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[youtubedl] / README.txt
1 youtube-dl - download videos from youtube.com or other video platforms
2
3 SYNOPSIS
4 ========
5
6 youtube-dl OPTIONS URL [URL...]
7
8 INSTALLATION
9 ============
10
11 To install it right away for all UNIX users (Linux, OS X, etc.), type:
12
13 sudo curl https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
14 sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
15
16 If you do not have curl, you can alternatively use a recent wget:
17
18 sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/downloads/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
19 sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
20
21 Windows users can download a .exe file and place it in their home
22 directory or any other location on their PATH.
23
24 OS X users can install youtube-dl with Homebrew.
25
26 brew install youtube-dl
27
28 You can also use pip:
29
30 sudo pip install youtube-dl
31
32 Alternatively, refer to the developer instructions below for how to
33 check out and work with the git repository. For further options,
34 including PGP signatures, see
35 https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/download.html .
36
37 DESCRIPTION
38 ===========
39
40 youtube-dl is a small command-line program to download videos from
41 YouTube.com and a few more sites. It requires the Python interpreter,
42 version 2.6, 2.7, or 3.3+, and it is not platform specific. It should
43 work on your Unix box, on Windows or on Mac OS X. It is released to the
44 public domain, which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it
45 however you like.
46
47 OPTIONS
48 =======
49
50 -h, --help print this help text and exit
51 --version print program version and exit
52 -U, --update update this program to latest version. Make
53 sure that you have sufficient permissions
54 (run with sudo if needed)
55 -i, --ignore-errors continue on download errors, for example to
56 skip unavailable videos in a playlist
57 --abort-on-error Abort downloading of further videos (in the
58 playlist or the command line) if an error
59 occurs
60 --dump-user-agent display the current browser identification
61 --list-extractors List all supported extractors and the URLs
62 they would handle
63 --extractor-descriptions Output descriptions of all supported
64 extractors
65 --proxy URL Use the specified HTTP/HTTPS proxy. Pass in
66 an empty string (--proxy "") for direct
67 connection
68 --socket-timeout None Time to wait before giving up, in seconds
69 --default-search PREFIX Use this prefix for unqualified URLs. For
70 example "gvsearch2:" downloads two videos
71 from google videos for youtube-dl "large
72 apple". Use the value "auto" to let
73 youtube-dl guess ("auto_warning" to emit a
74 warning when guessing). "error" just throws
75 an error. The default value "fixup_error"
76 repairs broken URLs, but emits an error if
77 this is not possible instead of searching.
78 --ignore-config Do not read configuration files. When given
79 in the global configuration file /etc
80 /youtube-dl.conf: do not read the user
81 configuration in ~/.config/youtube-dl.conf
82 (%APPDATA%/youtube-dl/config.txt on
83 Windows)
84 --flat-playlist Do not extract the videos of a playlist,
85 only list them.
86
87 Video Selection:
88 ----------------
89
90 --playlist-start NUMBER playlist video to start at (default is 1)
91 --playlist-end NUMBER playlist video to end at (default is last)
92 --match-title REGEX download only matching titles (regex or
93 caseless sub-string)
94 --reject-title REGEX skip download for matching titles (regex or
95 caseless sub-string)
96 --max-downloads NUMBER Abort after downloading NUMBER files
97 --min-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos smaller than
98 SIZE (e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
99 --max-filesize SIZE Do not download any videos larger than SIZE
100 (e.g. 50k or 44.6m)
101 --date DATE download only videos uploaded in this date
102 --datebefore DATE download only videos uploaded on or before
103 this date (i.e. inclusive)
104 --dateafter DATE download only videos uploaded on or after
105 this date (i.e. inclusive)
106 --min-views COUNT Do not download any videos with less than
107 COUNT views
108 --max-views COUNT Do not download any videos with more than
109 COUNT views
110 --no-playlist download only the currently playing video
111 --age-limit YEARS download only videos suitable for the given
112 age
113 --download-archive FILE Download only videos not listed in the
114 archive file. Record the IDs of all
115 downloaded videos in it.
