yt-dlp 2023.1.6.1 error with YTPlay

I did drop Raik a line a week or two ago to say YT_Play had stopped working but didn’t follow it up as I had some recollection he was on vacation.

Mmm, nothing arrives me.

YTPlay is only a frontend and nothing without the tools of the other.

Google want to ram adverts down our throats.

To be fair, Google want to generate money to pay for the server farms and other infrastructure, and maybe even pass some of it on to the creators. It’s the same reasons that most streaming services are either subscription-based or feature forced advertising very similar to YouTube’s.

You can, of course, subscribe to YouTube to avoid the ads, too… (and the rates don’t look that dissimilar to those of other streaming platforms).

Latest version of yt-dlp is available from here.

Went there, downloaded a 2886k Zip file, ‘YT-DLP_2024/08/01-1/zip’ Deleted the yt-dlp folder as instructed. Dropping the Zip file on the PackMan iconbar icon produces a dialogue box to Find the components, but whether I try ‘Components only’, ‘Installed files only’ or ‘Components then installed files’ the result is ‘No component matching RAM::RamDisc.0.$.YT-DLP_2024/08/01-1/zip found’.
Not saving the downloaded file to RAM but dropping it directly on the PackMan icon makes no difference. What am I doing wrong?

PS: SparkFS won’t expand the zip file either.

I’ve uploaded the copy I’ve downloaded that works to pCloud: https://e.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZd5lgZIikt37RmfqHo86MQMfGrAbnqa0NV

See if that works for you

Mmm, nothing arrives me.

Hi Raik,

I did it through the contact form on the website mentioned in the YTPlay help file.

I know YTPlay is a helper type function for other components but thought I would check with you first to see if you were aware of any issues.

Happy this has now been resolved via these forums.

I’ve uploaded the copy I’ve downloaded that works to pCloud: https://e.pcloud.link/publink/show?code=XZd5lgZIikt37RmfqHo86MQMfGrAbnqa0NV
See if that works for you

It did; thanks very much, Andrew. Not sure what went wrong with my download, but yours dropped onto PackMan as advertised and the upgrade proceeded flawlessly. YTPlay now works here as before.

To be fair […] either subscription-based or feature forced advertising very similar to YouTube’s.

Taken to Aldershot.

I think YouTube have moved the goalposts again. Just tried to play the latest ZOE podcast (about Vitamin D) and got “ERROR: [youtube] zI0ptL9-wBE: Requested format is not available. Use —list-formats for a list of available formats”. I stepped through the ‘Install/Update youtube-dl’ and ‘Install/Update youtube-search’ protocols but the error persists.

*yt-dlp —version shows 2024.08.06 as the version, presumably the latest.

yt-dlp —version shows 2024.08.06 as the version, presumably the latest.

The nightlies are on 2024.10.07, so that’s a bit old…

“ERROR: [youtube] zI0ptL9-wBE: Requested format is not available. Use —list-formats for a list of available formats”

Be aware that YouTube are dropping some of the previously-standard formats, as the clients which relied on them are being updated/retired. It can depend a lot on when a video was last updated, as older ones will probably still have the obsolete formats included.

What format are you trying to fetch? Using -F for the video that you’re trying to download will show you what formats it comes in.

On other platforms, it seems to be frowned upon to request a specific format; some months ago I changed from using -f22 and similar to using --format to describe what I wanted and letting yt-dl work out the best options. That’s on Linux, though — using RISC OS to watch videos seems like more trouble than it’s worth, as I think you’re finding…

zI0ptL9-wBE

Something about vitamin D supplements that’s over an hour long? Works fine on NewPipe (Android).

Requested format is not available.

NewPipe offers 144p / 240p / 360p / 480p / 720p / 1080p all in MPEG4 for that video. If your default is to something else, then it’ll not work because it isn’t an offered format.
For audio, four opus bitrates (35/50/70160kbps) and three m4a bitrates (32/48/128kbps), mp3 streams are no longer.
[note: NewPipe does not list the VP9/AV1 video formats as the decoder doesn’t support these]

As Steve says, YouTube are getting rid of the older formats because even a basic smartphone or PC can handle decoding MPEG4 these days. No need for DivX style video any more.

On other platforms, it seems to be frowned upon to request a specific format

I’m surprised it doesn’t have an option to default to a specific resolution with a “revert to nearest” if the one offered isn’t available (it seems quite a few of the less widely viewed videos will typically only show up as 360p, 720p, and 1080p or similar).

The nightlies are on 2024.10.07, so that’s a bit old…

Clearly. Could you post a link to the nightlies? !PackMan thinks I have the latest version, so not helpful.

What format are you trying to fetch?

It’s not been an issue before. YT-DLP is set to Format 18 (360p) and that generally works.

