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Ohmygirl
Asked: 2015-03-19 01:43:15 +0800 CST

youtube-dl failed to extract signature

  • 772

It is considered very useful to utilize youtube-dl software for downloading youtubes.

A message is seen and it stopped working, which is following.

ERROR: Signature extraction failed: Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/youtube_dl/extractor/youtube.py", line 479, in _decrypt_signature
    video_id, player_url, s
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/youtube_dl/extractor/youtube.py", line 383, in _extract_signature_function
    res = self._parse_sig_js(code)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/youtube_dl/extractor/youtube.py", line 454, in _parse_sig_js
    u'Initial JS player signature function name')
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py", line 391, in _search_regex
    raise RegexNotFoundError(u'Unable to extract %s' % _name)
RegexNotFoundError: Unable to extract Initial JS player signature function name; please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug . Be sure to call youtube-dl with the --verbose flag and include its complete output. Make sure you are using the latest version; type  youtube-dl -U  to update.
; please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug . Be sure to call youtube-dl with the --verbose flag and include its complete output. Make sure you are using the latest version; type  youtube-dl -U  to update.

What should I do to proceed?

youtube-dl

6 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    You are getting this error:

    Unable to extract Initial JS player signature function name

    ...because youtube-dl is not up-to-date. Google has been changing the way to access YouTube videos more frequently now than was the case a few years ago, so in order to keep youtube-dl up-to-date, it has to be updated more frequently too. To install the latest version of youtube-dl open the terminal and type:

    sudo snap install youtube-dl # start with snap run youtube-dl

    or:

    sudo apt remove youtube-dl  
sudo apt install python3-pip
python3 -m pip install youtube-dl

    To upgrade youtube-dl to the latest version:

    sudo snap install youtube-dl # youtube-dl snap is automatically upgraded

    or

    python3 -m pip install --upgrade youtube-dl

    It's crazy how frequently Google has been changing the code for accessing videos on YouTube. I seem to have remembered updating youtube-dl only a couple of month's ago, but it still couldn't download the selected video until I updated it.

    youtube-dl is a Python program, so you can also locally install the latest version of youtube-dl in a Python virtual environment. For information about how to setup and use a Python virtual environment see How to set up and use a virtual python environment in Ubuntu?.

    • 74

  2. The only way I was to get it working was the latest version (for me on debian) with 

    sudo wget https://yt-dl.org/latest/youtube-dl -O /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
sudo chmod a+x /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
hash -r

    from the github repo

    • 6

  3. It once happened to me. As they said on comments you must update your system or just youtube-dl. Also is good use quotes as follow in this example:

    youtube-dl "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6AL-WpgoFw"
    • 3

  4. I had the same problem and this solved it

     sudo -H pip install --upgrade youtube-dl

    and try to put the link into "link"

    • 3

  5. Only this way is working for me!

    When I trip every time I take the new music, and here is how to install youtube-dl from pip.

    If you install it from repo, it cannot download the music, always complains!. So use this to download spongebob relaxing masterpeace:

    !pip install --upgrade youtube-dl 
!youtube-dl -x --audio-format mp3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oq526_37wc0
    • 1

  6. None of these answers worked for me. I got this thing work by using the instruction given in the error:-

    sudo youtube-dl -U

    I don't know the exact reason for why this way of update worked and not that upgrade command..

    • 0