116 --include-ads Download advertisements as well
117 (experimental)
118
119 Download Options:
120 -----------------
121
122 -r, --rate-limit LIMIT maximum download rate in bytes per second
123 (e.g. 50K or 4.2M)
124 -R, --retries RETRIES number of retries (default is 10)
125 --buffer-size SIZE size of download buffer (e.g. 1024 or 16K)
126 (default is 1024)
127 --no-resize-buffer do not automatically adjust the buffer
128 size. By default, the buffer size is
129 automatically resized from an initial value
130 of SIZE.
131
132 Filesystem Options:
133 -------------------
134
135 -a, --batch-file FILE file containing URLs to download ('-' for
136 stdin)
137 --id use only video ID in file name
138 -A, --auto-number number downloaded files starting from 00000
139 -o, --output TEMPLATE output filename template. Use %(title)s to
140 get the title, %(uploader)s for the
141 uploader name, %(uploader_id)s for the
142 uploader nickname if different,
143 %(autonumber)s to get an automatically
144 incremented number, %(ext)s for the
145 filename extension, %(format)s for the
146 format description (like "22 - 1280x720" or
147 "HD"), %(format_id)s for the unique id of
148 the format (like Youtube's itags: "137"),
149 %(upload_date)s for the upload date
150 (YYYYMMDD), %(extractor)s for the provider
151 (youtube, metacafe, etc), %(id)s for the
152 video id, %(playlist)s for the playlist the
153 video is in, %(playlist_index)s for the
154 position in the playlist and %% for a
155 literal percent. %(height)s and %(width)s
156 for the width and height of the video
157 format. %(resolution)s for a textual
158 description of the resolution of the video
159 format. Use - to output to stdout. Can also
160 be used to download to a different
161 directory, for example with -o '/my/downloa
162 ds/%(uploader)s/%(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s' .
163 --autonumber-size NUMBER Specifies the number of digits in
164 %(autonumber)s when it is present in output
165 filename template or --auto-number option
166 is given
167 --restrict-filenames Restrict filenames to only ASCII
168 characters, and avoid "&" and spaces in
169 filenames
170 -t, --title [deprecated] use title in file name
171 (default)
172 -l, --literal [deprecated] alias of --title
173 -w, --no-overwrites do not overwrite files
174 -c, --continue force resume of partially downloaded files.
175 By default, youtube-dl will resume
176 downloads if possible.
177 --no-continue do not resume partially downloaded files
178 (restart from beginning)
179 --no-part do not use .part files - write directly
180 into output file
181 --no-mtime do not use the Last-modified header to set
182 the file modification time
183 --write-description write video description to a .description
184 file
185 --write-info-json write video metadata to a .info.json file
186 --write-annotations write video annotations to a .annotation
187 file
188 --write-thumbnail write thumbnail image to disk
189 --load-info FILE json file containing the video information
190 (created with the "--write-json" option)
191 --cookies FILE file to read cookies from and dump cookie
192 jar in
193 --cache-dir DIR Location in the filesystem where youtube-dl
194 can store some downloaded information
195 permanently. By default $XDG_CACHE_HOME
196 /youtube-dl or ~/.cache/youtube-dl . At the
197 moment, only YouTube player files (for
198 videos with obfuscated signatures) are
199 cached, but that may change.
200 --no-cache-dir Disable filesystem caching
201 --rm-cache-dir Delete all filesystem cache files
202
203 Verbosity / Simulation Options:
204 -------------------------------
205
206 -q, --quiet activates quiet mode
207 --no-warnings Ignore warnings
208 -s, --simulate do not download the video and do not write
209 anything to disk
210 --skip-download do not download the video
211 -g, --get-url simulate, quiet but print URL
212 -e, --get-title simulate, quiet but print title
213 --get-id simulate, quiet but print id
214 --get-thumbnail simulate, quiet but print thumbnail URL
215 --get-description simulate, quiet but print video description
216 --get-duration simulate, quiet but print video length
217 --get-filename simulate, quiet but print output filename
218 --get-format simulate, quiet but print output format
219 -j, --dump-json simulate, quiet but print JSON information.
220 See --output for a description of available
221 keys.
222 -J, --dump-single-json simulate, quiet but print JSON information
223 for each command-line argument. If the URL
224 refers to a playlist, dump the whole
225 playlist information in a single line.
