youtube-dl not working when running syncplay with iina or mpv

[cordelac]

URL's aren't working when running syncplay with iina or mpv.

Failed to recognize file format.

However, URL's on both players work fine when outside syncplay. Tested with random youtube links.

OS - Big Sur 11.1 on M1
Syncplay: 1.6.7
youtube-dl: 2021.1.16
mpv: 0.33.0 // iina: 1.1.2 build 128

[Et0h]

Not being a Mac users I can't provide much support. I know on some platforms an issue can (or used to) occur if you open a file with Syncplay because that changes the PATH (base location) and so it looks for YTDL in the wrong place.

How are you running Syncplay?

[Et0h]

As a workaround you might be able to put something along the files of the following in mpv.conf (with the path being the relevant path to youtube-dl):
script-opts=ytdl_hook-ytdl_path="/insert/path/here/youtube-dl"

If that works then let me know what worked.

[cordelac]

Tried adding the path in mpv.conf, didn't work unfortunately.

I run Syncplay by opening it from Applications? I installed it via Homebrew (though it's the same downloading the dmg).

[albertosottile]

My gut says we are witnessing c07206c on steroids, a.k.a. we are mixing two Python interpreters compiled for two architectures (x86_64 in the Syncplay app and aarch64 in the system provided one used by youtube-dl).

How did you install youtube-dl? Did you use the version of Homebrew for x86_64 or for aarch64? Additionally, if you could open Terminal, run this command:

$(head -n 1 $(which youtube-dl) | cut -c 3-) -c "import platform; print(platform.platform())"

and report the result here, you could definitely help us.

(What does that do, you might ask? It finds youtube-dl in your system, asks which interpreter it uses to run, asks the same interpreter for which architecture it was compiled for).

[cordelac]

Oh, I get it. I run Homebrew natively, so in terminal for youtube-dl I got:

macOS-11.1-arm64-arm-64bit

I guess I'll need an x86_64 version for Syncplay? In case it's relevant, my mpv is arm, while iina is still Intel

[albertosottile]

You would actually need an arm64 version of Syncplay, but... there is none 😦 (see #368)

I guess we now need to think about how we can try to solve/mitigate this on our side. Thanks for reporting this and for your help.

[albertosottile]

So, after a detailed investigation it seem that the CPU architecture might have nothing to do with this. I attempted a fix and pushed it on this repository, you can find the updated prerelease dmg in the action artifacts here: "direct" download (if that does not work, go to the job page and scroll down to find the artifacts, including the dmg).

@cordelac We would really appreciate if you could download this dmg, test it on your system, and report here the results. For the moment, youtube-dl should work with mpv but not with IINA, as for me IINA does not work with YouTube URLs even when running without Syncplay attached. Thanks for your time.

Side note: you might have to right click the executable twice before getting the Open button in the dialog... thanks, Apple.

[cordelac]

Just tested on the linked 1.6.8, not working unfortunately. Still getting

Failed to recognize file format.

Appears to be acting as the same as it does in 1.6.7. If I can be of any further help, let me know

[albertosottile]

Ok, it might be that there were more errors on top of each other... Since we are here, could you help us by retrieving a debug log from your system with the prerelease version that you just downloaded?

Here is how you can do so:

• Open a Terminal and cd to the location of the prerelease Syncplay.app you downloaded earlier
• Open Syncplay in debug mode and send the logs to the Desktop:

./Syncplay.app/Contents/MacOS/Syncplay --debug &> ~/Desktop/syncplay_debug.log

• With Syncplay opened, try to play a video from YouTube as before. This should show in the GUI the same error from before.
• After the error, quit Syncplay.
• Send here the log file that should have appeared on your Desktop (or, if you prefer, just paste here all the player lines before player << youtube-dl failed: unexpected error occurred.

Thanks again for your help!

[cordelac]

Okay, followed your instructions and got this:

[18:32:17] player << Python path configuration:
[18:32:17] player << PYTHONHOME = '/Applications/Syncplay.app/Contents/Resources'
[18:32:17] player << PYTHONPATH = '/Applications/Syncplay.app/Contents/Resources'
[18:32:17] player << program name = '/opt/homebrew/Cellar/youtube-dl/2021.1.16/libexec/bin/python3.9'
[18:32:17] player << isolated = 0
[18:32:17] player << environment = 1
[18:32:17] player << user site = 1
[18:32:17] player << import site = 1
[18:32:17] player << sys._base_executable = '/opt/homebrew/Cellar/youtube-dl/2021.1.16/libexec/bin/python3.9'
[18:32:17] player << sys.base_prefix = '/Applications/Syncplay.app/Contents/Resources'
[18:32:17] player << sys.base_exec_prefix = '/Applications/Syncplay.app/Contents/Resources'
[18:32:17] player << sys.platlibdir = 'lib'
[18:32:17] player << sys.executable = '/opt/homebrew/Cellar/youtube-dl/2021.1.16/libexec/bin/python3.9'
[18:32:17] player << sys.prefix = '/Applications/Syncplay.app/Contents/Resources'
[18:32:17] player << sys.exec_prefix = '/Applications/Syncplay.app/Contents/Resources'
[18:32:17] player << sys.path = [
[18:32:17] player << '/Applications/Syncplay.app/Contents/Resources',
[18:32:17] player << '/Applications/Syncplay.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python39.zip',
[18:32:17] player << '/Applications/Syncplay.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python3.9',
[18:32:17] player << '/Applications/Syncplay.app/Contents/Resources/lib/python3.9/lib-dynload',
[18:32:17] player << ]
[18:32:17] player << Fatal Python error: init_fs_encoding: failed to get the Python codec of the filesystem encoding
[18:32:17] player << Python runtime state: core initialized
[18:32:17] player << ModuleNotFoundError: No module named 'encodings'
[18:32:17] player << Current thread 0x000000010461bd40 (most recent call first):
[18:32:17] player << <no Python frame>
[18:32:17] player << youtube-dl failed: unexpected error occurred

[albertosottile]

I forgot that Homebrew on ARM has a different default prefix... Just to confirm, could you post here the result of which youtube-dl?. (I expect /opt/homebrew/bin/youtube-dl.)

Assuming that I got this right, I prepared another test build for you: direct download | build.

Could you download the updated DMG from here and try again? If it still fails, I would also appreciate the updated debug log taken as described before. Thank you again!

[cordelac]

The result is /opt/homebrew/bin/youtube-dl,

and the latest version you prepared is working! Tested on iina (Intel) just in case, and it's also working great, thanks!

[tristan-k]

@albertosottile @cordelac Sadly the build link has been expired. Is there a binary for Apple Silicon M1 available somewhere else?

[albertosottile]

@tristan-k The binary posted here was never an Apple Silicon binary, but merely a fix for youtube-dl. You can find a (very) preliminary universal2 binary here: #368 (comment)