Error Checking

[gdsaxton]

Hi,

Just started using youtube-dl -- great program! I am wondering if there is a way to check whether the video downloaded -- or at least started to.

I'm using youtube-dl within Python, and iterating over URLs in a 'video_url' column in a database, as in the following lines

all_videos = session.query(VIDEOS).all()
for row in all_videos[:20]:
campaign_name = row.charity_name
video_id = '_%(id)s.%(ext)s'
video_name = 'videos/'+campaign_name+video_id
os.system ( "youtube-dl '%s' -o '%s'" % (video_url, video_name) )
row.video_downloaded = 'yes'

Most of the time, this works great, but on at least one Vimeo video I get this error:

[vimeo] 59354216: Downloading webpage
[vimeo] 59354216: Extracting information
ERROR: unable to extract info section

So, what I'm wondering is if there is a way to check whether there is an error, or check whether the video downloaded correctly, so that I can note in the 'video_downloaded' column whether the video downloaded or not? Sorry if this is a bit of a novice question -- I'd appreciate any help!

Best,

Greg

[cinereous]

As a Python neophyte, I can't give you a good answer, but a kludge would be --- check the output of the system call and see if it contains "ERROR" (
if "ERROR" in output: print "Not downloaded." <--- or, look for 100% or any other term you'd see on success).

Of course, if youtube-dl does the standard unix thing of returning 0 on success, you could just check for that:
result = os.system ("youtube-dl '%s' -o '%s'" % (video_url, video_name) )
if result:
print "Error."

[maximeg]

Well, I use a simple way, checking for the downloaded file, as an error can occurs in many way (youtube-dl could fail without displaying "error", if there is any bug).

In ruby, I do :

  def self.import_with_youtubedl(url, tmp_path)
    raise StandardError.new("youtube-dl is not on the system") unless system("which youtube-dl >> /dev/null")

    result = `youtube-dl -f 18 -o "#{tmp_path}/video.%(ext)s" "#{url}"`

    ["video.mp4", "video.flv"].each do |file_name|
      file_path = tmp_path.join(file_name)
      return file_path if File.exists?(file_path)
    end

    return nil if result =~ /Falling back on generic information extractor/i

    raise StandardError.new("Cannot get with youtube-dl: #{result}")
  end

It returns me the file path of the downloaded video, or nil if youtube-dl couldn't download it (all extractors tried).

[gdsaxton]

Thanks @maximeg and @cinereous for your suggestions! I tried @cinereous's suggestion and implemented this:

result = os.system ( "youtube-dl '%s' -o '%s' -f 18 " % (video_url, video_name) )  
#result == 0 when it downloaded successfully, result == 256, and possibly other values, when unsuccessful
if result == 0:
    row.video_downloaded = 'success!'
else:
    row.video_downloaded = 'VIDEO FAILED TO DOWNLOAD'

It worked! Thanks for the help!

Cheers,

Greg

[ocisly]

@phihag this has also been resolved (and can be closed)