226 --newline output progress bar as new lines
227 --no-progress do not print progress bar
228 --console-title display progress in console titlebar
229 -v, --verbose print various debugging information
230 --dump-intermediate-pages print downloaded pages to debug problems
231 (very verbose)
232 --write-pages Write downloaded intermediary pages to
233 files in the current directory to debug
234 problems
235 --print-traffic Display sent and read HTTP traffic
236
237 Workarounds:
238 ------------
239
240 --encoding ENCODING Force the specified encoding (experimental)
241 --no-check-certificate Suppress HTTPS certificate validation.
242 --prefer-insecure Use an unencrypted connection to retrieve
243 information about the video. (Currently
244 supported only for YouTube)
245 --user-agent UA specify a custom user agent
246 --referer URL specify a custom referer, use if the video
247 access is restricted to one domain
248 --add-header FIELD:VALUE specify a custom HTTP header and its value,
249 separated by a colon ':'. You can use this
250 option multiple times
251 --bidi-workaround Work around terminals that lack
252 bidirectional text support. Requires bidiv
253 or fribidi executable in PATH
254
255 Video Format Options:
256 ---------------------
257
258 -f, --format FORMAT video format code, specify the order of
259 preference using slashes: -f 22/17/18 . -f
260 mp4 , -f m4a and -f flv are also
261 supported. You can also use the special
262 names "best", "bestvideo", "bestaudio",
263 "worst", "worstvideo" and "worstaudio". By
264 default, youtube-dl will pick the best
265 quality. Use commas to download multiple
266 audio formats, such as -f
267 136/137/mp4/bestvideo,140/m4a/bestaudio
268 --all-formats download all available video formats
269 --prefer-free-formats prefer free video formats unless a specific
270 one is requested
271 --max-quality FORMAT highest quality format to download
272 -F, --list-formats list all available formats
273 --youtube-skip-dash-manifest Do not download the DASH manifest on
274 YouTube videos
275
276 Subtitle Options:
277 -----------------
278
279 --write-sub write subtitle file
280 --write-auto-sub write automatic subtitle file (youtube
281 only)
282 --all-subs downloads all the available subtitles of
283 the video
284 --list-subs lists all available subtitles for the video
285 --sub-format FORMAT subtitle format (default=srt) ([sbv/vtt]
286 youtube only)
287 --sub-lang LANGS languages of the subtitles to download
288 (optional) separated by commas, use IETF
289 language tags like 'en,pt'
290
291 Authentication Options:
292 -----------------------
293
294 -u, --username USERNAME login with this account ID
295 -p, --password PASSWORD account password
296 -2, --twofactor TWOFACTOR two-factor auth code
297 -n, --netrc use .netrc authentication data
298 --video-password PASSWORD video password (vimeo, smotri)
299
300 Post-processing Options:
301 ------------------------
302
303 -x, --extract-audio convert video files to audio-only files
304 (requires ffmpeg or avconv and ffprobe or
305 avprobe)
306 --audio-format FORMAT "best", "aac", "vorbis", "mp3", "m4a",
307 "opus", or "wav"; "best" by default
308 --audio-quality QUALITY ffmpeg/avconv audio quality specification,
309 insert a value between 0 (better) and 9
310 (worse) for VBR or a specific bitrate like
311 128K (default 5)
312 --recode-video FORMAT Encode the video to another format if
313 necessary (currently supported:
314 mp4|flv|ogg|webm|mkv)
315 -k, --keep-video keeps the video file on disk after the
316 post-processing; the video is erased by
317 default
318 --no-post-overwrites do not overwrite post-processed files; the
319 post-processed files are overwritten by
320 default
321 --embed-subs embed subtitles in the video (only for mp4
322 videos)
323 --embed-thumbnail embed thumbnail in the audio as cover art
324 --add-metadata write metadata to the video file
325 --xattrs write metadata to the video file's xattrs
326 (using dublin core and xdg standards)
327 --prefer-avconv Prefer avconv over ffmpeg for running the
328 postprocessors (default)
329 --prefer-ffmpeg Prefer ffmpeg over avconv for running the
330 postprocessors
331 --exec CMD Execute a command on the file after
332 downloading, similar to find's -exec
333 syntax. Example: --exec 'adb push {}
334 /sdcard/Music/ && rm {}'
335
336 CONFIGURATION
337 =============
338
339 You can configure youtube-dl by placing default arguments (such as
340 --extract-audio --no-mtime to always extract the audio and not copy the
341 mtime) into /etc/youtube-dl.conf and/or ~/.config/youtube-dl/config. On
342 Windows, the configuration file locations are
343 %APPDATA%\youtube-dl\config.txt and C:\Users\<Yourname>\youtube-dl.conf.
