youtube-dl downloads slow and i think this is some form of copy protection

[sommers]

the old youtube-dl.exe behavior was that it downloaded 5mega bytes/s for one file, total +10mega bytes/s for many file downloading at once for last 10 years.

the new youtube-dl.exe behavior is that for 9/10 trials, it downloads 40k bytes/s. it started slow like this since several months ago (2021 May), when there was some kind of ban of youtube-dl

i think this is some form of copy protection done by youtube

i can get the normal 5 mega bytes/s speed in one out of 10 trials at the moment. i have to keep canceling the batch and starting the batch again and agian until it hits right, but soon and often it disconnects from downloading, if i so much as touch or make one click on a firefox webrowser somewhere, which is also painful. now i start to watch youtube things from a browser in a normal way, or i just quit watching youtube.

-----------------------------------------------------
youtube-dl.exe - 2020-0508.exe
youtube-dl.exe - 2020-1101.exe
youtube-dl.exe - 2020-1112.exe
youtube-dl.exe - 2020-1119.exe
youtube-dl.exe - 2020-1121.exe
youtube-dl.exe - 2020-1124.exe
youtube-dl.exe - 2020-1214.exe
youtube-dl.exe - 2020-1222.exe
youtube-dl.exe - 2021-0417.exe
youtube-dl.exe - 2021-0606.exe

all these version had the same slowness problems
----------------------------------------------------
i checked GitHut and reddit websites i didnt find the reason why it is slow.
i dont want to open an account for the websites above yet.
i hope someone here could explain or point me to the direction where i can read and find some reasonings.

[codehound]

i checked GitHut and reddit websites i didnt find the reason why it is slow.

Did you check Github? If you did you would see their depository is desolate and the project hasn't has an update since early June.

You need yt-dlp (based on youtube-dl) but a thriving project. They have a Discord server for assistance - use the HELP channel for advice - the developer himself is very active on there every day, too.
https://discord.gg/XNuEuaNr

Download latest release:
https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/download/2021.09.25/yt-dlp_x86.exe

You need aria2c for Windows
https://github.com/aria2/aria2/releases/download/release-1.36.0/aria2-1.36.0-win-64bit-build1.zip

Put aria2c.exe in same folder as yt-dlp, along with ffmpeg.exe (full version over 100mb) https://www.mediafire.com/file/mv3ffex88q6z3ef/ffmpeg.exe/file

Call yt-dlp in the same way, from the command line. Update with -U (same as yt-dl) and discover formats with -F (same as yt-dl).

Or for a quick, easy 'best available' use:

yt-dlp -f bv,ba --compat-options multistreams --external-downloader aria2c "youtubeURL"

Example code for own, individual selections (substitute your own formats). Obv works with Playlists too.

yt-dlp -f 299+140 --compat-options multistreams --external-downloader aria2c "youtubeURL"

Post back a speed comparison ; )

[ForDexterity]

the new youtube-dl.exe behavior is that for 9/10 trials, it downloads 40k bytes/s. it started slow like this since several months ago (2021 May), when there was some kind of ban of youtube-dl
i think this is some form of copy protection done by youtube

Can you provide an example argument that you use(d) which produce these results? I get the same issue using a linux emulator on iOS to download when using --date-before and --date-after arguments. It may be sending too many requests or something causing YouTube to flag and throttle your connections. If you're using computer maybe try using a yt-dl gui without special arguments just download a playlist or a users profile see if you get throttled.

[sommers]

thanks, yt-dlp_x86.exe "url" fixed all.
it downloaded them with pizazz like old days. i found no slowness at all.
and uses the same commands as youtube-dl

however
old days downloading way
5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 5 .....

yt-dlp_x86.exe's new downloading way
5 5 5 5 short pause 5 5 5 5 short pause 5 5 5 5 5 short pause 5 5 5 5 5 ......
this behavior was ok. i wanted to let you know.

webm is a new default for yt-dlp_x86.exe, i need mp4 for cutting and joining collage lecture tube videos for later

aria2c.exe had no effect on speed, the detail is shown below

***************************************
i have a few questions about ffmpeg.exe and yt-dlp_x86.exe
***************************************
yt-dlp_x86.exe --compat-options multistreams --external-downloader aria2c.exe
makes no difference and it is the same as simple yt-dlp_x86.exe alone

yt-dlp_x86.exe --external-downloader aria2c.exe
makes no difference and it is the same as simple yt-dlp_x86.exe alone

yt-dlp_x86.exe -f bv,ba --compat-options multistreams --external-downloader aria2c.exe
makes no difference and it is the same as simple yt-dlp_x86.exe alone

i will omit this line all together -f bv,ba --compat-options multistreams --external-downloader aria2c.exe

