Unshackle - Modular Movie, TV, and Music Archival Software

[Tom Saurus]

Thank you billybanana for updating NINE. It is working well.

[SummerArk]

Just wanted to drop in and let people know I've decided to archive my repo with services.

With Unshackle v5 performing a lot worse for some users (myself included), I've been getting messages asking how to re-introduce n_m3u8dl_re and other various fixes. So it looks like we're back in the fragmented state of things where forks are being made and some even reverting to Vinetrimmer - the tool our ancestors used before fire was invented. And I'm just not interested in doing all that again. I'm also not a huge fan of how big of a role Claude has with the whole thing, but that's just my personal gripe with AI in general.

I still like creating things and might do something else in the future, but as far as Unshackle goes it's time for me to call it a day. I'd still argue that it's the best public downloader/framework out there, though, so don't take this as me dumping on it. It's just not working well for me personally and it's time to move on.

stabbedbybrick,

Thread-head here. I have been with you since your Freevine days, through the Devine days, and in these unshackle days.

First you developed Freevine. You explained why you wanted stop developing Freevine, and instead, join Devine; the reason was a matter of efficient economics.

Second, Devine was being developed for a while, then strangely development stopped. I understood your frustration with standstill no-development on Devine, and the splintering of people to be users of other inferior tools. I understood your frustration with the download speed, thus, you created your fork of Devine with the branch called n_m3u8dl_re. Later, strangely happened, the main Github Devine repository became frozen.

Third, Lucky for all of us, sp4rk.y, using the Devine code, created Unshackle. A year ago, I split from the Devine thread, jumped-in and quickly created this Unshackle thread. I was happy to see the continuous development (from Devine code) in Unshackle, but then strangely support for the fast downloader n_m3u8dl_re ended before version 5. Next, people had slower download speed, followed by, again, switching to inferior tools.

People deserve to watch content, the way they want to. It is a freedom we all need. What else can I say? Thank you for your years of service to humanity. The work you have done has been amazing. You have inspired me. I now know, what can be done, if I put my mind to it.

All the best wishes,
SummerArk

[ImSp4rky]

I don't check this forum much anymore, but if anyone's having issues with unshackle in general, or performance problems, I'm happy to help out where I can.

I don't do service help these days, so underlying service issues I can't really help with. I've recently pushed some large updates to docs.unshackle.dev, worth a read through to get an idea of everything unshackle has and how to use it.

If you really want the n_m3u8dl_re downloader back, pin to 4.0.0, the last release before the downloaders were unified into one:

git clone https://github.com/unshackle-dl/unshackle.git
cd unshackle
git checkout 4.0.0
uv sync

Just keep in mind that version won't get any newer fixes or features.

You can always reach me at discord.gg/mHYyPaCbFK, my DMs are always open.

[YmFzZTY0]

I don't check this forum much anymore, but if anyone's having issues with unshackle in general, or performance problems, I'm happy to help out where I can.

I don't do service help these days, so underlying service issues I can't really help with. I've recently pushed some large updates to docs.unshackle.dev, worth a read through to get an idea of everything unshackle has and how to use it.

If you really want the n_m3u8dl_re downloader back, pin to 4.0.0, the last release before the downloaders were unified into one:

git clone https://github.com/unshackle-dl/unshackle.git
cd unshackle
git checkout 4.0.0
uv sync

Just keep in mind that version won't get any newer fixes or features.

You can always reach me at discord.gg/mHYyPaCbFK, my DMs are always open.

Thx ImSp4rky

[LastResort]

Hi All,

Could someone please tell me if there is a switch available to only download subs using envied please...

-------------------------------------

sorry chaps, found it, uv run envied dl --subs-only


Is there a way of getting envied to show all switches available, i've tried --help but no luck.

[YmFzZTY0]

I dont use envied but maybe ?

uv run envied dl --help

This should show all the switches and service list

[LastResort]

I dont use envied but maybe ?

uv run envied dl --help

This should show all the switches and service list

Thanks ever so much YmFzZTY0,

Perfect.

[rr7]

[Attachment 92898 - Click to enlarge]

Can someone please help me? This video has 4K HDR video tracks and Dolby Atmos audio available, but only lower quality options are showing up for me.

[billybanana]

What's the service ? What command are you using ? We're not mind readers.

[A_n_g_e_l_a]

error

[ImSp4rky]

[Attachment 92898 - Click to enlarge]

Can someone please help me? This video has 4K HDR video tracks and Dolby Atmos audio available, but only lower quality options are showing up for me.

I'm going to guess your 4K tracks are actually in H.265 and not the default H.264 that gets applied if you don't apply -v review https://docs.unshackle.dev/guide/cli-reference/#quality-codec-bitrate-range and then change the command to -v h.265 and see if you get 4k then.