344
345 OUTPUT TEMPLATE
346 ===============
347
348 The -o option allows users to indicate a template for the output file
349 names. The basic usage is not to set any template arguments when
350 downloading a single file, like in
351 youtube-dl -o funny_video.flv "http://some/video". However, it may
352 contain special sequences that will be replaced when downloading each
353 video. The special sequences have the format %(NAME)s. To clarify, that
354 is a percent symbol followed by a name in parenthesis, followed by a
355 lowercase S. Allowed names are:
356
357 - id: The sequence will be replaced by the video identifier.
358 - url: The sequence will be replaced by the video URL.
359 - uploader: The sequence will be replaced by the nickname of the
360 person who uploaded the video.
361 - upload_date: The sequence will be replaced by the upload date in
362 YYYYMMDD format.
363 - title: The sequence will be replaced by the video title.
364 - ext: The sequence will be replaced by the appropriate extension
365 (like flv or mp4).
366 - epoch: The sequence will be replaced by the Unix epoch when creating
367 the file.
368 - autonumber: The sequence will be replaced by a five-digit number
369 that will be increased with each download, starting at zero.
370 - playlist: The name or the id of the playlist that contains the
371 video.
372 - playlist_index: The index of the video in the playlist, a five-digit
373 number.
374
375 The current default template is %(title)s-%(id)s.%(ext)s.
376
377 In some cases, you don't want special characters such as äø­, spaces, or
378 &, such as when transferring the downloaded filename to a Windows system
379 or the filename through an 8bit-unsafe channel. In these cases, add the
380 --restrict-filenames flag to get a shorter title:
381
382 ``` {.bash}
383 $ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc
384 youtube-dl test video ''_Ƥā†­š•.mp4 # All kinds of weird characters
385 $ youtube-dl --get-filename -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" BaW_jenozKc --restrict-filenames
386 youtube-dl_test_video_.mp4 # A simple file name
387 ```
388
389 VIDEO SELECTION
390 ===============
391
392 Videos can be filtered by their upload date using the options --date,
393 --datebefore or --dateafter, they accept dates in two formats:
394
395 - Absolute dates: Dates in the format YYYYMMDD.
396 - Relative dates: Dates in the format
397 (now|today)[+-][0-9](day|week|month|year)(s)?
398
399 Examples:
400
401 ``` {.bash}
402 # Download only the videos uploaded in the last 6 months
403 $ youtube-dl --dateafter now-6months
404
405 # Download only the videos uploaded on January 1, 1970
406 $ youtube-dl --date 19700101
407
408 $ # will only download the videos uploaded in the 200x decade
409 $ youtube-dl --dateafter 20000101 --datebefore 20091231
410 ```
411
412 FAQ
413 ===
414
415 How do I update youtube-dl?
416
417 If you've followed our manual installation instructions, you can simply
418 run youtube-dl -U (or, on Linux, sudo youtube-dl -U).
419
420 If you have used pip, a simple sudo pip install -U youtube-dl is
421 sufficient to update.
422
423 If you have installed youtube-dl using a package manager like apt-get or
424 yum, use the standard system update mechanism to update. Note that
425 distribution packages are often outdated. As a rule of thumb, youtube-dl
426 releases at least once a month, and often weekly or even daily. Simply
427 go to http://yt-dl.org/ to find out the current version. Unfortunately,
428 there is nothing we youtube-dl developers can do if your distributions
429 serves a really outdated version. You can (and should) complain to your
430 distribution in their bugtracker or support forum.
431
432 As a last resort, you can also uninstall the version installed by your
433 package manager and follow our manual installation instructions. For
434 that, remove the distribution's package, with a line like
435
436 sudo apt-get remove -y youtube-dl
437
438 Afterwards, simply follow our manual installation instructions:
439
440 sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
441 sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
442 hash -r
443
444 Again, from then on you'll be able to update with sudo youtube-dl -U.
445
446 I'm getting an error Unable to extract OpenGraph title on YouTube playlists
447
448 YouTube changed their playlist format in March 2014 and later on, so
449 you'll need at least youtube-dl 2014.07.25 to download all YouTube
450 videos.