***************************************
--format mp4

this command makes no sound.
is there a way to interpret this command "--format mp4" as "--file_extension mp4"

if i use the command line below, my total command line will be too long and hard to understand and edit at the moment.
and i havent learned them yet.

yt-dlp_x86.exe -f 'bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best'

***************************************
i want to use this --no-part, what would be the catch?

is .part some kind of a temporary cache file to convert things or merge things faster?
because i dont want to constantly chase them and delete them

***************************************
which version is better or newer or more stable, AA1 or AA2?

AA1=ffmpeg version 2021-03-03-git-4dc039b4c7-full_build-www.gyan.dev Copyright (c) 2000-2021 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 10.2.0 (Rev6, Built by MSYS2 project)

AA2=ffmpeg version 4.4-full_build-www.gyan.dev Copyright (c) 2000-2021 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 10.2.0 (Rev6, Built by MSYS2 project)

***************************************

c:\ffmpeg\presets has
libvpx-1080p.ffpreset
libvpx-1080p50_60.ffpreset
libvpx-360p.ffpreset
libvpx-720p.ffpreset
libvpx-720p50_60.ffpreset

what are they? is this ok to delete them?
***************************************

[abolibibelot]

webm is a new default for yt-dlp_x86.exe, i need mp4 for cutting and joining collage lecture tube videos for later

Are you sure about that ? I haven't tested yt-dlp much yet, but with youtube-dl, WEBM was chosen only if the video / audio streams selected were incompatible with the MP4 container, which can happen if you let it decide what is “best”. Normally with AVC video + AAC audio (as in the example given above by specifying “-f 299+140” — but both formats have to be actually available for that particular video for this to work) the default container should be MP4. But if I'm not mistaken, WEBM is merely a special “flavor” or MKV (at least the headers look very similar), so if it's only a matter of joining files it should be easy with MKVToolNix — unless you prefer MP4 for compatibility reasons, if intending to watch those collages on a standalone device.

if i use the command line below, my total command line will be too long and hard to understand and edit at the moment.
and i havent learned them yet.

You don't really need to memorize everything, you can create a script and then only modify the link / URL.

set link=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whatever
yt-dlp -f [settings] %link%

Or even, if always using the same settings, add the --batch-file option then leave the script unchanged and only edit a separate text file containing the URL(s) to download.

c:\ffmpeg\presets has
libvpx-1080p.ffpreset
libvpx-1080p50_60.ffpreset
libvpx-360p.ffpreset
libvpx-720p.ffpreset
libvpx-720p50_60.ffpreset

what are they? is this ok to delete them?

Not sure what those files are (except that they're obviously presets), but they are certainly not required for ffmpeg's regular operation. That said, with a total size just above 1KB you won't recover much free space by deleting them. In that regard, I would be more worried about the multiple instances of the ffmpeg executable which you may already have on your system, since many utilities include their own ffmpeg executable among their subfolders, as I mentioned here. That problem can be solved through the use of hard links : get the most recent build and then replace all other ffmpeg.exe files by a hard link of that one file, which is easy with LinkShellExtension — on my system I found about 700MB worth of ffmpeg and ffmpeg related files, but it could be much more than that, with the ever increasing size of the official build.

[sommers]

i made a big testing mistake, i just found out. so i need to report this again

SET P2=C:\Programs\YOUTUBE-DL\WIN10\yt-dlp_x86.exe
SET G1=--no-part
REM SET G2=--format mp4
SET G3=--compat-options multistreams --external-downloader aria2c.exe

************************************************** *
this was the bad one , i forgot to put %G3% in the command line
START "" %P2% G1% %G2% %URL%

download stuttered.
5 5 5 5 short pause 5 5 5 5 short pause 5 5 5 5 5 short pause 5 5 5 5 5 .....
and some of downloaded video files suffered missing audios
************************************************** *
the corrected one

START "" %P2% G1% %G2% %G3% %URL%

it worked, i could see blue % done. green download speed, yellow time elapse
it didnt seem to suffer from missing audios when making webms
************************************************** *

-f bv,ba --compat-options multistreams --external-downloader aria2c.exe
this command makes videos with no sound.
the default quality wasnt bad, video file sizes werent big and were similar to the old ways.. so i will study this -f later.

[sommers]

ffpreset... they are certainly not required for ffmpeg's regular operation

ok, thanks, i know what i will do about them.