Using -F for the video that you’re trying to download will show you what formats it comes in.

I don’t download the video, only its link, in this case:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?lid=x676hcxehfm0&v=zI0ptL9-wBE&feature=youtu.be

which I then drop on the YT-DLP iconbar icon. It then generally ran – up until now.

Clearly. Could you post a link to the nightlies?

If you’re on RISC OS, no… I’m using the software on Linux. I was just pointing out the disparity of dates, given the “arms race” or “whack-a-mole” nature of development in the area.

YT-DLP is set to Format 18 (360p) and that generally works.

18 and 22 are formats that appear to be getting dropped – I seem to recall seeing that they were only used (officially) by one of the mobile app clients and, with that no longer using them, you often won’t find them on new videos.

I always used to use -f22 for fetching videos, but switched to letting yt-dlp find something suitable with

--format="bestvideo[height<=?1080]+bestaudio/best"

and download that. Usually, that involved downloading audio and video separately, then merging them locally.

These days, that format setting resides in my .yt-dlp/config file. Whether you can do that with the RISC OS port is something that I don’t know.

I’m surprised it doesn’t have an option to default to a specific resolution with a “revert to nearest” if the one offered isn’t available

It pretty much does (no idea about the RISC OS front-end, though). The

--format="bestvideo[height<=?1080]+bestaudio/best"

is saying get me the best you can that will fit on a 1080p screen, from whatever the link is offering.

For YTPlay I have -f18 as default for ffplay and -f22 as option for mplayer. The reason are the players. No fun with bigger resolutions with the RISC OS player. “Bestvideo” gives a “slowmotion”.
I will try to find an usable new format and add an fallback with an "next available " format.

No quick success.

I have take a look. A fallback to the lowest available format, if the selected is not available, is inside YTPlay. I hope it works, so no changes needed.

yt-dlp —list-formats —no-cache “”

Gives …
“ERROR: [urllib] Unexpected error: SSLError: [X509] PEM lib (_ssl.c:4267); please report this issue on ”https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues?q=“>https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues?q= , filling out the appropriate issue template. Confirm you are on the latest version using yt-dlp -U”

Also with URLs I use before.

If I use the same URLs in YTPlay I get “ERROR: [youtube] zI0ptL9-wBE: Requested format is not available. Use —list-formats for a list of available formats”

So it looks like we need a new yt-dlp version at first.

Latest version of yt-dlp is available from here.

Before installing go to PythonSite.Python38.Site-Packages and delete the existing yt_dlp folder.

Just drop onto the PackMan icon to install it.

To confirm it’s installed correctly run from a TaskWindow,

*yt-dlp --version
2024.10.07

Cheers, Chris. Now upgraded.

There is another problem coming up soon,

Deprecated Feature: Support for Python version 3.8 has been deprecated. Please update to Python 3.9 or above

It’s also possible to get the higher resolutions back.

Add -S "height:720" --extractor-arg "youtube:player_client=all"

Anything higher than 720p will struggle to play smoothly on RISC OS.

There is another problem coming up soon,

It’s already here: “ERROR Support for Python version 3.8 has been deprecated. Please update to Python 3.9 or above” appeared just now.

Add -S “height:720” —extractor-arg “youtube:player_client=all”

Forgive my ignorance, but I’ve got no idea what to do with this.

The current version of Python is 3.13, on Linux I’m currently using 3.9 (Bullseye), 3.10 (Mint) and 3.11 (Bookwork).

Although we have a 3.10 for RISC OS, it’s not as complete as 3.8 at the moment, particularly for networking.

So no YouTube playback under RISCOS until the native Python version catches up?

It’s already here: “ERROR Support for Python version 3.8 has been deprecated. Please update to Python 3.9 or above” appeared just now.

Looks like it hasn’t stopped it working for now.

Python 3.8 went end of life on 7th October 2024. Luckily Python 3.10 has another 2 years left.

The RISC OS Python 3.10 sort of works with yt-dlp. It always prefixes the currently selected directory onto the path when running a python file.

Forgive my ignorance, but I’ve got no idea what to do with this.

Depends on which application you are using. I managed to hack YTPlay to use those settings OK. Just needs a menu to select the maximum height instead of 18 or 22.

So no YouTube playback under RISCOS until the native Python version catches up?

The current RISC OS port of Python 3.10 can be made to work using a couple of workarounds.

Add -S “height:720” —extractor-arg “youtube:player_client=all”

I can try to fix at the beginning of next week.
Chris, thanks for your work and information.

Ah, my bad! Despite the message regarding the depreciation of Python 3.8 if you ignore it the video still plays. Managing to watch the latest WROCC video!

Thank you to all who are responsible for making YTPlay, and keeping it working.