451
452 If you have installed youtube-dl with a package manager, pip, setup.py
453 or a tarball, please use that to update. Note that Ubuntu packages do
454 not seem to get updated anymore. Since we are not affiliated with
455 Ubuntu, there is little we can do. Feel free to report bugs to the
456 Ubuntu packaging guys - all they have to do is update the package to a
457 somewhat recent version. See above for a way to update.
458
459 Do I always have to pass in --max-quality FORMAT, or -citw?
460
461 By default, youtube-dl intends to have the best options (incidentally,
462 if you have a convincing case that these should be different, please
463 file an issue where you explain that). Therefore, it is unnecessary and
464 sometimes harmful to copy long option strings from webpages. In
465 particular, --max-quality limits the video quality (so if you want the
466 best quality, do NOT pass it in), and the only option out of -citw that
467 is regularly useful is -i.
468
469 Can you please put the -b option back?
470
471 Most people asking this question are not aware that youtube-dl now
472 defaults to downloading the highest available quality as reported by
473 YouTube, which will be 1080p or 720p in some cases, so you no longer
474 need the -b option. For some specific videos, maybe YouTube does not
475 report them to be available in a specific high quality format you're
476 interested in. In that case, simply request it with the -f option and
477 youtube-dl will try to download it.
478
479 I get HTTP error 402 when trying to download a video. What's this?
480
481 Apparently YouTube requires you to pass a CAPTCHA test if you download
482 too much. We're considering to provide a way to let you solve the
483 CAPTCHA, but at the moment, your best course of action is pointing a
484 webbrowser to the youtube URL, solving the CAPTCHA, and restart
485 youtube-dl.
486
487 I have downloaded a video but how can I play it?
488
489 Once the video is fully downloaded, use any video player, such as vlc or
490 mplayer.
491
492 The links provided by youtube-dl -g are not working anymore
493
494 The URLs youtube-dl outputs require the downloader to have the correct
495 cookies. Use the --cookies option to write the required cookies into a
496 file, and advise your downloader to read cookies from that file. Some
497 sites also require a common user agent to be used, use --dump-user-agent
498 to see the one in use by youtube-dl.
499
500 ERROR: no fmt_url_map or conn information found in video info
501
502 youtube has switched to a new video info format in July 2011 which is
503 not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl
504 with sudo youtube-dl --update.
505
506 ERROR: unable to download video
507
508 youtube requires an additional signature since September 2012 which is
509 not supported by old versions of youtube-dl. You can update youtube-dl
510 with sudo youtube-dl --update.
511
512 SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character
513
514 The error
515
516 File "youtube-dl", line 2
517 SyntaxError: Non-ASCII character '\x93' ...
518
519 means you're using an outdated version of Python. Please update to
520 Python 2.6 or 2.7.
521
522 What is this binary file? Where has the code gone?
523
524 Since June 2012 (#342) youtube-dl is packed as an executable zipfile,
525 simply unzip it (might need renaming to youtube-dl.zip first on some
526 systems) or clone the git repository, as laid out above. If you modify
527 the code, you can run it by executing the __main__.py file. To recompile
528 the executable, run make youtube-dl.
529
530 The exe throws a Runtime error from Visual C++
531
532 To run the exe you need to install first the Microsoft Visual C++ 2008
533 Redistributable Package.
534
535 DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS
536 ======================
537
538 Most users do not need to build youtube-dl and can download the builds
539 or get them from their distribution.