************************************
I will delete this version
ffmpeg version 4.4-full_build-www.gyan.dev Copyright (c) 2000-2021 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 10.2.0 (Rev6, Built by MSYS2 project)

and i will keep this version
ffmpeg version 2021-03-03-git-4dc039b4c7-full_build-www.gyan.dev Copyright (c) 2000-2021 the FFmpeg developers
built with gcc 10.2.0 (Rev6, Built by MSYS2 project)
************************************

but with youtube-dl, WEBM was chosen only if the video / audio streams selected were incompatible with the MP4 container

what you said is true but, getting a webm with the youtube-dl's default operation is extremely rare maybe about 0.001%, or maybe 2~4 webm files per year. the rest of my downloads was mp4 files.

so far, every download made by the yt-dlp's default operation was webms

if there are no easy way to produce mp4s, then i will study -f.....
but wait!!!! i just made my 1st try using yt-dlp_x86.exe --format best %URL% command, and it produced the mp4 video which was the same thing as the old youtube-dl.exe's mp4.

" --format best" command solved my problem

webm x1 x1.5, video sizes are way too big (x0.5 is not possible)
mp4 x0.5 x1 x1.5 all video sizes are possible, (x0.5 is possible, i can even put a small video at the corner )
yes i know everything depends on the original resolution but...

i just found out yt-dlp_x86.exe bypasss the age restriction videos as well like old days.

*************************************************

WEBM is merely a special “flavor” or MKV (at least the headers look very similar), so if it's only a matter of joining files it should be easy with MKVToolNix

if it is a movie then i accept MKV, but if it is a lecture video, i said no to MKV, because FF and Fast rewind is too slow. MKV quite often (but not too often) was codec-ed in some kind of "Herv10 ???? dont know exact spell" it is either unplayble or needs a special codec i have no idea about.

*************************************************
my final thought
reasons for using yt-dlp_x86.exe
i can drag and drop many many URL's to a DOS batch file as fast as i can and filter out all the clcikbait videos.
you can not do this normally, because many youtube videos start with 1 or 2 ads right from the beginning.

[ForDexterity]

************************************
I will delete this version
ffmpeg version 4.4-full_build

and i will keep this version
ffmpeg version 2021-03-03-git-4dc039b4c7-full_build
************************************
what you said is true but, getting a webm with the youtube-dl's default operation is extremely rare maybe about 0.001%, or maybe 2~4 webm files per year. the rest of my downloads was mp4 files.

" --format best" command solved my problem
*************************************************
if it is a movie then i accept MKV, but if it is a lecture video, i said no to MKV, because FF and Fast rewind is too slow. MKV quite often (but not too often) was codec-ed in some kind of "Herv10 ???? dont know exact spell" it is either unplayble or needs a special codec i have no idea about.

1. This is describing Stable builds vs Nightly builds.
2. You're likely getting webm files because opus is considered a better audio codec but not supported by mp4 container.
3. If you want to convert one of the webm or mkv to mp4, you can mux the video losslessly while converting the audio to aac or another audio codec supported by the mp4 container format.
4. You can add "HEVC Video Extensions from Device Manufacturer" for free from the Official Microsoft Store, (don't pay for the $0.99 one). Also download a video player which supports hevc, which is practically all of them.

[NEWMAN KIDMAN]

CodeHound, thank you very much. I was having the same speed problem with YouTube.dl, but now, after reading your comment, I am using YT_DLP.

Today, October 12, 2021, I used yt_dlp, plus the full version of FFMPEG, to create a ONE-CLICK file to download videos.

The user copies the url from their internet browser and then click on my file and the download will start automatically,
with the best video and audio resolution, plus the thumbnail. It is awesome for people who just need to download videos.

I created a batch file and packed it together with yt_dlp and ffmpeg into an SFX EXECUTABLE, which is the file.

Those who wish to inspect the files can use winrar to unpack the SFX executable.

My file is called "ONE-CLICK YT_DLP.exe", and can be downloaded as a rar file from:

https://www.mediafire.com/file/bfb3ibj1fh82h4p/ONE-CLICK+YT_DLP.rar/file

I hope it will be of some use to some people, as it is extremely easy to use, again, just by copying the url and clicking on my file.

THANK YOU ALL

[sambat]

@newman kidman
Thank you for the elegant bat file.I found it works very well.
The current setting in the bat file -f selects "best video and audio" ( eg webm vp9 and opus) which playback ok on the pc, but my (older) media player doesn't recognize these formats.
Can you tell me how to modify the -f command to give me an mp4 with x264 and aac - if they were available?

