youtube shorts URL causes "unable to recognize tab page" error

[reticivis-net]

Checklist

• I'm reporting a broken site support issue
• I've verified that I'm running youtube-dl version 2021.06.06
• 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 bug reports including closed ones
• I've read bugs section in FAQ

Verbose log

PS C:\Users\minec\PycharmProjects\captionbot> youtube-dl -v https://youtube.com/shorts/4L2J27mJ3Dc
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['-v', 'https://youtube.com/shorts/4L2J27mJ3Dc']
[debug] Encodings: locale cp1252, fs utf-8, out utf-8, pref cp1252
[debug] youtube-dl version 2021.06.06
[debug] Python version 3.8.3 (CPython) - Windows-10-10.0.22504-SP0
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 4.4-full_build-www.gyan.dev, ffprobe 4.4-full_build-www.gyan.dev
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[youtube:tab] shorts: Downloading webpage
ERROR: Unable to recognize tab page; please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug . Make sure you are using the latest version; see  https://yt-dl.org/update  on how to update. Be sure to call youtube-dl with the --verbose flag
 and include its complete output.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "c:\users\minec\.virtualenvs\captionbot-ffal0v-r\lib\site-packages\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 815, in wrapper
    return func(self, *args, **kwargs)
  File "c:\users\minec\.virtualenvs\captionbot-ffal0v-r\lib\site-packages\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 836, in __extract_info
    ie_result = ie.extract(url)
  File "c:\users\minec\.virtualenvs\captionbot-ffal0v-r\lib\site-packages\youtube_dl\extractor\common.py", line 534, in extract
    ie_result = self._real_extract(url)
  File "c:\users\minec\.virtualenvs\captionbot-ffal0v-r\lib\site-packages\youtube_dl\extractor\youtube.py", line 2844, in _real_extract
    raise ExtractorError('Unable to recognize tab page')
youtube_dl.utils.ExtractorError: Unable to recognize tab page; please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug . Make sure you are using the latest version; see  https://yt-dl.org/update  on how to update. Be sure to call youtube-
dl with the --verbose flag and include its complete output.

Description

the "share" button on youtube shorts can generate a URL in the following format: https://youtube.com/shorts/[videoid]?feature=share. this causes the above error. reformatting the URL to the typical https://youtube.com/watch?v=[videoid] works fine.

[reticivis-net]

i know there are workarounds but for a program called "youtube-dl" I feel like it should work for all youtube links

[reticivis-net]

well then its a convenience i think it should have

[dirkf]

i know there are workarounds but for a program called "youtube-dl" I feel like it should work for all youtube links

It doesn't seem unreasonable, but it's a simple change:

--- old/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/extractor/youtube.py
+++ new/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/extractor/youtube.py
@@ -415,6 +415,7 @@
                          (?:.*?\#/)?                                          # handle anchor (#/) redirect urls
                          (?:                                                  # the various things that can precede the ID:
                              (?:(?:v|embed|e)/(?!videoseries))                # v/ or embed/ or e/
+                             |shorts/
                              |(?:                                             # or the v= param in all its forms
                                  (?:(?:watch|movie)(?:_popup)?(?:\.php)?/?)?  # preceding watch(_popup|.php) or nothing (like /?v=xxxx)
                                  (?:\?|\#!?)                                  # the params delimiter ? or # or #!

[Arsh1219]

facing the same issue on my website savetube, any solution?

[reticivis-net]

If you can parse out the ID of the video you can just pass that to YouTube-dl

The fork yt-dlp has this fixed if you don't feel like doing that and want some extra features

[dirkf]

Or just apply the patch that was posted ...

[reticivis-net]

Modifying libraries in use can be a pain and if managed by pip or similar changes can be overwritten. Yes they could make a pull and implement the change but that's a big hassle

[dirkf]

The poster has a website, where applying a 1-line patch to free software should be the least problem. A production system with live updates from a package repository deserves any breakage that will occur.

As you suggest, anyone manually downloading would normally find it easier just to pass the ID instead.

Generally, a statement that package Y solves a problem with yt-dl isn't helpful, particularly when package Y is already well discussed in other issues, rather than, say, offering to maintain a new release.

[reticivis-net]

Modifying libraries in use can be a pain and if managed by pip or similar changes can be overwritten. Yes they could make a pull and implement the change but that's a big hassle

This is one of the most selfish comments Ive read in a while. @dirkf and I have had our differences, but he took time out of his day to help you, while you just spit on his work. Shame on you.

I had no intention do to that. I was expecting their work to make it into the project via a pull. I wasn't specifically talking about this patch, I just thought that modifying libraries directly in general wasn't best practice. Wrongly so apparently, so I apologize.

[jxu]

Feel free to submit a PR, though this project is seemingly abandoned by @dstftw for the indefinite future.

[reticivis-net]

Ah
yt-dlp has this fixed so I'll just use that
I'll leave this issue open if anyone else wants to PR or something

[dennisnez]

Thanks for the above tip, and the patch.