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Videos from Twitter cannot be downloaded: --external-downloader-args passed to ffmpeg #13191

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opened 2026-02-21 05:41:52 -05:00 by deekerman · 1 comment

deekerman commented

2026-02-21 05:41:52 -05:00

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Originally created by @cheater on GitHub (Mar 21, 2018).

Please follow the guide below

You will be asked some questions and requested to provide some information, please read them carefully and answer honestly
Put an x into all the boxes [ ] relevant to your issue (like this: [x])
Use the Preview tab to see what your issue will actually look like

Make sure you are using the latest version: run `youtube-dl --version` and ensure your version is 2018.03.20. If it's not, read this FAQ entry and update. Issues with outdated version will be rejected.

I've verified and I assure that I'm running youtube-dl 2018.03.20

Before submitting an issue make sure you have:

At least skimmed through the README, most notably the FAQ and BUGS sections
Searched the bugtracker for similar issues including closed ones
Checked that provided video/audio/playlist URLs (if any) are alive and playable in a browser

What is the purpose of your issue?

Bug report (encountered problems with youtube-dl)
Site support request (request for adding support for a new site)
Feature request (request for a new functionality)
Question
Other

The following sections concretize particular purposed issues, you can erase any section (the contents between triple ---) not applicable to your issue

If the purpose of this issue is a bug report, site support request or you are not completely sure provide the full verbose output as follows:

Add the -v flag to your command line you run youtube-dl with (youtube-dl -v <your command line>), copy the whole output and insert it here. It should look similar to one below (replace it with your log inserted between triple ```):

$ youtube-dl -v --prefer-ffmpeg --external-downloader aria2c --external-downloader-args '-k 1M' https://twitter.com/Cardinologistuk/status/975741593008459777
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: [u'-v', u'--prefer-ffmpeg', u'--external-downloader', u'aria2c', u'--external-downloader-args', u'-k 1M', u'https://twitter.com/Cardinologistuk/status/975741593008459777']
[debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs UTF-8, out UTF-8, pref UTF-8
[debug] youtube-dl version 2018.03.20
[debug] Python version 2.7.6 (CPython) - Linux-4.4.0-040400-generic-i686-with-Ubuntu-14.04-trusty
[debug] exe versions: avconv 9.20-6, avprobe 9.20-6, ffmpeg 3.3.3, ffprobe 3.3.3, phantomjs 1.9.0, rtmpdump 2.4-n87-gita9f353c-ppa8
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[twitter] 975741593008459777: Downloading webpage
[twitter:card] 975741593008459777: Downloading webpage
[twitter:card] 975741593008459777: Downloading m3u8 information
[twitter:card] 975741593008459777: Downloading mobile webpage
[twitter:card] 975741593008459777: Downloading main script
[twitter:card] 975741593008459777: Downloading API data
[debug] Default format spec: bestvideo+bestaudio/best
[debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/975741017591877633/pu/pl/720x1280/lW99o_4OCVP1jY-r.m3u8'
[download] Destination: Mr H - Finishing touches on #custom @marshallamps 1960 #vintage amps #minibar #ImadeThat #handbuilt #marshallamps #jackdaniels #no7 #thedoorworks-975741593008459777.mp4
[debug] ffmpeg command line: ffmpeg -y -loglevel verbose -k 1M -headers 'Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7
Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5
Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate
Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:59.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/59.0 (Chrome)
' -i 'https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/975741017591877633/pu/pl/720x1280/lW99o_4OCVP1jY-r.m3u8' -c copy -f mp4 'file:Mr H - Finishing touches on #custom @marshallamps 1960 #vintage amps #minibar #ImadeThat #handbuilt #marshallamps #jackdaniels #no7 #thedoorworks-975741593008459777.mp4.part'
ffmpeg version 3.3.3 Copyright (c) 2000-2017 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 4.8 (Ubuntu 4.8.4-2ubuntu1~14.04.3)
  configuration: --extra-libs=-ldl --prefix=/opt/ffmpeg --mandir=/usr/share/man --enable-avresample --disable-debug --enable-nonfree --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --disable-decoder=amrnb --disable-decoder=amrwb --enable-libpulse --enable-libfreetype --enable-gnutls --disable-ffserver --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libvorbis --enable-libtheora --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libvpx --enable-libspeex --enable-libass --enable-avisynth --enable-libsoxr --enable-libxvid --enable-libvidstab --enable-libwavpack --enable-nvenc --enable-libzimg
  libavutil      55. 58.100 / 55. 58.100
  libavcodec     57. 89.100 / 57. 89.100
  libavformat    57. 71.100 / 57. 71.100
  libavdevice    57.  6.100 / 57.  6.100
  libavfilter     6. 82.100 /  6. 82.100
  libavresample   3.  5.  0 /  3.  5.  0
  libswscale      4.  6.100 /  4.  6.100
  libswresample   2.  7.100 /  2.  7.100
  libpostproc    54.  5.100 / 54.  5.100
Unrecognized option 'k'.
Error splitting the argument list: Option not found


