapter_number)s - %(chapter)s/%(playlist_index)s-%(title)s.%(ext)s', u'https://www.udemy.com/git-started-with-github/learn/v4/content']
[debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs UTF-8, out UTF-8, pref UTF-8
[debug] youtube-dl version 2017.12.02
[debug] Python version 2.7.12+ - Linux-4.8.0-41-generic-x86_64-with-Ubuntu-16.10-yakkety
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 3.0.7-0ubuntu0.16.10.1, ffprobe 3.0.7-0ubuntu0.16.10.1, rtmpdump 2.4
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[udemy:course] Downloading login popup
[udemy:course] Logging in
[udemy:course] git-started-with-github: Downloading webpage
[udemy:course] 500632: Downloading course curriculum
[download] Downloading playlist: Git Started with GitHub
[udemy:course] playlist Git Started with GitHub: Collected 16 video ids (downloading 16 of them)
[download] Downloading video 1 of 16
[udemy] Downloading login popup
[udemy] 2918876: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2918876: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-35-12c3028c43d1b1f7c2518d407c58fc4d/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209161006&token=0ba21f05630651a577911'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/1 - Introduction/01-Course Introduction.mp4
[download] 100% of 4.84MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 2 of 16
[udemy] 2965863: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2965863: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand2.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-35-1a05cc0d77cac3eaeef5c96df86fe9ca/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209161008&token=051f54d90c064af0b2456'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/1 - Introduction/02-Why Git.mp4
[download] 100% of 3.21MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 3 of 16
[udemy] 2918890: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2918890: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand2.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-36-3cdf360fc901f2fbe265b2e29aba1a30/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209161009&token=08697c195a648b4f40d1d'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/1 - Introduction/03-Core Concepts.mp4
[download] 100% of 9.27MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 4 of 16
[udemy] 2965875: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2965875: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-19-953d552dca3deb5b0a2e29eb9de1d4b3/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209161011&token=01163b42c3715442fa978'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/1 - Introduction/04-Going Command Line.mp4
[download] 100% of 4.20MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 5 of 16
[udemy] 2918894: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2918894: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-21-d000aae0e143973d889c25c15f208bc9/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209161012&token=04955ba1dd463a5b5f514'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/2 - Installation/05-Installation Overview.mp4
[download] 100% of 1.73MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 6 of 16
[udemy] 2965881: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2965881: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand.udemy.com/2016-01-25_23-00-29-70f303a92c92b0b2163f79638eaaf821/WebHD_1080.mp4?nva=20171209161013&token=05aaf84ced7cce3372f9d'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/2 - Installation/06-Installing Git for Windows.mp4
[download] 100% of 26.87MiB in 00:02
[download] Downloading video 7 of 16
[udemy] 2919330: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2919330: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand2.udemy.com/2016-01-25_22-58-55-7597a6ea61236ca2b0fff72b54eda595/WebHD_1080.mp4?nva=20171209161017&token=0a7170dca11bb35168281'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/2 - Installation/07-Git on Mac OS X.mp4
[download] 100% of 4.87MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 8 of 16
[udemy] 2965885: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2965885: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand2.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-36-de21b1ef817c92475a435bd2c22fcdcb/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209161018&token=0efd70138720e89f33d0f'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/3 - Basic Git Workflow with GitHub/08-Welcome to GitHub.mp4
[download] 100% of 8.95MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 9 of 16
[udemy] 2965889: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2965889: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-27-d613d25b10b5fccc1e2f17eba5f39bfd/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209161020&token=0dd59ee3dea9e008c19bc'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/3 - Basic Git Workflow with GitHub/09-Setup the Project Folder.mp4
[download] 100% of 2.78MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 10 of 16
[udemy] 2965897: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2965897: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-25-5c74adf058bfd422aa928a247d171c11/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209161021&token=0252d43c1914b12d5cdeb'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/3 - Basic Git Workflow with GitHub/10-Git Configuration (User Name and Email).mp4
[download] 100% of 2.33MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 11 of 16
[udemy] 2965913: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2965913: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://udemy-assets-on-demand2.udemy.com/2015-05-21_19-29-36-97e803aa07d99f3b99e20825d9a7877a/WebHD_720p.mp4?nva=20171209161022&token=075014f61d6f9eb83a56d'
[download] Destination: ./videos/Git Started with GitHub/3 - Basic Git Workflow with GitHub/11-Copy the Repository from GitHub to Your Local Computer (git clone).mp4
[download] 100% of 8.21MiB in 00:00
[download] Downloading video 12 of 16
[udemy] 2965919: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 2965919: Downloading lecture JSON
ERROR: Unable to download JSON metadata: HTTP Error 404: NOT FOUND (caused by HTTPError()); 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.
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py", line 506, in _request_webpage
    return self._downloader.urlopen(url_or_request)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 2196, in urlopen
    return self._opener.open(req, timeout=self._socket_timeout)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 435, in open
    response = meth(req, response)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 548, in http_response
    'http', request, response, code, msg, hdrs)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 473, in error
    return self._call_chain(*args)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 407, in _call_chain
    result = func(*args)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 556, in http_error_default
    raise HTTPError(req.get_full_url(), code, msg, hdrs, fp)

---

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Description of your issue, suggested solution and other information

I tried to download a udemy course. however sometimes randomly, I get above error.
I have tried to download the same course twice. First time it was a success. But the second time, I get the error. The same issue was reported earlier by other users, but those issues were closed indicating that the issue is resolved in the latest release. However I'm using the latest version and I'm still getting this error.

Also note that this issue is not related to the course you choose. I have tried another course and got the same issue. I chose this course to log the issue since it's freely available to any udemy user.