[movid]

When I download from ITV I occasionally see minor video stutters in the final mkv file. I doubt the stutters are in the source video, so I tried downloading the video again, and I noticed the mkv file had a slightly different final file size. Is this related to using DASH instead of HLS, or perhaps the removal of N_m3u8DL-RE? Are there segment checksum checks, or is there a way to ensure the final file is perfect and doesn't have any blips in any of the segments due to vpn or any other transfer issues?

[DragonQ]

When I download from ITV I occasionally see minor video stutters in the final mkv file. I doubt the stutters are in the source video, so I tried downloading the video again, and I noticed the mkv file had a slightly different final file size. Is this related to using DASH instead of HLS, or perhaps the removal of N_m3u8DL-RE? Are there segment checksum checks, or is there a way to ensure the final file is perfect and doesn't have any blips in any of the segments due to vpn or any other transfer issues?

ffmpeg should tell you of any issues:

ffmpeg -v error -i "file.mkv" -f null - 2>error.log

[movid]

When I download from ITV I occasionally see minor video stutters in the final mkv file. I doubt the stutters are in the source video, so I tried downloading the video again, and I noticed the mkv file had a slightly different final file size. Is this related to using DASH instead of HLS, or perhaps the removal of N_m3u8DL-RE? Are there segment checksum checks, or is there a way to ensure the final file is perfect and doesn't have any blips in any of the segments due to vpn or any other transfer issues?

ffmpeg should tell you of any issues:

ffmpeg -v error -i "file.mkv" -f null - 2>error.log

I downloaded an ITV video twice. One file was 2056 bytes larger, and did not produce any errors from the above command, the other one did report errors (lots of Invalid NAL unit size). So I can determine when the file is a bit corrupt, but that doesn't prevent it from being downloaded in the first place.

Downloading a gigabyte video, finding an error, and then having to re-download it in a loop until ffmpeg doesn't report an error doesn't seem very efficient. Shouldn't this happen at the segment level? IE: download a segment and retry a few times until it is correct, and never even complete the download if any segment remains incomplete? I don't think anyone wants to save slightly corrupt files.

[YmFzZTY0]

Get a better vpn/proxy

[milflover]

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping someone has run into this before because I'm completely stuck.

I'm trying to download an episode of Shortland Street on TVNZ. The authentication flow appears to work correctly:

OTP is sent and accepted.
Authentication succeeds.

However, as soon as playback authorization is requested, the call to:

watch-cdn.edge-api.tvnz.co.nz/media/content/authorize

returns a 401 Unauthorized (see screenshot).

I've already tried:

clearing all cached tokens and logging in again;
using the latest version (v5.3.0);
verifying that authentication completes successfully.

Since metadata retrieval works, I assume the login itself isn't the issue. It seems the authorize request is either missing something or TVNZ has changed the playback authorization flow.

Has anyone looked at TVNZ recently or knows what might be required now?

Any help would be greatly appreciated, I've been stuck on this for days


[Attachment 93044 - Click to enlarge]

[iamghost]

have you try update tvnz service?

  ────────────────────────────── Service: TVNZ ───────────────────────────────

     Service is not Geoblocked in your region
      + Using cached user tokens
      + Using cached session tokens
     Authenticated with Service

  ───────────────────────── Series: Shortland Street ─────────────────────────

     1 seasons, S2026(65)

  ──────────────────────── Shortland Street S2026E65 ─────────────────────────

     Cached 1 Key to 3/3 Vaults

     1 Video
     └── [H.264, SDR] | en | 1920x1080 @ 4000 kb/s, 25.000 FPS
         ⠋ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╺━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • 00:40 • DASH 6.1 MB/s
     1 Audio
     └── [DD+] | en | 5.1 | 384 kb/s
         ⠋ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━╺━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ • 01:29 • DASH 6.4 MB/s
     2 Chapters
     ├── 00:00:00.000
     └── 00:23:00.000 | Credits

     Widevine(AAAAXHBzc2gAAAAA7e+LqXnWSs6jyCfc1R0h7QAAADwIARIQ2MNYqx5KT...)
     └── d8c358ab1e4a4df49771c985e6466276:699719d4d2cb70ae7fb664aab35d6f28*

[YmFzZTY0]

Hi everyone,

I'm hoping someone has run into this before because I'm completely stuck.

In your screengrab this looks a complete mess:

C:\Users\emmac\TwinVine\packages\envied\src\envied\commands\dl.py

[PSXman_uk]

For those of you getting imdb api error in unshackle version 4.0

https://files.videohelp.com/u/33133/__init__.py

Replace file in \unshackle\unshackle\core\providers

rename original in case __init__.py_ or whatever

[A_n_g_e_l_a]

In your screengrab this looks a complete mess:

C:\Users\emmac\TwinVine\packages\envied\src\envied\commands\dl.py

It is not.