[NEWMAN KIDMAN]

@sambat, thank you for your appreciation of my file.

You can replace -f bestvideo+bestaudio with -f 137+140

Making the entire command line as follows:

yt-dlp_x86.exe -o YOUR_VIDEOS\%DateTime% --write-thumbnail -f 137+140 "AUTOMATIC_URL"

All the format codes can be found through the link below:

https://gist.github.com/AgentOak/34d47c65b1d28829bb17c24c04a0096f

[sambat]

Worked like charm, thank you.

[NEWMAN KIDMAN]

You are welcome

[jraju]

Hi, please refer the post 9 of this post, wherein New kid man, has given a link to fix slow yt dl problem.
I downloaded the exe, and as per his instructions, just extract the zip to a folder , copied the url and then clicked the exe. I could see the progress bar swirling , but came with error , that some bat tile is not found error.
Newkidman, could you just say, where to look for the bat file,
Should I need to copy ffmpeg and youtube dl in the same folder as in the same folder extracted folder from your link
or the bat file available , some where else.
If you give me a reply, It will be helpful.
I just used 7 zip to extract.
the error I am getting is missing of download.bat, where could i find this file . The file extracted tempmex folder do not contain this

[jraju]

Hi, newkidman, here is the error shot
kindly give me the solution.
Downloaded your file and extracted to a separate folder
just copied youtube url and then clicked your exe.
Got the error as shown.
My system is windows 7 64 bit

[october262]

Hi, newkidman, here is the error shot
kindly give me the solution.
Downloaded your file and extracted to a separate folder
just copied youtube url and then clicked your exe.
Got the error as shown.
My system is windows 7 64 bit

to fix the .BAT error see here - https://superuser.com/questions/1378156/windows-cannot-find-bat-make-sure-you-typed-th...and-then-try-a

[jraju]

hI, october,
Tried all trouble shooting. The same error keeps coming.
The cmd works perfectly in all other cases.
Did you try the script for yourself .
do I miss something more.
I was using youtube dl which now is downloading only in 30kbs seconds. I came across this thread and tried and the error keeps.
I also see a temp folder creation and could see the exe inside. clicking that results in error.
I also checked my environment variable path and copied the correct path to include this.
My sfc scannow shows no corrupted file
the result of scan

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired
them. Details are included in the CBS.Log windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For
example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log

C:\Windows\system32>

[abolibibelot]

" --format best" command solved my problem

But what it identifies as “best” is misleading, it means “the best available format which comes as a single video + audio stream”, which is sometimes far from the best overall quality (for some videos on YT the best version available as a single pre-muxed stream is only 360p, while a 720p or higher version is available — usually there is a standalone 720p version obtained with the code “22”, but sometimes it is missing).

3. If you want to convert one of the webm or mkv to mp4, you can mux the video losslessly while converting the audio to aac or another audio codec supported by the mp4 container format.

But that means adding yet another generation loss...

You can replace -f bestvideo+bestaudio with -f 137+140

But that means having to check for every video which are the actually available formats.
The question was : is it possible with yt-dlp to request the best available video and audio formats which are compatible with the MP4 container — I don't know the answer, and I would be interested to know it.


@jraju

Hi, newkidman, here is the error shot
kindly give me the solution.
Downloaded your file and extracted to a separate folder
just copied youtube url and then clicked your exe.
Got the error as shown.
My system is windows 7 64 bit

Not sure what you did here, but the .exe is a SFX self-extracting archive, it's meant to be extracted rather than executed like a regular executable. Normally this should be automatic when double-clicking on it (that's the purpose of SFX archives), which I didn't try as I'm a bit wary of double-clicking on an EXE file which is not 100% guaranteed to be safe (in this case it should be, but VirusTotal issues a few warnings, that's enough to be double-cautious), so I couldn't say why you didn't get the expected result. Also “attrib” and “powershell” should be recognized as valid commands.
Anyway, if you were using youtube-dl before, you should be able to use yt-dlp in (almost) exactly the same way, you don't need such a script, however “elegant” it may be (I opened it but haven't checked what it does thoroughly so I can't comment on its elegant-ness) to get it to work.

[jraju]

Your quote: above post
if you were using youtube-dl before, you should be able to use yt-dlp in (almost) exactly the same way
Please kindly say a little more , Know how to use command line.
Is that the same way here also, please let me know, I will try.

