YtdlpPlayer No longer funtioning in Unity

[reikitsune]

For some reason the youtube player is no longer working. Nothing changed on the project I originally find it not working. Started a fresh project, and it doesn't work either. Installed via VCC.

Not sure if a youtube update caused it, or if it's a unity issue. I've tested a sound file inside unity with the prefab scene, and it played the audio.

[float3]

check if the VRChat provided ytdlp.exe works

[pema99]

The yt-dlp player keeps breaking because YouTube keeps making adversarial changes to the formats they provide. I'll look into it later, but sometimes the fix is just to wait for VRC to update their executable.

[BluWizard10]

The alternative is to define a Custom YTDL, configurable in Tools -> AudioLink -> Select Custom YTDL Location. This allows you to manually point to a different yt-dlp.exe, which you would download from the main yt-dlp repository.

To set it up, simply download the latest exe available from the repository. Place it somewhere on your computer, preferably in a directory that doesn't contain white spacing. Then, select the Custom YTDL Location to that yt-dlp.exe you downloaded.

In my recent testing, it works well. However, there's a bug where it will create a significant lag spike when enabling the GameObject after entering Play Mode, but only when using the Custom YTDL Location.

[pema99]

The yt-dlp shipped with VRC is afaik not the same as upstream. They make modifications to it, which may explain the difference

[Poofy1]

Any updates on when this might get patched? Newly downloaded yt-dlp.exe versions seem to have a compatibility issue

[pema99]

It breaks every now and then for reasons mostly out of our control. YouTube keeps worsening their API, and limiting format selection. On top of that they do A/B testing on random users quite frequently, so you might just get unlucky. I'll try to look into what broke this time one of the coming weeks

[Poofy1]

Reverting back to AudioLink 2.0.0 fixed this issue for me

[BluWizard10]

Works great using a custom YTDL target in Unity right now. I'm using the latest yt-dlp.exe straight from the Repository as the custom YTDL target.

However, it ONLY works effectively on 360p resolution (SD) as of late.

[pema99]

Unfortunately the version of yt-dlp bundled with VRChat can no longer find .mp4 files for most videos, which is the only format that is straight forward to play with the Unity video player. Downloading a recent release of yt-dlp directly and using the Tools > AudioLink > Set Custom YTDL Location option should still work.

[pema99]

We can't automatically download the executable because VRChat considers this a security concern (understandable), and AudioLink is a curated package. So for now, I think we are just stuck. The best we could do is to pop up a warning informing users that the VRChat yt-dlp won't work if they attempt to use it.

[clienthax]

This is due to youtubes bot detection / non browser checks.
You can work around it currently by using https://github.com/EllyVR/VRCVideoCacher and following the setup instructions to provide it with cookies.

[BluWizard10]

At this point, Custom YTDL Location is the most suitable option for me. Whenever it stops working, I download the latest yt-dlp.exe and works again.

I know VRChat may say it's a "security concern" if it's provided in the package, but would it also count if there's a script that just downloads it as a manual function?

I say this because yt-dlp gets updated so frequently. Security concern or not, if nothing can be done and we are just stuck in this position, then we might have to just de-list ourselves from the Curated Repository and provide our own yt-dlp downloader for the sake of functionality.

I digress. Still though, we really need to discuss a solution.

[float3]

i don't think delisting is a possible path forward, we could have a non VRC curated code path though

[pema99]

I think the most realistic option is to have a separate repo that just has the files for avatar testing, outside of the main repo.