UnicodeEncodeError at the metadata writing step in youtube_dl/postprocessor/ffmpeg.py

[sebma]

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Hi,
This error occurs at the writing of the metadata (after the download is finished)
Here is the output of youtube-dl -v :

$ youtube-dl --ignore-config --restrict-filenames -v -f18 -o "%(title)s__%(format_id)s__%(id)s.%(ext)s" --prefer-ffmpeg --add-metadata https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eZxe8C6sao 
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['--ignore-config', '--restrict-filenames', '-v', '-f18', '-o', '%(title)s__%(format_id)s__%(id)s.%(ext)s', '--prefer-ffmpeg', '--add-metadata', 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eZxe8C6sao']
[debug] Encodings: locale ANSI_X3.4-1968, fs ascii, out ANSI_X3.4-1968, pref ANSI_X3.4-1968
[debug] youtube-dl version 2018.03.03
[debug] Python version 3.4.3 (CPython) - Linux-4.4.0-112-generic-x86_64-with-Ubuntu-14.04-trusty
[debug] exe versions: avconv 9.20-6, avprobe 9.20-6, ffmpeg 3.3.3, ffprobe 3.3.3, rtmpdump 2.4
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[youtube] -eZxe8C6sao: Downloading webpage
[youtube] -eZxe8C6sao: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] -eZxe8C6sao: Extracting video information
[youtube] -eZxe8C6sao: Downloading MPD manifest
[youtube] -eZxe8C6sao: Downloading MPD manifest
[debug] Invoking downloader on 'https://r8---sn-oj-jqbe.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?expire=1520047465&ratebypass=yes&lmt=1519808650159516&requiressl=yes&gir=yes&mime=video%2Fmp4&fvip=2&ipbits=0&clen=444675776&source=youtube&signature=945ADBFE4E8371EFB1D5FC45062472E80BC7248E.A5D242ACB53B330F20D380164990BDADA1E0777C&c=WEB&key=yt6&ei=CcGZWoCPMYe2VPrpuYAE&sparams=clen%2Cdur%2Cei%2Cgir%2Cid%2Cinitcwndbps%2Cip%2Cipbits%2Citag%2Clmt%2Cmime%2Cmm%2Cmn%2Cms%2Cmv%2Cpl%2Cratebypass%2Crequiressl%2Csource%2Cexpire&id=o-AApiVDtmv4DR04S7x8cKX1iNiZ1ZbpxDpDHTgEPdLY8W&mt=1520025764&mv=m&dur=6605.032&initcwndbps=1261250&itag=18&ms=au%2Crdu&ip=85.68.205.44&mm=31%2C29&mn=sn-oj-jqbe%2Csn-25ge7nld&pl=22'
[download] Joseph_Prince_2018_Are_You_Frustrating_The_Favor_Of_God__18__-eZxe8C6sao.mp4 has already been downloaded
[download] 100% of 424.08MiB
[ffmpeg] Adding metadata to 'Joseph_Prince_2018_Are_You_Frustrating_The_Favor_Of_God__18__-eZxe8C6sao.mp4'
[debug] ffmpeg command line: ffmpeg -y -i file:Joseph_Prince_2018_Are_You_Frustrating_The_Favor_Of_God__18__-eZxe8C6sao.mp4 -c copy -metadata date=20180228 -metadata artist=Benjamin -metadata 'comment=Joseph Prince 2018, Are You Frustrating The Favor Of God' -metadata 'purl=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eZxe8C6sao' -metadata 'description=Joseph Prince 2018, Are You Frustrating The Favor Of God' -metadata 'title=Joseph Prince 2018, Are You Frustrating The Favor Of God' file:Joseph_Prince_2018_Are_You_Frustrating_The_Favor_Of_God__18__-eZxe8C6sao.temp.mp4
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl", line 11, in <module>
    sys.exit(main())
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/youtube_dl/__init__.py", line 471, in main
    _real_main(argv)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/youtube_dl/__init__.py", line 461, in _real_main
    retcode = ydl.download(all_urls)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 1989, in download
    url, force_generic_extractor=self.params.get('force_generic_extractor', False))
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 796, in extract_info
    return self.process_ie_result(ie_result, download, extra_info)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 850, in process_ie_result
    return self.process_video_result(ie_result, download=download)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 1623, in process_video_result
    self.process_info(new_info)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 1970, in process_info
    self.post_process(filename, info_dict)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 2035, in post_process
    files_to_delete, info = pp.run(info)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/youtube_dl/postprocessor/ffmpeg.py", line 465, in run
    self.run_ffmpeg_multiple_files(in_filenames, temp_filename, options)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.4/dist-packages/youtube_dl/postprocessor/ffmpeg.py", line 199, in run_ffmpeg_multiple_files
    p = subprocess.Popen(cmd, stdout=subprocess.PIPE, stderr=subprocess.PIPE, stdin=subprocess.PIPE)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/subprocess.py", line 859, in __init__
    restore_signals, start_new_session)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.4/subprocess.py", line 1395, in _execute_child
    restore_signals, start_new_session, preexec_fn)
UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character '\u200b' in position 64: ordinal not in range(128)
$ echo $?
1

Can you help me ?

[sa7mon]

Worked just fine on my machine. I noticed in your output that your system encodings currently set to ANSI_X3.4-1968. Without going into how character encoding works, that's your problem. Set your system's default encoding to UTF-8 and run it again and it should work.

It looks like you're using Ubuntu so follow these instructions to switch to Unicode

[sebma]

@sa7mon I think you are right. It was a locale issue.