Youtube-dl (update/Uninstall/Install/Python3/Pip3) nightmare!

Linux Discussion Applications
1

Hello,

I’m a longtime user of various Linux distributions (mostly Ubuntu) but not until I got a Pi, did I really start getting familiar with the command line.
I am currently using UbuntuStudio- VERSION=“20.04.1 LTS (Focal Fossa)” and am having trouble with youtube-dl.
Basically, I’ve updated,installed & uninstalled youtube-dl through so many methods that I’m lost and don’t have a working youtube-dl.

(Note-there’s a restriuction on links for new users. My curl and wget commands have url links to the youtube-dl site.
Wherever there is supposed to be a url, I’ve replaced with “(url goes here)”
i hope this is ok.)

But here’s how it happened:
I succesfully used youtube-dl with a youtube video but minutes later, was unable to download a different video:

So i checked the version of youtube-dl that I was using and found that it was not the latest version “youtube-dl 2020.07.28.”

I then tried to update the version. This is where I messed everything up. I tried without luck:
sudo apt-get update
sudo-apt-get update youtube-dl

And then after various webpages…
37 sudo apt-get install youtube-dl
263 youtube-dl -U
264 sudo apt-get update youtube-dl
265 sudo apt-get update youtube-dl -U
267 youtube-dl -u
268 $ sudo pip install -U youtube-dl
269 $ sudo pip3 install -U youtube-dl
274 sudo pip install -U youtube-dl
275 sudo pip3 install -U youtube-dl
276 sudo apt-get upgrade youtube-dl
277 sudo pip3 install -U youtube-dl
278 sudo apt-get install -U youtube-dl
279 sudo apt-get youtube-dl
280 sudo apt-get install youtube-dl
283 sudo apt-get remove -y youtube-dl
289 sudo apt-get install youtube-dl
290 sudo apt-get remove youtube-dl
292 sudo curl (url goes here)
293 sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
301 sudo pip install -U youtube-dl
302 sudo pip3 install -U youtube-dl
304 sudo chmod a+rx /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
342 sudo wget (url goes here)
343 chmod -R 755 /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
344 sudo chmod -R 755 /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
348 pip3 youtube-dl -U
350 sudo snap install youtube-dl

I know, It’s a mess

Anyways, Here’s where i think I stand:
I have these pythons installed:

which python3
/usr/bin/python3

which python2
/usr/bin/python2

I have this youtube-dl folder here

which youtube-dl
/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl

But then:
youtube-dl --version
/usr/bin/env: ‘python’: No such file or directory

Tried to run from: /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl
/usr/local/bin$ youtube-dl (url goes here)
/usr/bin/env: ‘python’: No such file or directory

So then, I remembered my very brief encounter with pip3 (had to use photorec_sort) and tried pip3 install:

sudo pip3 install youtube-dl
Requirement already satisfied: youtube-dl in /usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages (2020.7.28)

Here is what I have in that directory:

/usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages$ ls

youtube_dl  youtube_dl-2020.7.28.dist-info

The youtube_dl directory has the YoutubeDL.py program

So I tried this from that directory:

/usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/youtube_dl$ pwd
/usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/youtube_dl

/usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/youtube_dl$ python3 YoutubeDL.py (youtube url goes here)

and this is what I got:

/usr/local/lib/python3.8/dist-packages/youtube_dl$ python3 YoutubeDL.py (youtube url goes here)
Traceback (most recent call last):
File "YoutubeDL.py", line 31, in <module>
	from .compat import (
ImportError: attempted relative import with no known parent package

As you can tell, I know just enough linux to get myself in trouble. Can anyone please help me return to a working youtube-dl status?

Thank you in advance,
Zeke

2

Taking a guess but the key may be your error here:

/usr/bin/env: ‘python’: No such file or directory

It’s looking for the directory “python”, not the one you have: “python3”. You can softlink the directory as follows:

sudo ln -s /usr/bin/python3 /usr/bin/python

Then try youtube-dl again.

1 Like
3

This worked. It’s the exact same suggestion I received from someone on the Reddit “youtube-dl” board. That’s OK. I was very happy to receive the confirmation that this is the path I needed to take.

I have read about the link command but have never used it and I would have never thought of it as a solution because I didn’t know what was going on.

A quick man search revealed that we’ve established a “symbolic link.”

it was also suggested that I remove any instances of “youtube-dl” and start fresh with wget straight from the source.

It’s working now so I’m a scared to start that process right now. Know what I mean?

Thank you again!

Zeke

1 Like
4

I am a heavy youtube-dl user and in general I would always recommend the newest version, especially on Ubuntu and Debian, not the version from the repositories, so remove it:

sudo apt purge youtube-dl

You have to decide if curl or wget or whatever but I like pip and use it to install the most recent version. But here comes the thing, the pip command is for Python 2 and pip3 for Python 3. As Python 2 is or will be deprecated it is recommended to use pip3 that uses python-pip3 as its backend.

At least you resolved your problem but you can still remove the version of youtube-dl using Python 2:

pip uninstall youtube-dl

On a side note: For security reasons it is better to use pip as your user instead of root.

1 Like
5

I personally use the snap package (snap install youtube-dl).

That way it gets automatically updated and I don’t have to worry about managing python stuff just to download silly cat videos… :slight_smile:

1 Like
6

I didn’t get a pip user, short of creating one you could just install it to the user directory.

How’s this look to you from the ground up?

sudo apt purge youtube-dl
sudo apt install python3-pip
pip3 install youtube-dl --user # Output for me was installation to: ~/.local/bin/
# Append the following to your ~/.bashrc file:
export PATH=“${PATH}:~/.local/bin/”

Update package:

pip3 install youtube-dl -U

I applaud your honesty lol

1 Like
7

Absolute viable option though I do not use snap nor does my distribution. :wink:

8

That is exactly how it works and @WalJT is right to prefer the snap package in that case especially if you are on Ubuntu but I still use pip like I did years before and because I never reinstall I am still on that path. :slight_smile:

Edit: It is especially the way to do it on Ubuntu, somehow, because in Fedora or Mageia you actually do not have to mess with your PATH.

9

Non able youtube dl. Youtube channel url switch