540
541 To run youtube-dl as a developer, you don't need to build anything
542 either. Simply execute
543
544 python -m youtube_dl
545
546 To run the test, simply invoke your favorite test runner, or execute a
547 test file directly; any of the following work:
548
549 python -m unittest discover
550 python test/test_download.py
551 nosetests
552
553 If you want to create a build of youtube-dl yourself, you'll need
554
555 - python
556 - make
557 - pandoc
558 - zip
559 - nosetests
560
561 Adding support for a new site
562
563 If you want to add support for a new site, you can follow this quick
564 list (assuming your service is called yourextractor):
565
566 1. Fork this repository
567 2. Check out the source code with
568 git clone git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/youtube-dl.git
569 3. Start a new git branch with
570 cd youtube-dl; git checkout -b yourextractor
571 4. Start with this simple template and save it to
572 youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py:
573
574 ``` {.python}
575 # coding: utf-8
576 from __future__ import unicode_literals
577
578 from .common import InfoExtractor
579
580
581 class YourExtractorIE(InfoExtractor):
582 _VALID_URL = r'https?://(?:www\.)?yourextractor\.com/watch/(?P<id>[0-9]+)'
583 _TEST = {
584 'url': 'http://yourextractor.com/watch/42',
585 'md5': 'TODO: md5 sum of the first 10241 bytes of the video file (use --test)',
586 'info_dict': {
587 'id': '42',
588 'ext': 'mp4',
589 'title': 'Video title goes here',
590 'thumbnail': 're:^https?://.*\.jpg$',
591 # TODO more properties, either as:
592 # * A value
593 # * MD5 checksum; start the string with md5:
594 # * A regular expression; start the string with re:
595 # * Any Python type (for example int or float)
596 }
597 }
598
599 def _real_extract(self, url):
600 video_id = self._match_id(url)
601
602 # TODO more code goes here, for example ...
603 webpage = self._download_webpage(url, video_id)
604 title = self._html_search_regex(r'<h1>(.*?)</h1>', webpage, 'title')
605
606 return {
607 'id': video_id,
608 'title': title,
609 # TODO more properties (see youtube_dl/extractor/common.py)
610 }
611 ```
612
613 5. Add an import in youtube_dl/extractor/__init__.py.
614 6. Run python test/test_download.py TestDownload.test_YourExtractor.
615 This should fail at first, but you can continually re-run it until
616 you're done. If you decide to add more than one test, then rename
617 _TEST to _TESTS and make it into a list of dictionaries. The tests
618 will be then be named TestDownload.test_YourExtractor,
619 TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_1,
620 TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_2, etc.
621 7. Have a look at youtube_dl/common/extractor/common.py for possible
622 helper methods and a detailed description of what your extractor
623 should return. Add tests and code for as many as you want.
624 8. If you can, check the code with pyflakes (a good idea) and pep8
625 (optional, ignore E501).
626 9. When the tests pass, add the new files and commit them and push the
627 result, like this:
628
629 $ git add youtube_dl/extractor/__init__.py
630 $ git add youtube_dl/extractor/yourextractor.py
631 $ git commit -m '[yourextractor] Add new extractor'
632 $ git push origin yourextractor
633
634 10. Finally, create a pull request. We'll then review and merge it.
635
636 In any case, thank you very much for your contributions!
637
638 EMBEDDING YOUTUBE-DL
639 ====================
640
641 youtube-dl makes the best effort to be a good command-line program, and
642 thus should be callable from any programming language. If you encounter
643 any problems parsing its output, feel free to create a report.
644
645 From a Python program, you can embed youtube-dl in a more powerful
646 fashion, like this:
647
648 import youtube_dl
649
650 ydl_opts = {}
651 with youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
652 ydl.download(['http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc'])
653
654 Most likely, you'll want to use various options. For a list of what can
655 be done, have a look at youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py. For a start, if you
656 want to intercept youtube-dl's output, set a logger object.
657
658 BUGS
659 ====
660
661 Bugs and suggestions should be reported at:
662 https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues . Unless you were prompted so
663 or there is another pertinent reason (e.g. GitHub fails to accept the
664 bug report), please do not send bug reports via personal email.
665
666 Please include the full output of the command when run with --verbose.
667 The output (including the first lines) contain important debugging
668 information. Issues without the full output are often not reproducible
669 and therefore do not get solved in short order, if ever.
670
671 For discussions, join us in the irc channel #youtube-dl on freenode.
672
673 When you submit a request, please re-read it once to avoid a couple of
674 mistakes (you can and should use this as a checklist):
675
676 Is the description of the issue itself sufficient?
677
678 We often get issue reports that we cannot really decipher. While in most
679 cases we eventually get the required information after asking back
680 multiple times, this poses an unnecessary drain on our resources. Many
681 contributors, including myself, are also not native speakers, so we may
682 misread some parts.
