Youtube channel playlists are not downloading

[Tokariew]

Checklist

• I'm reporting a broken site support
• I've verified that I'm running youtube-dl version 2020.09.20
• 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

➜ youtube-dl  https://www.youtube.com/c/Coreyms/playlists --verbose
[debug] System config: ['--prefer-free-formats']
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['https://www.youtube.com/c/Coreyms/playlists', '--verbose']
[debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs utf-8, out utf-8, pref UTF-8
[debug] youtube-dl version 2020.09.20
[debug] Python version 3.8.6 (CPython) - Linux-5.8.15-201.fc32.x86_64-x86_64-with-glibc2.2.5
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 4.2.4, ffprobe 4.2.4
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[youtube:playlists] Coreyms: Downloading webpage
[download] Downloading playlist: Corey Schafer
[youtube:playlists] playlist Corey Schafer: Downloading 0 videos
[download] Finished downloading playlist: Corey Schafer

Description

After version 2020.06.16.1 download using channel playlist page url is not possible
Reverting this patch e942cfd seems to fix downloading from such url, but this issue will no longer be fixed #25810

I tried youtube-dl from release page and from Fedora repository, both don't work

[oobitydoo]

I had the same thing start happening in the last few days, but until recently I'd been successfully downloading playlists using version 2020.09.20 (downloaded and sig verified from here on github). Did youtube change their response to something that youtube-dl doesn't understand? I've attached the file I got from running the same command with --write-pages here, in case it helps.

youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/c/Coreyms/playlists --verbose --write-pages
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['https://www.youtube.com/c/Coreyms/playlists', '--verbose', '--write-pages']
[debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs utf-8, out UTF-8, pref UTF-8
[debug] youtube-dl version 2020.09.20
[debug] Python version 3.7.5 (CPython) - Linux-4.4.0-18362-Microsoft-x86_64-with-Ubuntu-18.04-bionic
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 3.4.8, ffprobe 3.4.8, phantomjs ., rtmpdump 2.4
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[youtube:playlists] Coreyms: Downloading webpage
[youtube:playlists] Saving request to Coreyms_https_-_www.youtube.com_c_Coreyms_playlistsdisable_polymer=true.dump
[download] Downloading playlist: Corey Schafer
[youtube:playlists] playlist Corey Schafer: Downloading 0 videos
[download] Finished downloading playlist: Corey Schafer

youtube-dl_write-pages_result.txt

[alexkuc]

Got the issue on Mac with binary version 2020.09.20 (installed using Homebrew):

youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt6vkpfl-kNj6vUletDgMGA/playlists
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: [u'-o', u'~/Music/Youtube/%(playlist)s/%(title)s_%(epoch)s.%(ext)s', u'--download-archive', u'~/.config/youtube-dl/archive.txt', u'--ignore-errors', u'--yes-playlist', u'--restrict-filenames', u'-x', u'--audio-format', u'mp3', u'--embed-thumbnail', u'--audio-quality', u'0', u'--verbose']
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: [u'https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCt6vkpfl-kNj6vUletDgMGA/playlists']
[debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs utf-8, out UTF-8, pref UTF-8
[debug] youtube-dl version 2020.09.20
[debug] Python version 2.7.16 (CPython) - Darwin-17.7.0-x86_64-i386-64bit
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 4.3.1, ffprobe 4.3.1, rtmpdump 2.4
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[youtube:playlists] UCt6vkpfl-kNj6vUletDgMGA: Downloading webpage
[download] Downloading playlist: Alexander Kucheryuk
[youtube:playlists] playlist Alexander Kucheryuk: Downloading 0 videos
[download] Finished downloading playlist: Alexander Kucheryuk

