Long Tweets: ERROR: Cannot write description file

[palevell]

Checklist

• I'm reporting a broken site support
• I've verified that I'm running youtube-dl version 2019.11.05
• I've checked that all provided URLs are alive and playable in a browser
• I've checked that all URLs and arguments with special characters are properly quoted or escaped
• I've searched the bugtracker for similar issues including closed ones

Verbose log

[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: ['-f', 'bestvideo[height<=480]+bestaudio[height<=480]/bestvideo[ext=mp4][height<=480]+bestaudio[ext=m4a][height<=480]/best[ext=mp4]/best', '-o', '~/Downloads/ydl/%(uploader)s/%(upload_date)s/%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s', '-r', '250k', '--download-archive', '~/.local/share/YouTubeDL/archive.txt', '--exec', '~/bin/ydl-links', '--ignore-errors', '--max-filesize', '5000m', '--write-description', '--write-info-json', '--restrict-filenames', '--sleep-interval', '3', '--max-sleep-interval', '6', '--user-agent', 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.3; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/52.0 SeaMonkey/2.49.5 Lightning/5.4']
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['-r5000k', '--verbose', 'https://twitter.com/45HammerTime/status/1196137235894165504']
[debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs utf-8, out utf-8, pref UTF-8
[debug] youtube-dl version 2019.11.05
[debug] Python version 3.8.0 (CPython) - Linux-4.15.0-66-generic-x86_64-with-glibc2.27
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 3.4.6, ffprobe 3.4.6, phantomjs 2.1.1, rtmpdump 2.4
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[twitter] 1196137235894165504: Downloading webpage
[twitter:card] 1196137235894165504: Downloading webpage
[twitter:card] 1196137235894165504: Downloading guest token
[twitter:card] 1196137235894165504: Downloading JSON metadata
[twitter:card] 1196137235894165504: Downloading m3u8 information
[info] Writing video description to: /home/patrick/Downloads/ydl/Mad_Dad/NA/Mad_Dad_-_Doctor_says_STOP_CALLING_Measles_a_disease_Fake_news_amp_Democrat_politicians_brainwash_you._Measles_is_not_a_disease_it_s_an_infection_and_have_lifetime_immunity_after_that._Vaccines_cause_disease_GetTheHat_U_Be...The_Billboard-1196137235894165504.description
ERROR: Cannot write description file /home/patrick/Downloads/ydl/Mad_Dad/NA/Mad_Dad_-_Doctor_says_STOP_CALLING_Measles_a_disease_Fake_news_amp_Democrat_politicians_brainwash_you._Measles_is_not_a_disease_it_s_an_infection_and_have_lifetime_immunity_after_that._Vaccines_cause_disease_GetTheHat_U_Be...The_Billboard-1196137235894165504.description
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.8/site-packages/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 1784, in process_info
    with io.open(encodeFilename(descfn), 'w', encoding='utf-8') as descfile:
OSError: [Errno 36] File name too long: '/home/patrick/Downloads/ydl/Mad_Dad/NA/Mad_Dad_-_Doctor_says_STOP_CALLING_Measles_a_disease_Fake_news_amp_Democrat_politicians_brainwash_you._Measles_is_not_a_disease_it_s_an_infection_and_have_lifetime_immunity_after_that._Vaccines_cause_disease_GetTheHat_U_Be...The_Billboard-1196137235894165504.description'

Description

I believe this issue is related to Twitter increasing the tweet length to 280 characters--many file systems limit file names to 255 characters.

I created a patch and posted it as a Gist (click here)

[shillshocked]

How is this issue solvable?

[palevell]

The way I understand the program, it needs to be addressed when the file template is created. What is causing errors is the "(title)s" variable, when it is longer than the filesystem allows. The maximum is usually 255 characters. Allowing for extra stuff in the filename, like "(id)s", "(ext)s", info.json, and .description, I think 200 characters is a reasonable limit.