On Fri, 24 Oct 2025 06:56:22 -0700
Fred <fred@???> wrote:
> On 10/22/25 21:40, wirelessduck--- via Dng wrote:
> >
> >
> >> On 23 Oct 2025, at 11:30, David Niklas via Dng <dng@???>
> >> wrote:
> >>
> >> Hello,
> >>
> >> Recently, yt-dlp stopped working on the site it was originally made
> >> for, youtube with no easy fix possible.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Problems have been cropping up recently, such as YT's requirement
> >> for a PO token to be passed when downloading, but in the last few
> >> days the whole manner of getting a video just broke.
> >>
> >> The authors noted that the complexity of YT's site has significantly
> >> increased leading to them needing to support a full JS runtime in
> >> their tool whereas they used to use a sort of hacked together python
> >> JS runtime.
>
> Maybe someone could write an add-on/extension to Firefox rather than
> duplicating major functions that Firefox already has.

The authors were asked this very question. Their answer was that this
would place a dependency on top of firefox, any changes to witch could
permanently break the downloader, and it also felt like "giving up".

> >> They suggested that people install the Deno runtime, as it uses a
> >> sandbox by default. IDK how much we should trust sandboxes, but
> >> that's what they said.[1]
> >>
> >> Other options include Node version 21 or later (they say that they
> >> may try and backport support for version 20). Currently, Devuan
> >> stable is running node 18.
> >>
> >> The other option they intend to support is Bun. [2]
> >>
> >> They may also support QuickJS in the future, and PhantomJS support is
> >> being dropped.
> >>
> >> Neither Deno nor Bun are available in Devuan repos as far as I can
> >> see and backports doesn't contain a newer version of nodejs.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> IDK exactly how updating packages in Devuan work (just depend on
> >> Debian?), but I'm writing in hopes that yt-dlp, and thus it's
> >> dependencies, can be updated on our systems at some point in time.
> >>
> >> The update from the yt-dlp folks can be found here[3] and the github
> >> issue is here. [4]
> >>
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >> David
> >
> > fnm can install any version of node. Works for me.
> >
> > https://github.com/Schniz/fnm <https://github.com/Schniz/fnm>
> >
> > Otherwise the nodesource apt repository should work if you prefer deb
> > packages.
> >
> > https://nodesource.com/products/distributions
> > <https://nodesource.com/ products/distributions>
> >
> > Tom
> >
> Does installing node or deno make yt-dlp work again? Could someone
> make a list of instructions that results in a working youtube
> downloader?

It's working right now. I said in my original post, "... leading to
them needing to support a full JS runtime in their tool..." As in, they
have not yet added it. yt-dlp works in a sort of hacked manner right now.
Only some formats are available.

David