Fails download of SVT Play video (Traden Berattar S01E05)

[johan-westin-private]

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• [ x] At least skimmed through README and most notably FAQ and BUGS sections
• [ x] Searched the bugtracker for similar issues including closed ones

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• [ x] Bug report (encountered problems with youtube-dl)
• Site support request (request for adding support for a new site)
• Feature request (request for a new functionality)
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• Other

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The following sections concretize particular purposed issues, you can erase any section (the contents between triple ---) not applicable to your issue

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If the purpose of this issue is a bug report, site support request or you are not completely sure provide the full verbose output as follows:

Add -v flag to your command line you run youtube-dl with, copy the whole output and insert it here. It should look similar to one below (replace it with your log inserted between triple ```):

c:\temp>youtube-dl.exe -v http://www.svtplay.se/video/9170389/traden-berattar/traden-berattar-sasong-1-avsnitt-5/
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['-v', 'http://www.svtplay.se/video/9170389/traden-berattar/traden-berattar-sasong-1-avsnitt-5/']
[debug] Encodings: locale cp1252, fs mbcs, out cp850, pref cp1252
[debug] youtube-dl version 2016.06.16
[debug] Python version 3.4.4 - Windows-10-10.0.14366
[debug] exe versions: none
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[SVTPlay] 9170389: Downloading JSON metadata
ERROR: 9170389: Failed to parse JSON  (caused by ValueError('Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)',)); please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug . Make sure you are using the latest version; type  youtube-dl -U  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\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmpxzf4ix2_\build\youtube_dl\extractor\common.py", line 544, in _parse_json
  File "C:\Python\Python34\lib\json\__init__.py", line 318, in loads
  File "C:\Python\Python34\lib\json\decoder.py", line 343, in decode
  File "C:\Python\Python34\lib\json\decoder.py", line 361, in raw_decode
ValueError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmpxzf4ix2_\build\youtube_dl\extractor\common.py", line 544, in _parse_json
  File "C:\Python\Python34\lib\json\__init__.py", line 318, in loads
  File "C:\Python\Python34\lib\json\decoder.py", line 343, in decode
  File "C:\Python\Python34\lib\json\decoder.py", line 361, in raw_decode
ValueError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmpxzf4ix2_\build\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 676, in extract_info
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmpxzf4ix2_\build\youtube_dl\extractor\common.py", line 342, in extract
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmpxzf4ix2_\build\youtube_dl\extractor\svt.py", line 124, in _real_extract
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmpxzf4ix2_\build\youtube_dl\extractor\svt.py", line 14, in _extract_video
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmpxzf4ix2_\build\youtube_dl\extractor\common.py", line 538, in _download_json
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\rg3\tmpxzf4ix2_\build\youtube_dl\extractor\common.py", line 548, in _parse_json
youtube_dl.utils.ExtractorError: 9170389: Failed to parse JSON  (caused by ValueError('Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)',)); please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug . Make sure you are using the latest version; type  youtube-dl -U  to update. Be sure to call youtube-dl with the --verbose flag and include its complete output.

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If the purpose of this issue is a site support request please provide all kinds of example URLs support for which should be included (replace following example URLs by yours):

• Single video: http://www.svtplay.se/video/9170389/traden-berattar/traden-berattar-sasong-1-avsnitt-5/
• Single video: http://www.svtplay.se/video/9026535/traden-berattar/traden-berattar-sasong-1-avsnitt-4 (this URL week ago)

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Description of your issue, suggested solution and other information

Failed to parse JSON

[chrille77]

I have exactly the same issue. Not able to download anything from SVTPlay. Used to work just fine.

[bcoppens]

It's also not a geo-restricted issue, since the worldwide-viewable videos also fail. For example, I was still able to fetch the following video on Wednesday, whereas it now fails:
http://www.svtplay.se/video/9184233/rapport/rapport-14-jun-19-30-textat
(These particular videos go offline after 7 days, though, so checking this particular link after Tuesday won't work in any case)

The issue appears that the URL that is used to fetch the JSON (in _real_extract of svt.py) now returns a regular HTML page, rather than only the JSON object. (Similar-looking information seems to be now imbedded in the root["__svtplay"] element in the page's javascript, though)

[johan-westin-private]

Hi again, as far as I have tested NONE of the SVT streams are downloadable via youtube-dl.

Executing:
% youtube-dl -v -k -i http://www.svtplay.se/video/8169480/bron/bron-sasong-1-avsnitt-1
give the json_string (from youtube_dl/extractor/common.py", line 548, in _parse_json) HTML as attached.

json_string.zip

[johan-westin-private]

Hi,

Created a and attached a patch (sorry I am not familiar with pull requests) that at least handles:

% youtube-dl -v http://www.svtplay.se/video/8169480/bron/bron-sasong-1-avsnitt-1.

Regards,
Johan W
svt.patch.zip

[yan12125]

Thanks @johan-westin-private I've adapted your patch and SVTPlay should be fixed in the next version.