ERROR: ffmpeg exited with code 1
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 162, in _run_module_as_main
    "__main__", fname, loader, pkg_name)
  File "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 72, in _run_code
    exec code in run_globals
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/__main__.py", line 19, in <module>
    youtube_dl.main()
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/__init__.py", line 471, in main
    _real_main(argv)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/__init__.py", line 461, in _real_main
    retcode = ydl.download(all_urls)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 1989, in download
    url, force_generic_extractor=self.params.get('force_generic_extractor', False))
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 796, in extract_info
    return self.process_ie_result(ie_result, download, extra_info)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 888, in process_ie_result
    new_result, download=download, extra_info=extra_info)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 850, in process_ie_result
    return self.process_video_result(ie_result, download=download)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 1623, in process_video_result
    self.process_info(new_info)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 1896, in process_info
    success = dl(filename, info_dict)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 1835, in dl
    return fd.download(name, info)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/downloader/common.py", line 364, in download
    return self.real_download(filename, info_dict)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/downloader/external.py", line 57, in real_download
    self.get_basename(), retval))
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/downloader/common.py", line 166, in report_error
    self.ydl.report_error(*args, **kargs)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 613, in report_error
    self.trouble(error_message, tb)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 575, in trouble
    tb_data = traceback.format_list(traceback.extract_stack())
...
<end of log>

strace error log: https://gist.github.com/cheater/9b8277a34751d183b3e32d76753ef4b2

Output of just ffmpeg -k:

$ ffmpeg -k
ffmpeg version 3.3.3 Copyright (c) 2000-2017 the FFmpeg developers
  built with gcc 4.8 (Ubuntu 4.8.4-2ubuntu1~14.04.3)
  configuration: --extra-libs=-ldl --prefix=/opt/ffmpeg --mandir=/usr/share/man --enable-avresample --disable-debug --enable-nonfree --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --disable-decoder=amrnb --disable-decoder=amrwb --enable-libpulse --enable-libfreetype --enable-gnutls --disable-ffserver --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libvorbis --enable-libtheora --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libvpx --enable-libspeex --enable-libass --enable-avisynth --enable-libsoxr --enable-libxvid --enable-libvidstab --enable-libwavpack --enable-nvenc --enable-libzimg
  libavutil      55. 58.100 / 55. 58.100
  libavcodec     57. 89.100 / 57. 89.100
  libavformat    57. 71.100 / 57. 71.100
  libavdevice    57.  6.100 / 57.  6.100
  libavfilter     6. 82.100 /  6. 82.100
  libavresample   3.  5.  0 /  3.  5.  0
  libswscale      4.  6.100 /  4.  6.100
  libswresample   2.  7.100 /  2.  7.100
  libpostproc    54.  5.100 / 54.  5.100
Unrecognized option 'k'.
Error splitting the argument list: Option not found

Description of your issue, suggested solution and other information

When downloading a specific video, youtube-dl passes --external-downloader-args to ffmpeg.

Example command line:
youtube-dl --prefer-ffmpeg --external-downloader aria2c --external-downloader-args '-k 1M' https://twitter.com/Cardinologistuk/status/975741593008459777

I've tried the same command line with other video sites, eg youtube, and that works. It's notable that this also worked with twitter until recently, and now stopped working. I'm not sure if this is because of a recent youtube-dl update or if it happened 'spontaneously'. I tried with a few other videos on Twitter and it doesn't work either.

You get shown error output from ffmpeg. It's the same error as if you just ran ffmpeg -k.

This error means that if you use an external downloader with custom args, videos from Twitter cannot be downloaded at all now.

My guess is whatever code executes ffmpeg confuses the arguments it should be passing to it.

