youtube-dl and region blocking - how does it work?

[abrogard]

I was using youtube-dl with a command line in Powershell and it couldn't succeed in downloading a youtube comedy vid.

Failed with this error, a couple of times: ERROR: unable to download video data: [SSL: DECRYPTION_FAILED_OR_BAD_RECORD_MAC] decryption failed or bad record mac (_ssl.c:1748)

In Australia, we are.

So then I connected my VPN to the Czech republic of all places and tried again.

It successfully downloaded. No problem.

This is not the first time that's happened. It is quite frequent.

So I'm thinking there's some 'region blocking' going on for us in Australia and I wonder if I am right?

And if there is I suppose youtube-dl couldn't circumvent it - or could it?

Czechoslovakia ! I'd expect places such as that to be blocked, not Aus. But....

[sneaker]

"Geoblocking" via IP address geolocation is very common with Internet video streaming. While youtube-dl has some options to counter geolocation I doubt these will usually be successful. You get the highest success chances when using proxy or VPN that provides an IP address that isn't blocked (like you already did).

[mike20021969]

So I'm thinking there's some 'region blocking' going on for us in Australia and I wonder if I am right?

You can check your suspicions via the following: https://unblockvideos.com/youtube-video-restriction-checker/

[abrogard]

Thanks for that information.