Guys,
I've been going nuts since recently trying to use Youtube-dl. I keep getting the "unable to extract uploader id" error message. Googled it, and there seem to be thousands of people having the same issue, with various solutions proposed...but I'm not seeing any viable fixes. (In the past, I'd get that error; do a simple update via youtube-dl -U, and it'd be fixed)

Running Youtube-dl 2021.12.17 (latest) installed via curl from Github.
OS: Bunsenlabs Linux.

Swicth to yt-dlp. youtube-dl isn't being maintained much.

Edit:
Probably in your repo or
https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp

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Searching should have pointed you towards yt-dlp, which is a fork of youtube-dl that is currently maintained.

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If yt-dlp still doesn't fetch the video from YouTube directly, then you can try instead via the Invidious front end, available from several domains: https://redirect.invidious.io/

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Thanks for the replies, everyone.

Yes, I did see the yt-dlp solution mentioned; was going to try it, but saw that it requires the latest incarnation of Python (3.10 I believe) but unfortunately, the latest I can get through my repositories is 3.7....

Turbocap, I will definitely take a look at the Invidious thing- thanks. (from an Anarcho-capitalist!)

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Thanks! I've been doing so much, as I had an OS issue that essentially disabled all my repositories- which I thought was causing the Youtube-dl problem.... Then trying a few things to resolve the Youtube-dl problem....re-installing Python3....and a bunch more, I'm not sure where I read that yt-dlb only supports Python3.10 (Not to mention that when it comes to compooters, I'm pretty much Moe, Larry and Shemp [not even Curly!] all rolled into one!)....but this just may be the ticket for me!

Turns out, I have python 3.5.... Can't update any newer via the apt-get- anyone know of a way I can get 3.7 or newer [for dummies!]?

This is getting ridiculous- the time I'm consuming just sop I can once again download some audio from some damn Youtube vids!

Okay, I'll admit to have at least one too many tonight. But Linux is clearly driving me to it.
I've tried to deal with this for over a week, looking for yt-dip. Only today I realized it's my old eyes and a lousy font. IT's yt-dLp, NOT -dIp.
Good Lord, Linux is going to lose all it's old-time users this way. You've introduced far too many unnecessary changes too quickly. Worse, the changes are unwarranted.

I hear ya. It never ends- developers are constantly adding new features, and OS's are constantly updating to keep everything functional and compatible- but where does it end? Seems like it's forcing Linux to become ever more Windows-like[shudder]. There seems to be little attention paid to people like myself who just want to install something that'll remain functional, without caring about the latest feature. I never do updates until and if absolutely necessary (I can usually go 4 or 5 years without having to touch anything). Slackware would fit me well...but alas, having to learn to install stuff manually is too much for me to deal with, since I'm not a power user (Tried it, and loved it till something needed updating for which no Slackbuild was available!).

There seems to be a lot of unnecessary panic here! A quick check at the git-hub link given in post 2 shows that yt-dlp requires Python 3.7 and BunsenLabs got that two years ago — it currently has 3.9.

Things get updated and always have done, otherwise we'd all be struggling along with Linux 1 and no GUIs.

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I'm one of those people [I think there's another one somewhere else out there] who never does updates/upgrades. I think I've reached the end of the line and may finally have to [shudder]. But if anyone has any ideas...if I can get around this issue, I should be good for a few more years!

My "daily driver" machine is running an RHEL 8 clone, and that just has Python 3.6.8. So, I have a virtual machine running Fedora 37 for stuff that needs newer support. Fedora 37 has Python 3.11.2, much newer libs, etc.

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Youtube-dl is now working for me, again. I'm not sure when the problem disappeared, but it was probably this morning perhaps after an update and reboot (my habit is to that every couple of days or so).
However, I've also been having problems with my third-party e-mail client too (in this case the version used by Fedora 37 kde). I've been able to get to email (AOL) using the browser, but not Thunderbird. I'm not sure where the problem might be. This one has been hard to track down.

Hmmmmm...interesting idea! I could just find the simplest distro that runs Python 3.7...... Thanks.