Skip to content
Jelle Glebbeek edited this page Apr 13, 2021 · 11 revisions

This page contains an overview of all the errors in youtube-dl-gui. Where possible a cause and solution is given as well.

Index

No authentication

Trigger: ERROR: private video || ERROR: This video is only available for registered users

Cause: This error occurs when ytdl tries to download a video that is private and or requires you to be logged in.

Solution: Try authenticating using cookies. For more info about this see the tutorial.

Members-only content

Trigger: ERROR: Join this channel to get access to members-only content

Cause: This error occurs when a video is for members only and thus cannot be accessed without authentication.

Solution: If you are a member of this content creator, try authenticating using cookies. For more info about this see the tutorial.

Private or non-existent playlist

Trigger: ERROR: The playlist does not exist

Cause: This error occurs when a playlist you are trying to download does not exist or is made private.

Solution: If you are certain the playlist exists you may have to authenticate using cookies. For more info about authentication see the tutorial.

Private or removed video

Trigger: metadata.formats is not iterable

Cause: This error occurs when ytdl returns an empty format header. This can mean that the video has not finished processing, is private or may not even exist.

Solution: If you are certain the video exists, wait for the video to finish processing or authenticate using cookies.

No connection could be made

Trigger: getaddrinfo failed

Cause: The service you are trying to download from is down. Or your internet/proxy connection may be down.

Solution: Try again at a later time, or fix your connection.

Unable to extract initial data

Trigger: ERROR: Unable to extract yt initial data

Cause: At this moment the cause of this error remains unknown. It just happens sometimes and may be a bug of ytdl.

Solution: Try to download the video again, it usually works on the 2nd try.

Too many requests (429)

Trigger: HTTP Error 429

Cause: The service has soft banned or ratelimited you. This can happen when you download too much videos in a short time. The ban usually lasts for no longer than 24 hours.

Solution: Wait for the ban to expire and take it easy next time. If you have a VPN you can also use this to circumvent the ban, although this is not recommended. After all you were softbanned/ratelimited with a reason.

Possible broken extractor (404)

Trigger: HTTP Error 404

Cause: The service you are trying to download from returned a HTTP 404 code. This usually means the extractor ytdl uses for this website is broken.

Solution: Wait for ytdl to fix the broken extractor. This app will automatically update to the latest version of ytdl.

URL not supported

Trigger: Unsupported URL

Cause: The URL you are trying to download is currently not support by ytdl and can't be downloaded as a result.

Solution: If you REALLY feel like ytdl should support the service you are trying to download from, you can open up an issue at their repository.

Incomplete video ID

Trigger: Incomplete YouTube ID

Cause: The URL you are trying to download contains an incomplete video ID.

Solution: Double check the URL and make sure it is correct.

No write permission

Trigger: unable to open for writing: [Errno 95]

Cause: You do not have write permission for the folder you are trying to download a video to.

Solution: Give yourself write permissions for this folder. Check out this linux tutorial on how to do that.

Unable to launch YTDL

Trigger: returned an empty object

Cause: You might be missing a dependency that YTDL needs.

Solution: On linux make sure you have python installed. On windows make sure you have the Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 Redistributable Package (x86) installed.

SSL verification failed

Trigger: SSL: CERTIFICATE_VERIFY_FAILED

Cause: The service you are trying to download from does not have a valid SSL (https) certificate. Or it can't be verified for some reason.

Solution: Try the URL with http instead of https, or wait for the service to restore their SSL (https) certificate.

Max fragment retries reached

Trigger: giving up after 10 fragment retries

Cause: The service did not respond with a fragment after 10 tries. A fragment is a part of a video that gets downloaded, after all these fragments are downloaded they get merged into the video. This error happens when YTDL can't download a fragment after 10 tries and it gives up.

Solution: Try again and hope it works this time. This error is mostly caused by an unstable network connection.

Connection timed out

Trigger: EOF occurred in violation of protocol

Cause: While setting up a secure SSL connection the connection timed out. Most of the time this is caused by an unstable network.

Solution: Try it again and hope it works this time. Or use http in the URL instead of https.

Connection reset

Trigger: [WinError 10054]

Cause: An unstable network, a server timeout, or a proxy server can cause this error.

Solution: Try it again and hope it works this time. Make sure to disconnect from any proxy servers you are connected to.

File in use by another process

Trigger: [WinError 32]

Cause: This can happen if you open a file while it is downloading. It can also happen when a cloud service such as Dropbox or OneDrive is interfering with the file, such as uploading it.

Solution: Download to a folder not synced by a cloud service, or disable the cloud service. Make sure not to open the file until it has been completely downloaded.

Unhandled error

Trigger: ERROR:

Cause: An unknown error occurred. To get more info about what went wrong you may click on 'Full error'.

Solution: Report the error to the developer by clicking 'report'.