youtube-dl and php exec

Question

I have installed youtube-dl on my CentOS 6 / Plesk 10 Dedicated server, and via SSH, everything works like a charm !

The thing is I'm trying to write a php script which takes a POST parameter in containing the URL of the video I want to copy to the server, copy it and then process it with ffmpeg.

I thought I would use the exec() function.

I can get an output if I echo the results of youtube-dl --help, but everytime I ask php to execute a command which actually does something with the video, it returns a status of '1', and outputs nothing.

Any ideas on what I'm doing wrong ?

Here is my php code:

<?php 
    $result = array();
    $status;
    $url = $_POST['src'];
    $string = 'youtube-dl "'.$url.'" -f 18 -o "/var/www/vhosts/my.virtual.host.net/httpdocs/downloader/downloads/%(id)s.%(ext)s"';
    $string2 = 'youtube-dl --help';
    exec($string, $result, $status);
    echo json_encode(array('status' => $status, 'url_orginal'=>$url, 'url' => $result));
?>

When I execute $string2, I get status: "0" and "url": [youtube-dl help text lines]

But when I execute $string, nothing happens, I get "status": "1" and nothing else, no video is downloaded. I've tried also a simulation with the "-g" parameter, and variants but as soon as youtube-dl has to fetch the video, it breaks.

Thank you in advance !

EDIT

I edited my code so it looks like this :

<?php 
    $result = array();
    $status;
    $url = $_POST['src'];
    $string = 'youtube-dl "'.$url.'" -f 18 -o "/var/www/vhosts/my.virtual.host.net/httpdocs/downloader/downloads/%(id)s.%(ext)s"';
    $string2 = 'youtube-dl --help';
    exec($string, $result, $status);
    echo json_encode(array('status' => $status, 'url_orginal'=>$url, 'url' => $result, 'command' => $string));
?>

and the result, which I didn't get yesterday now is :

command: "youtube-dl "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coq9klG41R8" -f 18 -o "/var/www/vhosts/my.virtual.host.net/httpdocs/downloader/downloads/%(id)s.%(ext)s""
status: 1
url: 
    0: "[youtube] Setting language"
    1: "[youtube] coq9klG41R8: Downloading video info webpage"
    2: "[youtube] coq9klG41R8: Extracting video information"
url_orginal: "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coq9klG41R8"

Which is weird, considering a) that yesterday I got an empty url[], and that b) even if now I get what apparently looks like a normal youtube-dl return, it only contains the 3 first lines, and I cannot see any video file in the specified path... Any ideas ?

can you post the command string that is produced to download the video? (var_dump($string)); — gries, Mar 01 '13 at 08:26
I edited my question with new info, thank you for your help ! — Charleshaa, Mar 01 '13 at 10:58

score 10 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 01 '13 at 11:17

10

exec reads only stdout, so you're missing the error message on stderr, whatever that may be.

Use the following code to get stderr as well:

$url = 'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coq9klG41R8';
$template = '/var/www/vhosts/my.virtual.host.net/httpdocs/downloader/' .
            'downloads/%(id)s.%(ext)s';
$string = ('youtube-dl ' . escapeshellarg($url) . ' -f 18 -o ' .
          escapeshellarg($template));

$descriptorspec = array(
   0 => array("pipe", "r"),  // stdin
   1 => array("pipe", "w"),  // stdout
   2 => array("pipe", "w"),  // stderr
);
$process = proc_open($string, $descriptorspec, $pipes);
$stdout = stream_get_contents($pipes[1]);
fclose($pipes[1]);
$stderr = stream_get_contents($pipes[2]);
fclose($pipes[2]);
$ret = proc_close($process);
echo json_encode(array('status' => $ret, 'errors' => $stderr,
                       'url_orginal'=>$url, 'output' => $stdout,
                       'command' => $string));

Most likely, you don't have permission to write to that directory. To test that theory, check whether

touch /var/www/vhosts/my.virtual.host.net/httpdocs/downloader/downloads/test

works. You can use chmod and chown to change permissions.

answered Mar 01 '13 at 11:17

Thanks a lot ! The folder was in fact writable, but now I can see the error. It says "format not available for video", so I modified the $string so that it would only tell me the formats available : `('youtube-dl ' . escapeshellarg($url) . ' -F')`, and then it tells me -F is not a valid parameter, when it actually is, isn't it ? BTW I tried that command in the ssh terminal, and got the list of available formats as expected, and the format n°18 was actually in that list. – Charleshaa Mar 01 '13 at 11:33
@Charleshaa That sounds incredibly weird. When you're in your ssh terminal, are you logged in as the same user that php runs as? Also, what do you get for `which youtube-dl` in both session and php? Finally, check that `~/.config/youtube-dl.conf` doesn't differ for php and you ssh session. – Mar 01 '13 at 12:29
I log in as root in ssh which I don't think is the case for php. You were right, `which youtube-dl` returns `/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl` in ssh as root while it returns `/usr/bin/youtube-dl` in php. I guess the youtube-dl used by php is deprecated, but when I update via ssh, it updates the first one and not the second... Any pointers ? Thanks a lot – Charleshaa Mar 01 '13 at 14:36
I also can't find any file named youtube-dl.conf, how can I access it ? I tried to update via the php script, by changing `$string = 'youtube-dl -U';`, but it says -U is not a valid parameter... So I'm kinda stuck here... – Charleshaa Mar 01 '13 at 14:43
1

Actually it works now, I had a version from 2009 in my /usr/bin, haha ! I guess the repo was not updated... So I installed the latest version for php as well and now it works great ! Thank you soooo much for the help, and of course for maintaining this amazing tool !! – Charleshaa Mar 01 '13 at 14:59
phihag have a look at my question plz http://stackoverflow.com/questions/31675418/download-mp4-flv-url-link-from-youtube-videoid – Xar-e-ahmer Khan Jul 28 '15 at 11:59

youtube-dl and php exec

1 Answers1