youtube-dl can no longer determine best video on youtube.

[dystopia2017]

• I've verified and I assure that I'm running youtube-dl 2018.12.17

Before submitting an issue make sure you have:

• At least skimmed through the README, most notably the FAQ and BUGS sections
• Searched the bugtracker for similar issues including closed ones
• Checked that provided video/audio/playlist URLs (if any) are alive and playable in a browser

What is the purpose of your issue?

• Bug report (encountered problems with youtube-dl)

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youtube-dl incorrectly detects the "best" version when downloading from youtube and instead determines a very low resolution video is best.

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C:\Users\Ariyasu\Desktop>youtube-dl.exe -U
youtube-dl is up-to-date (2018.12.17)

C:\Users\Ariyasu\Desktop>youtube-dl.exe -F https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPPIR6B_gmY -v
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['-F', 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPPIR6B_gmY', '-v']
[debug] Encodings: locale cp1252, fs mbcs, out cp850, pref cp1252
[debug] youtube-dl version 2018.12.17
[debug] Python version 3.4.4 (CPython) - Windows-10-10.0.17134
[debug] exe versions: none
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[youtube] uPPIR6B_gmY: Downloading webpage
[youtube] uPPIR6B_gmY: Downloading video info webpage
[info] Available formats for uPPIR6B_gmY:
format code  extension  resolution note
249          webm       audio only DASH audio   49k , opus @ 50k, 765.25KiB
250          webm       audio only DASH audio   66k , opus @ 70k, 1013.71KiB
140          m4a        audio only DASH audio  130k , m4a_dash container, mp4a.40.2@128k, 2.13MiB
171          webm       audio only DASH audio  130k , vorbis@128k, 1.96MiB
251          webm       audio only DASH audio  131k , opus @160k, 1.97MiB
278          webm       256x144    144p   98k , webm container, vp9, 30fps, video only, 1.51MiB
160          mp4        256x144    144p  166k , avc1.4d400c, 30fps, video only, 1.75MiB
242          webm       426x240    240p  225k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 3.49MiB
133          mp4        426x240    240p  326k , avc1.4d4015, 30fps, video only, 3.82MiB
243          webm       640x360    360p  415k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 6.41MiB
134          mp4        640x360    360p  645k , avc1.4d401e, 30fps, video only, 7.98MiB
244          webm       854x480    480p  764k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 11.70MiB
135          mp4        854x480    480p 1108k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 13.17MiB
247          webm       1280x720   720p 1555k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 23.35MiB
136          mp4        1280x720   720p 2173k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 22.27MiB
248          webm       1920x1080  1080p 2727k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 41.87MiB
137          mp4        1920x1080  1080p 4351k , avc1.640028, 30fps, video only, 66.09MiB
17           3gp        176x144    small , mp4v.20.3, mp4a.40.2@ 24k, 1.30MiB
36           3gp        320x180    small , mp4v.20.3, mp4a.40.2, 3.71MiB
18           mp4        640x360    medium , avc1.42001E, mp4a.40.2@ 96k, 11.85MiB (best)
...
<end of log>

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For around the past week youtube-dl has detected the wrong version of video as "best" and downloaded a very low resolution video by default when better versions exist. you can manually grab the higher versions by issuing "-F ###" and it will work fine, But the default behaviour is broken.

[dstftw]

The behavior is correct. Bother to read FAQ on format selection.