youtube-dl: Instagram - Unable to extract video url

Checklist

  • [ x] I’m reporting a broken site support issue
  • [ x] I’ve verified that I’m running youtube-dl version 2021.01.24.1
  • [ x] I’ve checked that all provided URLs are alive and playable in a browser
  • [ x] I’ve checked that all URLs and arguments with special characters are properly quoted or escaped
  • [ x] I’ve searched the bugtracker for similar bug reports including closed ones
  • [ x] I’ve read bugs section in FAQ

Verbose log

root@transcode-dev:/var/www/html/test_vids# youtube-dl -U
youtube-dl is up-to-date (2021.01.24.1)
root@transcode-dev:/var/www/html/test_vids# youtube-dl --verbose "https://www.instagram.com/p/CKewfsjoAzj/?igshid=1kf2sdnzbqax7"
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: [u'--verbose', u'https://www.instagram.com/p/CKewfsjoAzj/?igshid=1kf2sdnzbqax7']
[debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs UTF-8, out UTF-8, pref UTF-8
[debug] youtube-dl version 2021.01.24.1
[debug] Python version 2.7.17 (CPython) - Linux-5.4.0-1035-aws-x86_64-with-Ubuntu-18.04-bionic
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 3.4.8, ffprobe 3.4.8, phantomjs ., rtmpdump 2.4
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[Instagram] CKewfsjoAzj: Downloading webpage
ERROR: Unable to extract video url; 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 "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 806, in wrapper
    return func(self, *args, **kwargs)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 827, in __extract_info
    ie_result = ie.extract(url)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py", line 532, in extract
    ie_result = self._real_extract(url)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/extractor/instagram.py", line 216, in _real_extract
    video_url = self._og_search_video_url(webpage, secure=False)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py", line 1128, in _og_search_video_url
    return self._html_search_regex(regexes, html, name, **kargs)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py", line 1019, in _html_search_regex
    res = self._search_regex(pattern, string, name, default, fatal, flags, group)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py", line 1010, in _search_regex
    raise RegexNotFoundError('Unable to extract %s' % _name)
RegexNotFoundError: Unable to extract video url; 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.

Description

RegexNotFoundError: Unable to extract video url; please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug

About this issue

  • Original URL
  • State: open
  • Created 3 years ago
  • Reactions: 5
  • Comments: 17 (2 by maintainers)

Most upvoted comments

As the original reporter, yeah, if something literally instructs me to file a bug report, I am going to do that 100% of the time. (If I shouldn’t be filing a bug report, then that error text itself is a bug.)

This is happening to me when downloading through a proxy, but not when directly. Here is the dump of the intermediate page:

CKMWCTThlM4_https_-_www.instagram.com_accounts_login_next=p_CKMWCTThlM4.txt

<meta content="Welcome back to Instagram. Sign in to check out what your friends, family &amp; interests have been capturing &amp; sharing around the world." name="description" />

It would seem instagram is asking for a login

I had the same problem. You need to use cookies with --cookies flag.