[YouTube] ERROR: content too short

[AbrahamAriel]

Pretty much every single video can't be downloaded from YouTube due to this error.

D:\User\Downloads\Programs\win-youtube-dl>cd "D:\User\Downloads\Programs\win-you
tube-dl"

D:\User\Downloads\Programs\win-youtube-dl>"D:\User\Downloads\Programs\win-youtub
e-dl"\youtube-dl.exe "--title" "--restrict-filenames" "http://www.youtube.com/wa
tch?v=vzHrjOMfHPY"
[youtube] Setting language
[youtube] vzHrjOMfHPY: Downloading webpage
[youtube] vzHrjOMfHPY: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] vzHrjOMfHPY: Extracting video information
[download] Destination: League_of_Legends_Cinematic_-_A_New_Dawn-vzHrjOMfHPY.mp4

[download] 100% of 115.43MiB in 00:00
ERROR: content too short (expected 121040379 bytes and served 7207)

D:\User\Downloads\Programs\win-youtube-dl>pause
Press any key to continue . . .

[phihag]

Thank you for the report. I can reproduce the error for this video, but fail to find any other videos that are affected. Can you name some more?

In any case, this is an error on YouTube's side (or, more precisely, probably an error in the google filesystem), not in youtube-dl. What happens is that the file storage has been damaged. These errors have happened from time to time in the past, but were usually fixed in a couple of days.

What you can do is request another file by requesting another format. You can use the -F option to list all formats and -f to select one or more formats. For example, both

youtube-dl -f 18 vzHrjOMfHPY
youtube-dl -f bestvideo+bestaudio vzHrjOMfHPY   # (requires ffmpeg)

work fine for me.

Sometimes, it can also help to download from a different (network) location and thus select a different storage server, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

By the way, your command line includes the options --title and --restrict-filenames. --title has been deprecated, and --restrict-filenames should only be used in special scenarios. Unless you have a specific reason , you can probably drop both options.

I'm closing this issue now since the error is on YouTube's side and there is a simple workaround.

[AbrahamAriel]

Those deprecated commands was automatically input by win-youtube-dl. I decided to just do it the usual way, through the command line and followed your suggestions and they indeed work (except when I tried -f 22, which gave me the same error).

I'm currently downloading by using the second method that you suggested (bestvideo+bestaudio). Does this method actually downloads the DASH formats and combines them?

Anyhow, thank you for the simple workaround and quick response.

[phihag]

Does this method actually downloads the DASH formats and combines them?
Yes, that's precisely what it does.

[AbrahamAriel]

Great, just what I need. Thank you.

On 24 July 2014 01:08, Philipp Hagemeister notifications@github.com wrote:

Does this method actually downloads the DASH formats and combines them?
Yes, that's precisely what it does.

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