Originally created by @cheater on GitHub (Mar 21, 2018). ## Please follow the guide below - You will be asked some questions and requested to provide some information, please read them **carefully** and answer honestly - Put an `x` into all the boxes [ ] relevant to your *issue* (like this: `[x]`) - Use the *Preview* tab to see what your issue will actually look like --- ### Make sure you are using the *latest* version: run `youtube-dl --version` and ensure your version is *2018.03.20*. If it's not, read [this FAQ entry](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/README.md#how-do-i-update-youtube-dl) and update. Issues with outdated version will be rejected. - [x] I've **verified** and **I assure** that I'm running youtube-dl **2018.03.20** ### Before submitting an *issue* make sure you have: - [x] At least skimmed through the [README](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/README.md), **most notably** the [FAQ](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl#faq) and [BUGS](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl#bugs) sections - [x] [Searched](https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/search?type=Issues) the bugtracker for similar issues including closed ones - [x] Checked that provided video/audio/playlist URLs (if any) are alive and playable in a browser ### What is the purpose of your *issue*? - [x] Bug report (encountered problems with youtube-dl) - [x] Site support request (request for adding support for a new site) - [ ] Feature request (request for a new functionality) - [ ] Question - [ ] Other --- ### The following sections concretize particular purposed issues, you can erase any section (the contents between triple ---) not applicable to your *issue* --- ### If the purpose of this *issue* is a *bug report*, *site support request* or you are not completely sure provide the full verbose output as follows: Add the `-v` flag to **your command line** you run youtube-dl with (`youtube-dl -v <your command line>`), copy the **whole** output and insert it here. It should look similar to one below (replace it with **your** log inserted between triple ```): ``` $ youtube-dl -v --prefer-ffmpeg --external-downloader aria2c --external-downloader-args '-k 1M' https://twitter.com/Cardinologistuk/status/975741593008459777 [debug] System config: [] [debug] User config: [] [debug] Custom config: [] [debug] Command-line args: [u'-v', u'--prefer-ffmpeg', u'--external-downloader', u'aria2c', u'--external-downloader-args', u'-k 1M', u'https://twitter.com/Cardinologistuk/status/975741593008459777'] [debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs UTF-8, out UTF-8, pref UTF-8 [debug] youtube-dl version 2018.03.20 [debug] Python version 2.7.6 (CPython) - Linux-4.4.0-040400-generic-i686-with-Ubuntu-14.04-trusty [debug] exe versions: avconv 9.20-6, avprobe 9.20-6, ffmpeg 3.3.3, ffprobe 3.3.3, phantomjs 1.9.0, rtmpdump 2.4-n87-gita9f353c-ppa8 [debug] Proxy map: {} [twitter] 975741593008459777: Downloading webpage [twitter:card] 975741593008459777: Downloading webpage [twitter:card] 975741593008459777: Downloading m3u8 information [twitter:card] 975741593008459777: Downloading mobile webpage [twitter:card] 975741593008459777: Downloading main script [twitter:card] 975741593008459777: Downloading API data [debug] Default format spec: bestvideo+bestaudio/best [debug] Invoking downloader on u'https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/975741017591877633/pu/pl/720x1280/lW99o_4OCVP1jY-r.m3u8' [download] Destination: Mr H - Finishing touches on #custom @marshallamps 1960 #vintage amps #minibar #ImadeThat #handbuilt #marshallamps #jackdaniels #no7 #thedoorworks-975741593008459777.mp4 [debug] ffmpeg command line: ffmpeg -y -loglevel verbose -k 1M -headers 'Accept-Charset: ISO-8859-1,utf-8;q=0.7,*;q=0.7 Accept-Language: en-us,en;q=0.5 Accept-Encoding: gzip, deflate Accept: text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:59.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/59.0 (Chrome) ' -i 'https://video.twimg.com/ext_tw_video/975741017591877633/pu/pl/720x1280/lW99o_4OCVP1jY-r.m3u8' -c copy -f mp4 'file:Mr H - Finishing touches on #custom @marshallamps 1960 #vintage amps #minibar #ImadeThat #handbuilt #marshallamps #jackdaniels #no7 #thedoorworks-975741593008459777.mp4.part' ffmpeg version 3.3.3 Copyright (c) 2000-2017 the FFmpeg developers built with gcc 4.8 (Ubuntu 4.8.4-2ubuntu1~14.04.3) configuration: --extra-libs=-ldl --prefix=/opt/ffmpeg --mandir=/usr/share/man --enable-avresample --disable-debug --enable-nonfree --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --disable-decoder=amrnb --disable-decoder=amrwb --enable-libpulse --enable-libfreetype --enable-gnutls --disable-ffserver --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libvorbis --enable-libtheora --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libvpx --enable-libspeex --enable-libass --enable-avisynth --enable-libsoxr --enable-libxvid --enable-libvidstab --enable-libwavpack --enable-nvenc --enable-libzimg libavutil 55. 58.100 / 55. 58.100 libavcodec 57. 89.100 / 57. 