ERROR: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\xf1' in position 47: ordinal not in range(128)

[jherazob]

The video URL was this one, which has a title of:

[ESP] "Infinity the Game" Video Tutorial Reglas 1/3 - Órdenes

youtube-dl doesn't like this title at all, and just bails out when told to download it.

I have no idea why this particular one breaks it when yesterday it could easily handle one with the title in japanese, but there it is.

[phihag]

Thank you for reporting. As a stopgap measure, you can pass in --restrict-filenames, but that will mangle the filename. Can you post the output of

youtube-dl -t fMqk0rlM2Nc -v

on your system? And what operating system are you using?

[jherazob]

Ah, sorry, should have done this in the first place :)

It's stock Ubuntu 12.04 LTS. Here's the verbose output:

[debug] youtube-dl version 2013.02.02
[debug] Python version 2.7.3 - Linux-3.2.0-37-generic-pae-i686-with-Ubuntu-12.04-precise
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[youtube] Setting language
[youtube] fMqk0rlM2Nc: Downloading video webpage
[youtube] fMqk0rlM2Nc: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] fMqk0rlM2Nc: Extracting video information
[youtube] fMqk0rlM2Nc: Downloading video subtitles
ERROR: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\xf1' in position 47: ordinal not in range(128)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/jherazob/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/FileDownloader.py", line 505, in download
    videos = ie.extract(url)
  File "/home/jherazob/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/InfoExtractors.py", line 93, in extract
    return self._real_extract(url)
  File "/home/jherazob/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/InfoExtractors.py", line 463, in _real_extract
    (srt_error, video_subtitles) = self._extract_subtitles(video_id)
  File "/home/jherazob/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/InfoExtractors.py", line 269, in _extract_subtitles
    srt_xml = compat_urllib_request.urlopen(request).read().decode('utf-8')
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 126, in urlopen
    return _opener.open(url, data, timeout)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 400, in open
    response = self._open(req, data)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 418, in _open
    '_open', req)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 378, in _call_chain
    result = func(*args)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 1207, in http_open
    return self.do_open(httplib.HTTPConnection, req)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 1174, in do_open
    h.request(req.get_method(), req.get_selector(), req.data, headers)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 958, in request
    self._send_request(method, url, body, headers)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 992, in _send_request
    self.endheaders(body)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 954, in endheaders
    self._send_output(message_body)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 814, in _send_output
    self.send(msg)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 790, in send
    self.sock.sendall(data)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/socket.py", line 224, in meth
    return getattr(self._sock,name)(*args)
UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\xf1' in position 47: ordinal not in range(128)

[phihag]

Oh, that explains a lot .. you're passing in --write-srt, aren't you? Thanks again, fixed in git.

[jherazob]

Yes, i was, i aliased youtube-dl to have the default options i most use, like "-t" "-i", "-c" and so on, and included "--write-srt" since i discovered it. Should have tested it more :)

[AjayKumarBasuthkar]

Here is preliminary info:
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['-v']
[debug] Encodings: locale 'UTF-8', fs 'UTF-8', out 'UTF-8', pref: 'UTF-8'
[debug] youtube-dl version 2014.03.07.1
[debug] Python version 2.7.3 - Linux-3.2.0-58-generic-pae-i686-with-Ubuntu-12.04-precise
[debug] Proxy map: {}

The command with options &/ arguments is:
sudo youtube-dl --restrict-filenames -t "​http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8NpaG0cAGo"

The error & log we see is:
WARNING: The url doesn't specify the protocol, trying with http
[generic] watch?v=k8NpaG0cAGo: Requesting header
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 162, in _run_module_as_main
"main", fname, loader, pkg_name)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 72, in _run_code
exec code in run_globals
File "/usr/bin/youtube-dl/main.py", line 18, in
File "/usr/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/init.py", line 810, in main

File "/usr/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/init.py", line 800, in _real_main

File "/usr/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 992, in download
File "/usr/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 517, in extract_info
File "/usr/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 553, in process_ie_result
File "/usr/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 500, in extract_info
File "/usr/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py", line 162, in extract
File "/usr/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/extractor/generic.py", line 236, in _real_extract
File "/usr/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/extractor/generic.py", line 191, in _send_head
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 400, in open
response = self._open(req, data)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 418, in _open
'_open', req)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 378, in _call_chain
result = func(*args)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 1207, in http_open
return self.do_open(httplib.HTTPConnection, req)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/urllib2.py", line 1174, in do_open
h.request(req.get_method(), req.get_selector(), req.data, headers)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 958, in request
self._send_request(method, url, body, headers)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 991, in _send_request
self.putheader(hdr, value)
File "/usr/lib/python2.7/httplib.py", line 938, in putheader
hdr = '%s: %s' % (header, '\r\n\t'.join([str(v) for v in values]))
UnicodeEncodeError: 'ascii' codec can't encode character u'\u200b' in position 0: ordinal not in range(128)

This worked, I have downloaded the video, thanks a tone youtube-dl team 👍
sudo youtube-dl --restrict-filenames -t k8NpaG0cAGo -v

[jaimeMF]

@AjayKumarBasuthkar you were passing an aditional character (invisible) in the url:

$ youtube-dl --restrict-filenames -t "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8NpaG0cAGo"
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: ['--keep-video', '--write-info-json', '--write-thumbnail', '--verbose']
[debug] Command-line args: ['--restrict-filenames', '-t', '\u200bhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8NpaG0cAGo']

It's not the same problem.
And don't run youtube-dl as sudo!