It is simply the way TwinVine is set up in its numerous pyproject.tomls to handle the two packages of TwinVine; envied, (being an unshackle fork) and vinefeeder being a graphical search front end. https://github.com/vinefeeder/Twinvine

[Attachment 93047 - Click to enlarge]

(Probably best not to spout about things you don't understand.)

[A_n_g_e_l_a]

Since metadata retrieval works, I assume the login itself isn't the issue. It seems the authorize request is either missing something or TVNZ has changed the playback authorization flow

The 401 error is telling you the error is login.

I seem to remember SnubbedByRick saying that it is best to have two accounts at TVNZ. One for looking through the site and the other simply to get the OTP as the tokens change from one login to another.

[A_n_g_e_l_a]

For those of you getting imdb api error in unshackle version 4.0

https://files.videohelp.com/u/33133/__init__.py

Replace file in \unshackle\unshackle\core\providers

rename original in case __init__.py_ or whatever

There is a new link now.
Twinvine has been corrected for a few days but the correction is still working its way down to unshackle users.

find ushackle/unshackle/core/providers/imdbapi.py and edit the link to the new value shown highlighted below.


[Attachment 93048 - Click to enlarge]

[PSXman_uk]

For those of you getting imdb api error in unshackle version 4.0

https://files.videohelp.com/u/33133/__init__.py

Replace file in \unshackle\unshackle\core\providers

rename original in case __init__.py_ or whatever

There is a new link now.
Twinvine has been corrected for a few days but the correction is still working its way down to unshackle users.

find ushackle/unshackle/core/providers/imdbapi.py and edit the link to the new value shown highlighted below.


[Attachment 93048 - Click to enlarge]

Good spot I was looking at v4.0 unshackle dev or 5.30 is fixed by git pull

[milflover]

Since metadata retrieval works, I assume the login itself isn't the issue. It seems the authorize request is either missing something or TVNZ has changed the playback authorization flow

The 401 error is telling you the error is login.

I seem to remember SnubbedByRick saying that it is best to have two accounts at TVNZ. One for looking through the site and the other simply to get the OTP as the tokens change from one login to another.

Thanks everyone. I tried using a brand new second account, but I'm still seeing the exact same issue But thank you!

[movid]

Get a better vpn/proxy

I went back to unshackle v4 with N_m3u8DL-RE and haven't had corrupt files so far, using nord.

[A_n_g_e_l_a]

[Attachment 93070 - Click to enlarge]

Crap and hypocrisy from sp4rk.y on his discord channel. If everyone signing up agreed to those rules they can no-longer legitimately download anything!

Who has a services permission to download? Anyone??

@sp4rk.y - we are pirates FFS; we break the rules! And if you think making your members sign that gives you a get-out-of-jail-free-card, it doesn't.

[deccavox]

Crap and hypocrisy from sp4rk.y on his discord channel. If everyone signing up agreed to those rules they can no-longer legitimately download anything!

I believe we can still download certain recordings of 'Happy Birthday' legitimately

[scrivr69]

[Attachment 93070 - Click to enlarge]

Crap and hypocrisy from sp4rk.y on his discord channel. If everyone signing up agreed to those rules they can no-longer legitimately download anything!

Who has a services permission to download? Anyone??

@sp4rk.y - we are pirates FFS; we break the rules! And if you think making your members sign that gives you a get-out-of-jail-free-card, it doesn't.

It's just basic disclaimer to not get the server in trouble. Devine also had a variation of it. There is a reason services were never shipped with either of them. Discord isn't exactly piracy friendly and separating the legal from the illegal is just common sense.

On the other hand sp4rky is working for zane, a very well known API seller and a lot of the functionality were specifically designed for his paid services. An adde benefit to forbidding discussions of services is that it probably leads new customers his way. Unshackle on it's own is still open to anyone but the zane businiess puts a big stain on the whole thing.

[A_n_g_e_l_a]

On the other hand sp4rky is working for zane, a very well known API seller and a lot of the functionality were specifically designed for his paid services. An adde benefit to forbidding discussions of services is that it probably leads new customers his way. Unshackle on it's own is still open to anyone but the zane businiess puts a big stain on the whole thing.

I told him this some time ago. In response he claimed he has never taken any money. Yeah, of course he hasn't!
And I don't see the rules as a disclaimer. A disclaimer would say something like 'We do not condone ...' , but they have made a set of rules to agree to uphold. That is a little different, prissy and unnecessary.

[scrivr69]

Even if he hasn't taken any money directly there are other ways to get paid. Unshackle is pretty much completely vibe coded with claude and for a project this size that's super expensive. I wouldn't be surprised if zane is paying those bills along with free access to his api.

But in the end he's free to do whatever he wants. Unshackle is still actively maintained and open to everybody so I guess there's no real harm. Yet...