youtube-dl: ERROR: Unable to extract uploader id

Checklist

  • I’m reporting a broken site support issue
  • I’ve verified that I’m running youtube-dl version 2021.12.17
  • I’ve checked that all provided URLs are alive and playable in a browser
  • I’ve checked that all URLs and arguments with special characters are properly quoted or escaped
  • I’ve searched the bugtracker for similar bug reports including closed ones
  • I’ve read bugs section in FAQ

Verbose log

[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['-F', 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNQ7QaHgxsI', '-v']
[debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs utf-8, out utf-8, pref UTF-8
[debug] youtube-dl version 2021.12.17
[debug] Python version 3.10.9 (CPython) - Linux-6.2.2-arch1-1-x86_64-with-glibc2.37
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 5.1.2, ffprobe 5.1.2, rtmpdump 2.4
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[youtube] wNQ7QaHgxsI: Downloading webpage
ERROR: Unable to extract uploader id; please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug . Make sure you are using the latest version; see  https://yt-dl.org/update  on how to update. Be sure to call youtube-dl with the --verbose flag and include its complete output.
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 815, in wrapper
    return func(self, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 836, in __extract_info
    ie_result = ie.extract(url)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py", line 534, in extract
    ie_result = self._real_extract(url)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages/youtube_dl/extractor/youtube.py", line 1794, in _real_extract
    'uploader_id': self._search_regex(r'/(?:channel|user)/([^/?&#]+)', owner_profile_url, 'uploader id') if owner_profile_url else None,
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/site-packages/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py", line 1012, in _search_regex
    raise RegexNotFoundError('Unable to extract %s' % _name)
youtube_dl.utils.RegexNotFoundError: Unable to extract uploader id; please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug . Make sure you are using the latest version; see  https://yt-dl.org/update  on how to update. Be sure to call youtube-dl with the --verbose flag and include its complete output.

Description

The issue happens with this url: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNQ7QaHgxsI

I know, have alot of duplicate reports, but maybe it help solve something.

About this issue

  • Original URL
  • State: closed
  • Created a year ago
  • Reactions: 12
  • Comments: 31 (5 by maintainers)

Most upvoted comments

It’s already fixed here: #31530

On Linux I do this to get the current working fork: sudo curl -L https://github.com/ytdl-patched/youtube-dl/releases/download/2023.03.09.43044/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl

To always get the latest (and not that specific version), do:

sudo curl -L https://github.com/ytdl-patched/youtube-dl/releases/latest/download/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl

To all: Read #30839

And: Read Description at #31530

I didn’t found an answer in the very long FAQ to my key question "what is this file ‘youtube-dl’ ? " (and why is it not a readable&auditable python script ?)

https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl#what-is-this-binary-file-where-has-the-code-gone

When you do unzip youtube-dl in a terminal, it extracts to __main__.py and a folder youtube_dl. Everything in there is readable. 🙂

It’s already fixed here: https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues/31530

On Linux I do this to get the current working fork: sudo curl -L https://github.com/ytdl-patched/youtube-dl/releases/download/2023.03.09.43044/youtube-dl -o /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl

I have the same problem with all the urls.

Thanks

It’s meant to be a youtube-dl command, so appending .zip would just confuse people (apart from @MdeLv!).

This was the first yt-dl issue I came across, when I wanted to run the program on a system with a RO /usr/bin containing no env, the default shebang being #!/usr/bin/env python. Because the file below that line has a zip signature I realised what was going on, but actually it’s well documented in Python, as linked from the FAQ item. Our bundle includes the source code files, but you can also ship files compiled to Python byte code, much less readable.

This is the normal way of distributing a Python program as single file in the POSIX world. Windows works differently, since there’s no shebang concept – though there almost was at one time. People who use a package manager normally get the program as a Python module with a stub youtube_dl program.

Luckily the entire source code is sitting there for anyone who wants to understand how this works for yt-dl, such as @MdeLv.

… the documentation is far too big …

Possibly, but Ctrl+F.

You commented on a closed duplicate issue. Spam.

If you read #31530, you would see a solution for the problem that you had. If there wasn’t one, discussing it there rather than in one of 10+ pages of useless duplicate issues created by thoughtless idiots would help anyone who had the same problem.

Still, what is this file ‘youtube-dl’? Is it not supposed to be a READABLE python program???!!!

Read the master issue.

I have the same problem with all the urls.

No, only YouTube, and not all of those.

in the shebang (the first line, it looks like that: #!/usr/bin/env python) change “python” to “python3” (no spaces between python and 3)

This could, depending on the tool used to edit the file and the installation type, result in a non-functional youtube-dl executable.

In the file ~/.bash_aliases, add the line:

Not much use in zsh or if yt-dl is being run directly.

Better to install a package like python-is-python3 (if available) or just make a symbolic link.

Thanks for putting up an issue.

Very much not. #30839.

I did that, and now it works the only thing that you would gotta do if you had a problem that says that python didn’t exist: 1- open /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl with sudo (as root) 2- in the shebang (the first line, it looks like that: #!/usr/bin/env python) change “python” to “python3” (no spaces between python and 3) 3- save your changes then it’ll be working with you ^-^

@Alexi8787 The latest version is being used. I can confirm the error too. I suspect the markup on the page may have changed.