[abolibibelot]

Well, most of the syntax is the same, so using the same commands / scripts with “yt-dlp” instead of “youtube-dl” should work, except when using specific options which have been revamped (I don't know which ones if any). There's a list of available options on the GitHub page. If you still can't make it work, it would be better to ask a specific question : I want to download video X, I tried command Y, I got error message Z, what's wrong ?

[october262]

hI, october,
Tried all trouble shooting. The same error keeps coming.
The cmd works perfectly in all other cases.
Did you try the script for yourself .
do I miss something more.
I was using youtube dl which now is downloading only in 30kbs seconds. I came across this thread and tried and the error keeps.
I also see a temp folder creation and could see the exe inside. clicking that results in error.
I also checked my environment variable path and copied the correct path to include this.
My sfc scannow shows no corrupted file
the result of scan

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired
them. Details are included in the CBS.Log windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For
example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log

C:\Windows\system32>

for help installing youtube-dl see here - https://danclowry.com/blog/youtube-dl-windows-install/

[codehound]

for help installing youtube-dl see here - https://danclowry.com/blog/youtube-dl-windows-install/

No one needs help installing youtube-dl because its run as an executable from the command line interface, there is no installer for youtube-dl or yt-dlp.

How many more times, FFS ? The youtube-dl throttling is a known issue due to the project being abandoned by the developers and google (who own youtube) being on to the code. youtube-dl hasn't been active/ updated since June.

Everyone has migrated to yt-dlp who have sorted the throttling issue in release 2021-10-10.
Latest release:
https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases

Because yt-dlp is a fork of youtube-dl, it is python based and there are some major differences in basic behaviours but most of the syntaxes work exactly the same. The new cookies loader feature is a godsend.
Differences in default behaviour:
https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#differences-in-default-behavior

There is a very busy active discord group for issues too /HELP channel and the developer himself is on there daily.
https://discord.gg/H5MNcFW63r
https://discord.gg/XkTQUKZu

[jraju]

Hi, aboli, thanks for the clue and I tried and got the speed.
Hi, codehound, thanks for added information.
But let me know, why the inner commands, which i could see in the bat file, fail
the inner commands llke you said attrib , powershell etc.
Most of the commands do not work, even when I added the path in environment variable in computer properties
what is the fix for that,
know that it is video forum, but i tried all sorts of things and still i get inoperable command errors

[abolibibelot]

@jraju
Your issue might be beyond the scope of this forum. By the look of the Start menu icon, you seem to have either a “special” version of Windows 7, or at least a customized environment (Classic Shell or something) ; it may be related ; or not ; but generally speaking, anything that strays from the norm makes it more difficult to diagnose when something goes wrong (speaking from experience here...).
On my Windows 7 install attrib.exe and powershell.exe are there :

C:\Windows\System32\attrib.exe
C:\Windows\System32\WindowsPowerShell\v1.0\powershell.exe

Again, these should not be required for yt-dlp to work. But if these commands are not recognized, something is fishy on your system.

[codehound]

Hi, aboli, thanks for the clue and I tried and got the speed.
Hi, codehound, thanks for added information.
But let me know, why the inner commands, which i could see in the bat file, fail
the inner commands llke you said attrib , powershell etc.
Most of the commands do not work, even when I added the path in environment variable in computer properties
what is the fix for that,
know that it is video forum, but i tried all sorts of things and still i get inoperable command errors

Repeat answer:

There is a very busy active discord group for issues too /HELP channel and the developer himself is on there daily.
https://discord.gg/H5MNcFW63r
https://discord.gg/XkTQUKZu

[NEWMAN KIDMAN]

jraju, I do apologise for the tardiness of my response to your question. I had not been on this site for a while, and it was not until today, November 5th, 2021, that I read your question.

Given the fact that I had already revised the batch file, I decided that I would post the link to it for you to download, rather than look into the cause of your problem.

There are now multiple batch files for different resolutions and NO executable files.
You must have "ffmpeg.exe" AND "yt-dlp.exe" OR "yt-dlp_x86.exe" in the same folder
as the batch files,

TO USE: Just copy the url and click on the batch of your chosen resolution. That is it.

With a batch named "Create a list .bat", it is the opposite: You click on it first, and then
you manually copy as many urls as you want from your browser, without pasting them anywhere,
as they get automatically added to the list which is called "URL_LIST.bat".
When you are done copying urls, just close the cmd window.

There are some extra cool stuff as well.

Please, read the revised "READ ME - NEW" file


THE LINK TO THE RAR FILE IS BELOW


https://www.mediafire.com/file/0immotme7ppw4xd/ONE-CLICK+YT_DLP+2.0.rar/file