If I point to a specific playlist (as opposed to downloading all playlists), I get this:

youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WddpRmmAYkg&list=PLUIGTHchKm7EYUxldxnASmrfarSGV7gKG
[1] 25793
Downloads $ [debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: [u'-o', u'~/Music/Youtube/%(playlist)s/%(title)s_%(epoch)s.%(ext)s', u'--download-archive', u'~/.config/youtube-dl/archive.txt', u'--ignore-errors', u'--yes-playlist', u'--restrict-filenames', u'-x', u'--audio-format', u'mp3', u'--embed-thumbnail', u'--audio-quality', u'0', u'--verbose']
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: [u'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WddpRmmAYkg']
[debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs utf-8, out UTF-8, pref UTF-8
[debug] youtube-dl version 2020.09.20
[debug] Python version 2.7.16 (CPython) - Darwin-17.7.0-x86_64-i386-64bit
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 4.3.1, ffprobe 4.3.1, rtmpdump 2.4
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[youtube] WddpRmmAYkg: Downloading webpage
[download] Boris Brejcha Style @ Art of Minimal Techno Tripping - The Mad Doctor by RTTWLR has already been recorded in archive

In this case, the process is hanging indefinitely without any warnings or errors.

Downloading a video directly works as expected, seems only playlists are affected.

EDIT:

Here's another interesting example.

This fails:

youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ5mH_hyKU0&list=PLUIGTHchKm7EYUxldxnASmrfarSGV7gKG&index=39
[1] 26073
[2] 26074
[2]+  Done                    list=PLUIGTHchKm7EYUxldxnASmrfarSGV7gKG
Downloads $ [debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: [u'-o', u'~/Music/Youtube/%(playlist)s/%(title)s_%(epoch)s.%(ext)s', u'--download-archive', u'~/.config/youtube-dl/archive.txt', u'--ignore-errors', u'--yes-playlist', u'--restrict-filenames', u'-x', u'--audio-format', u'mp3', u'--embed-thumbnail', u'--audio-quality', u'0', u'--verbose']
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: [u'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ5mH_hyKU0']
[debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs utf-8, out UTF-8, pref UTF-8
[debug] youtube-dl version 2020.09.20
[debug] Python version 2.7.16 (CPython) - Darwin-17.7.0-x86_64-i386-64bit
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 4.3.1, ffprobe 4.3.1, rtmpdump 2.4
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[youtube] VQ5mH_hyKU0: Downloading webpage
ERROR: VQ5mH_hyKU0: YouTube said: Unable to extract video data
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 797, in extract_info
    ie_result = ie.extract(url)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py", line 532, in extract
    ie_result = self._real_extract(url)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/extractor/youtube.py", line 1910, in _real_extract
    'YouTube said: %s' % unavailable_message, expected=True, video_id=video_id)
ExtractorError: VQ5mH_hyKU0: YouTube said: Unable to extract video data

But this succeeds:

youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQ5mH_hyKU0
…

So it seems that omitting this part &list=PLUIGTHchKm7EYUxldxnASmrfarSGV7gKG&index=39 resolves the error YouTube said: Unable to extract video data.

I have downloaded 3 videos in similar fashion (this edit) and only one of them failed.

Two other videos worked fine - here are the links

youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thmwpr0YTEk&list=PLUIGTHchKm7EYUxldxnASmrfarSGV7gKG&index=38
youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFf2-fGbZxw&list=PLUIGTHchKm7EYUxldxnASmrfarSGV7gKG&index=37

[numlockkey]

Same problem here with (2020.09.20). It will not download any playlist:

youtube-dl -o "d:\YT Downloads%%(uploader)s%%(playlist)s%%(playlist_index)s - %%(title)s.%%(ext)s" https://www.youtube.com/c/Kevindarrah/playlists
[youtube:playlists] Kevindarrah: Downloading webpage
[download] Downloading playlist: Kevin Darrah
[youtube:playlists] playlist Kevin Darrah: Downloading 0 videos
[download] Finished downloading playlist: Kevin Darrah

[llacb47]

It's because disable_polymer no longer works on channel pages.

[numlockkey]

What does it mean that disable_polymer no longer works on channel pages? Does it mean that there is no way to get this to work
as it used to?

[alexkuc]

@numlockkey

So disable_polymer appears to revert YouTube to its "classical" layout but looks like Google is phasing it out (see this and this).

Does it mean that there is no way to get this to work as it used to?

Looks like a PR is needed to update the script to work with new YouTube layout (I think).