youtube-dl: some YouTube videos fail w/ AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'group'

[YoshiRulz]

Describe the bug

Attempting to download seemingly any video with music fails with AttributeError: 'NoneType' object has no attribute 'group'. This is probably caused by YouTube changing the pages it serves; I checked my shell history and videos which were playable yesterday are now broken.

Steps To Reproduce

Steps to reproduce the behavior:

1. nix-env -f https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/archive/nixos-21.11.tar.gz -iA youtube-dl
2. youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgsayvglv5o

Examples of videos which cause the error: mgsayvglv5o EFEmTsfFL5A
Example of a working video: WLIfbiTUMiU

Expected behavior

Video downloads in best format (w/o flags) / a list of formats is printed (w/ -F).

Notify maintainers

@bluescreen303 @Phreedom @AndersonTorres @fpletz @Ma27

Metadata

Please run nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m" and paste the result.

[user@system:~]$ nix-shell -p nix-info --run "nix-info -m"
 - system: `"x86_64-linux"`
 - host os: `Linux 5.12.0-1-MANJARO, Manjaro Linux, noversion`
 - multi-user?: `no`
 - sandbox: `yes`
 - version: `nix-env (Nix) 2.4`
 - channels(yoshi): `"nixpkgs-21.11.333823.96b4157790f"`
 - nixpkgs: `/home/yoshi/.nix-defexpr/channels/nixpkgs`

Maintainer information:

# a list of nixpkgs attributes affected by the problem
attribute: youtube-dl
# a list of nixos modules affected by the problem
module:

[Informatic]

youtube-dl is seemingly abandoned, superseded by youtube-dlp (a mostly-drop-in replacement fork)

[primeos]

Yeah, unfortunately youtube-dl seems to have "died" (it was always undermaintained, IIRC) without an official successor. We could consider deprecating the package. Might be worth checking how other Linux distributions handle this.

I have done some quick research a couple of days ago to look at the current situation.
Here are a few notes I made, in case it helps:

---

Unfortunately, youtube-dl seems unmaintained:

• Last release: 2021.06.06
  • https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/releases/tag/2021.06.06
• Last commit: a8035827177d6b59aca03bd717acb6a9bdd75ada
  • ytdl-org/youtube-dl@a803582

And there are a lot of unanswered issues about it, e.g.:

• Project dead? ytdl-org/youtube-dl#29965
• Active youtube-dl forks? ytdl-org/youtube-dl#29842
• Is youtube-dl dead? ytdl-org/youtube-dl#29872
• youtube-dl alternatives ytdl-org/youtube-dl#30098
• Archive Project ytdl-org/youtube-dl#30183
• Is youtube-dl dead? ytdl-org/youtube-dl#30267
• Is the project up? ytdl-org/youtube-dl#30317

There is no official successor but fortunately things seem to converge
on the yt-dlp fork:

• https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp
  • Latest release: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/tag/2021.12.01
  • 12,123 stars
  • "yt-dlp is a youtube-dl fork based on the now inactive youtube-dlc.
    The main focus of this project is adding new features and patches
    while also keeping up to date with the original project"
• Mentioned on the Wikipedia page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Youtube-dl
  • "Numerous forks exist of the project, including yt-dlp, with 11.4k stars."
• Recommended by most people
• https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Youtube-dl
  • "Various forks of youtube-dl also exist and may contain additional
    features, in particular yt-dlp adds support for more sites,
    downloading comments, improvements to format preferences, and other
    changes."
  • https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Talk:Youtube-dl
    • "Project Inactivity: I don't have a particular idea of the best
      way to add this to the page, but it's worth noting that ytdl in
      not currently maintained, and lots of people have switched to a
      fork called yt-dlp. There's a package for it in the community
      repo. See: Project dead? ytdl-org/youtube-dl#29965 for
      a little info. on project status. — rjt (talk) 14:17, 3 December
      2021 (UTC)"
• https://github.com/haruhi-dl/haruhi-dl
  • "This project has ended. Our forces have moved into contributing to yt-dlp."
• https://github.com/blackjack4494/yt-dlc
  • Now dead as well

[SuperSamus]

youtube-dl just got a new version, actually.
https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/releases/tag/2021.12.17

[AndersonTorres]

Was this solved? O.o

[colemickens]

Everything I'm reading online points to 'we should probably package youtube-dlp and then let users choose which fork they want to use.

[AndersonTorres]

Everything I'm reading online points to 'we should probably package youtube-dlp and then let users choose which fork they want to use.

It was already packaged.

[YoshiRulz]

As for

Was this solved?

I've switched to yt-dlp to stem the bleeding until I have time to write a faster replacement.