89.100 libavformat 57. 71.100 / 57. 71.100 libavdevice 57. 6.100 / 57. 6.100 libavfilter 6. 82.100 / 6. 82.100 libavresample 3. 5. 0 / 3. 5. 0 libswscale 4. 6.100 / 4. 6.100 libswresample 2. 7.100 / 2. 7.100 libpostproc 54. 5.100 / 54. 5.100 Unrecognized option 'k'. Error splitting the argument list: Option not found ERROR: ffmpeg exited with code 1 File "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 162, in _run_module_as_main "__main__", fname, loader, pkg_name) File "/usr/lib/python2.7/runpy.py", line 72, in _run_code exec code in run_globals File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/__main__.py", line 19, in <module> youtube_dl.main() File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/__init__.py", line 471, in main _real_main(argv) File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/__init__.py", line 461, in _real_main retcode = ydl.download(all_urls) File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 1989, in download url, force_generic_extractor=self.params.get('force_generic_extractor', False)) File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 796, in extract_info return self.process_ie_result(ie_result, download, extra_info) File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 888, in process_ie_result new_result, download=download, extra_info=extra_info) File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 850, in process_ie_result return self.process_video_result(ie_result, download=download) File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 1623, in process_video_result self.process_info(new_info) File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 1896, in process_info success = dl(filename, info_dict) File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 1835, in dl return fd.download(name, info) File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/downloader/common.py", line 364, in download return self.real_download(filename, info_dict) File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/downloader/external.py", line 57, in real_download self.get_basename(), retval)) File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/downloader/common.py", line 166, in report_error self.ydl.report_error(*args, **kargs) File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 613, in report_error self.trouble(error_message, tb) File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 575, in trouble tb_data = traceback.format_list(traceback.extract_stack()) ... <end of log> ``` strace error log: https://gist.github.com/cheater/9b8277a34751d183b3e32d76753ef4b2 Output of just `ffmpeg -k`: ``` $ ffmpeg -k ffmpeg version 3.3.3 Copyright (c) 2000-2017 the FFmpeg developers built with gcc 4.8 (Ubuntu 4.8.4-2ubuntu1~14.04.3) configuration: --extra-libs=-ldl --prefix=/opt/ffmpeg --mandir=/usr/share/man --enable-avresample --disable-debug --enable-nonfree --enable-gpl --enable-version3 --enable-libopencore-amrnb --enable-libopencore-amrwb --disable-decoder=amrnb --disable-decoder=amrwb --enable-libpulse --enable-libfreetype --enable-gnutls --disable-ffserver --enable-libx264 --enable-libx265 --enable-libfdk-aac --enable-libvorbis --enable-libtheora --enable-libmp3lame --enable-libopus --enable-libvpx --enable-libspeex --enable-libass --enable-avisynth --enable-libsoxr --enable-libxvid --enable-libvidstab --enable-libwavpack --enable-nvenc --enable-libzimg libavutil 55. 58.100 / 55. 58.100 libavcodec 57. 89.100 / 57. 89.100 libavformat 57. 71.100 / 57. 71.100 libavdevice 57. 6.100 / 57. 6.100 libavfilter 6. 82.100 / 6. 82.100 libavresample 3. 5. 0 / 3. 5. 0 libswscale 4. 6.100 / 4. 6.100 libswresample 2. 7.100 / 2. 7.100 libpostproc 54. 5.100 / 54. 5.100 Unrecognized option 'k'. Error splitting the argument list: Option not found ``` --- ### Description of your *issue*, suggested solution and other information When downloading a specific video, youtube-dl passes `--external-downloader-args` to ffmpeg. Example command line: `youtube-dl --prefer-ffmpeg --external-downloader aria2c --external-downloader-args '-k 1M' https://twitter.com/Cardinologistuk/status/975741593008459777` I've tried the same command line with other video sites, eg youtube, and that works. It's notable that this also worked with twitter until recently, and now stopped working. I'm not sure if this is because of a recent youtube-dl update or if it happened 'spontaneously'. I tried with a few other videos on Twitter and it doesn't work either. You get shown error output from ffmpeg. It's the same error as if you just ran `ffmpeg -k`. This error means that if you use an external downloader with custom args, videos from Twitter cannot be downloaded at all now. My guess is whatever code executes ffmpeg confuses the arguments it should be passing to it.

deekerman

2026-02-21 05:41:52 -05:00

closed this issue
added the
duplicate
label

deekerman commented

2026-02-21 05:41:54 -05:00

Author

Owner

@cheater commented on GitHub (Mar 21, 2018):

duplicate of #10784

@cheater commented on GitHub (Mar 21, 2018): duplicate of #10784

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