"ERROR: Unable to download f4m manifest" for all rtlxl.nl-videos

[Reino17]

youtube-dl.exe -vF http://www.rtlxl.nl/#!/rtl-nieuws-132237/e9ee31e4-e18b-3bca-bca4-dd9aa0da6976
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['-vF', 'http://www.rtlxl.nl/#!/rtl-nieuws-132237/e9ee31e4-e18b-3bca-bca4
-dd9aa0da6976']
[debug] Encodings: locale cp1252, fs mbcs, out cp437, pref cp1252
[debug] youtube-dl version 2014.11.04
[debug] Python version 2.7.8 - Windows-XP-5.1.2600-SP3
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg N-65810-
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[rtlxl.nl] e9ee31e4-e18b-3bca-bca4-dd9aa0da6976: Downloading JSON metadata
[rtlxl.nl] e9ee31e4-e18b-3bca-bca4-dd9aa0da6976: Downloading f4m manifest
ERROR: Unable to download f4m manifest: HTTP Error 404: File or directory not found. (caused by HTTP
Error()); please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug . Be sure to call youtube-dl with the --
verbose flag and include its complete output. Make sure you are using the latest version; type  yout
ube-dl -U  to update.
  File "youtube_dl\extractor\common.pyo", line 232, in _request_webpage
  File "youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.pyo", line 1289, in urlopen
  File "urllib2.pyo", line 410, in open
  File "urllib2.pyo", line 523, in http_response
  File "urllib2.pyo", line 448, in error
  File "urllib2.pyo", line 382, in _call_chain
  File "urllib2.pyo", line 531, in http_error_default

Could you please also have a look at #3640?

[Reino17]

I don't know the exact inner workings of rtlxl's api and http streaming, but could it be they ditched the f4m manifest for something else?
When rtlxl still worked, youtube-dl -gf worst would return a f4m-url (see #3640), in which case I could replace ".f4m" with ".m3u8" to at least retrieve the 'manifest-playlist'.
Using Firefox's webconsole I can luckily still retrieve this playlist. For the above mentioned program-url http://www.rtlxl.nl/#!/rtl-nieuws-132237/e9ee31e4-e18b-3bca-bca4-dd9aa0da6976 the 'manifest-playlist' is http://manifest.us.rtl.nl/rtlxl/v166/network/pc/adaptive/components/actueel/rtlnieuws/307089/2014w45/e9ee31e4-e18b-3bca-bca4-dd9aa0da6976.ssm/e9ee31e4-e18b-3bca-bca4-dd9aa0da6976.m3u8
When I now replace ".m3u8" with ".f4m" again, it seems the file doesn't exist. Just my 2 cents.
I would really appreciate it if you could have a look.

[Reino17]

I really hate to bump issues, but I use youtube-dl on a regular basis for rtlxl.nl and sadly I don't have the knowledge to fix this myself. So I'd really appreciate it someone could have a look.
Do you accept donations for that matter? ;)

[Reino17]

I had a closer look at this.
In the first place, line 42 of rtlnl.py seems to be the culprit:

f4m_url = 'http://manifest.us.rtl.nl' + videopath

http://www.rtl.nl/system/s4m/vfd/version=2/uuid=[UUID]/fmt=flash/:

...
"videopath":"/rtlxl/v166/network/pc/flash/components/actueel/rtlnieuws/307089/2014w45/e9ee31
e4-e18b-3bca-bca4-dd9aa0da6976.ssm/e9ee31e4-e18b-3bca-bca4-dd9aa0da6976.f4m",
...

Thus,
http://manifest.us.rtl.nl/rtlxl/v166/network/pc/flash/components/actueel/rtlnieuws/307089/2014w45/e9ee31e4-e18b-3bca-bca4-dd9aa0da6976.ssm/e9ee31e4-e18b-3bca-bca4-dd9aa0da6976.f4m,
seems to be invalid (404 - File or directory not found.). I've tried several other prefixes, but I really doubt if they're still using a f4m-manifest. Really weird.

http://manifest.us.rtl.nl/rtlxl/v166/network/pc/flash/components/actueel/rtlnieuws/307089/2014w45/e9ee31e4-e18b-3bca-bca4-dd9aa0da6976.ssm/e9ee31e4-e18b-3bca-bca4-dd9aa0da6976.m3u8 on the other hand is the url for the 'manifest-playlist'. Can't you use self._extract_m3u8_formats(), like you did with npo.nl and kijk.nl, to parse the adaptive streams from this url?
The parsing of the progressive streams (line 46 of rtlnl.py) would stay the same I believe.

---

http://www.rtl.nl/system/s4m/vfd/version=2/uuid=[UUID]/fmt=adaptive/ could also be an option, but the 'manifest-playlist' it links to contains videostreams with DRM, so...no.

[naglis]

@corone17 thanks for all your research! However, this issue seems to be a duplicate of #4115. Please subscribe and post any new comments there.