683
684 So please elaborate on what feature you are requesting, or what bug you
685 want to be fixed. Make sure that it's obvious
686
687 - What the problem is
688 - How it could be fixed
689 - How your proposed solution would look like
690
691 If your report is shorter than two lines, it is almost certainly missing
692 some of these, which makes it hard for us to respond to it. We're often
693 too polite to close the issue outright, but the missing info makes
694 misinterpretation likely. As a commiter myself, I often get frustrated
695 by these issues, since the only possible way for me to move forward on
696 them is to ask for clarification over and over.
697
698 For bug reports, this means that your report should contain the complete
699 output of youtube-dl when called with the -v flag. The error message you
700 get for (most) bugs even says so, but you would not believe how many of
701 our bug reports do not contain this information.
702
703 Site support requests must contain an example URL. An example URL is a
704 URL you might want to download, like
705 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc . There should be an obvious
706 video present. Except under very special circumstances, the main page of
707 a video service (e.g. http://www.youtube.com/ ) is not an example URL.
708
709 Are you using the latest version?
710
711 Before reporting any issue, type youtube-dl -U. This should report that
712 you're up-to-date. About 20% of the reports we receive are already
713 fixed, but people are using outdated versions. This goes for feature
714 requests as well.
715
716 Is the issue already documented?
717
718 Make sure that someone has not already opened the issue you're trying to
719 open. Search at the top of the window or at
720 https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/search?type=Issues . If there is an
721 issue, feel free to write something along the lines of "This affects me
722 as well, with version 2015.01.01. Here is some more information on the
723 issue: ...". While some issues may be old, a new post into them often
724 spurs rapid activity.
725
726 Why are existing options not enough?
727
728 Before requesting a new feature, please have a quick peek at the list of
729 supported options. Many feature requests are for features that actually
730 exist already! Please, absolutely do show off your work in the issue
731 report and detail how the existing similar options do not solve your
732 problem.
733
734 Is there enough context in your bug report?
735
736 People want to solve problems, and often think they do us a favor by
737 breaking down their larger problems (e.g. wanting to skip already
738 downloaded files) to a specific request (e.g. requesting us to look
739 whether the file exists before downloading the info page). However, what
740 often happens is that they break down the problem into two steps: One
741 simple, and one impossible (or extremely complicated one).
742
743 We are then presented with a very complicated request when the original
744 problem could be solved far easier, e.g. by recording the downloaded
745 video IDs in a separate file. To avoid this, you must include the
746 greater context where it is non-obvious. In particular, every feature
747 request that does not consist of adding support for a new site should
748 contain a use case scenario that explains in what situation the missing
749 feature would be useful.
750
751 Does the issue involve one problem, and one problem only?
752
753 Some of our users seem to think there is a limit of issues they can or
754 should open. There is no limit of issues they can or should open. While
755 it may seem appealing to be able to dump all your issues into one
756 ticket, that means that someone who solves one of your issues cannot
757 mark the issue as closed. Typically, reporting a bunch of issues leads
758 to the ticket lingering since nobody wants to attack that behemoth,
759 until someone mercifully splits the issue into multiple ones.
760
761 In particular, every site support request issue should only pertain to
762 services at one site (generally under a common domain, but always using
763 the same backend technology). Do not request support for vimeo user
764 videos, Whitehouse podcasts, and Google Plus pages in the same issue.
765 Also, make sure that you don't post bug reports alongside feature
766 requests. As a rule of thumb, a feature request does not include outputs
767 of youtube-dl that are not immediately related to the feature at hand.
768 Do not post reports of a network error alongside the request for a new
769 video service.
770
771 Is anyone going to need the feature?
772
773 Only post features that you (or an incapicated friend you can personally
774 talk to) require. Do not post features because they seem like a good
775 idea. If they are really useful, they will be requested by someone who
776 requires them.
777
778 Is your question about youtube-dl?
779
780 It may sound strange, but some bug reports we receive are completely
781 unrelated to youtube-dl and relate to a different or even the reporter's
782 own application. Please make sure that you are actually using
783 youtube-dl. If you are using a UI for youtube-dl, report the bug to the
784 maintainer of the actual application providing the UI. On the other
785 hand, if your UI for youtube-dl fails in some way you believe is related
786 to youtube-dl, by all means, go ahead and report the bug.
787
788 COPYRIGHT
789 =========
790
791 youtube-dl is released into the public domain by the copyright holders.
792
793 This README file was originally written by Daniel Bolton
794 (https://github.com/dbbolton) and is likewise released into the public
795 domain.
796