No longer able to download from Udemy

[Mohamed]

Hi,

Please, is it possible to tell me if is it working or not?

I've tried several courses, but it is not detecting videos already being played in the webpage.

Thanks

[Wild Willy]

I am surprised when you say you used to be able to download from Udemy. There are many
reports on here of people having no success downloading from Udemy (and Hotmart). Search
this forum using the search key "udemy" & you will turn up many such reports, which I'm
sure you did before you posted your duplicate report.

It is possible you might get some ideas about how to do it from this thread:

https://groups.google.com/g/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a/c/sNfTCMYfiTU

Maybe, maybe not. But you can't know unless you try.

[mjs]

It doesn't seem to work in VDH . Can you see if this works or not : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMMVPLBrWTY

Also try what is outlined in this page, does this work or not

https://groups.google.com/g/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a/c/dxCZjjPlfao/m/LP1_23MIAgAJ

Once you've tried both of these methods do not disappear from this forum. I want a clear yes or no answer that it worked or it didn't.

--

A vdh user

[Mohamed]

Thanks a lot to both of you for helping and fast reply.

Yes, I downloaded it before with no issue at all.

I will go through these two threads in detail, but I can not do it right now because I am busy with homework to do (I just replied to show my respect for your replies) and I was looking for some Udemy courses to help me in my homework, so I thought it will be a fast fix or something alike.

I promise to go through all these troubleshooting and get back to you.

[pete...@gmail.com]

Roughly before Sept 1st, 2021, VDH was able to download all Udemy videos, afterwards Udemy started to used Javascript blob files, instead of mp4 files, which VDH is not able to detect them. Not all courses contain blob files, because Udemy is converting their old course mp4 videos into blob files and most, if not all, of their new courses are all blob files.

I'm willing to work with the VDH developer/team/forum support people, if it would help to create a work around to bypass these blob files. Thanks to Willy or mig or mjs or whomever, on this forum, suggested 2 or more work arounds, but I haven't bother to try them, since I'm busy and I have a really old MacBook Pro. You can search for "blob" in this forum for those work arounds.

I'm going to try mjs' 2 above links, this week, I hope, but no promises.

[A Human]

Hi, I checked this video "Can you see if this works or not : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oMMVPLBrWTY " and followed the steps. Its NOT working. Even this method results the same ie small mp4 files.

[Wild Willy]

I used VDH to download the YouTube video you indicated. That avoids the annoying ads
that YouTube generally embeds in its content when you play their stuff on YouTube itself.
What that guy suggests is precisely one of the things we suggest in the VDH thread I
mentioned in my post above on 2022/11/2. He uses Ctrl+Shift+i to open the Network
Monitor. F12 also works on Firefox. The difference is that he has his Network Monitor
squished over to the right half of the screen. But you can drag the borders of the
Network Monitor around so that it appears in the full width of your monitor but at the
bottom. This makes it a little easier to read, but this is a cosmetic change, not a
change in the technique. Once you have the Network Monitor open in a size & shape that
suits you, you can restrict the display as he suggests to showing only Media. You can
also let it show All, something he shows briefly in his video towards the end. I prefer
showing All & sorting on the Type column. That will group all the MP4 objects together.
That's more or less equivalent to what he shows. Once you have an MP4 open in its own
tab on Firefox, you don't get the 3 dots, like he shows. You just need to hover the
mouse in the middle of the playback window & pop up the context menu using Mouse Button
2. You may have to move the mouse around on the screen to get the playback control bar
to appear. I have seen cases in which I opened an MP4 in its own tab, as he describes in
his video, & the page has looked blank. Move the mouse around on the page. That should
make the player control appear, and then you can pop up the context menu on that. Once
you have the context menu, you can select Download Video As... and the standard Firefox
download dialog will launch so you can download the video. It is also possible that VDH
will be able to download the video from this page. You might have to let the video play
for a few seconds to make VDH detect it. Maybe. I have seen cases where VDH detects the
video & I have seen cases where it does NOT. So be prepared for either possibility.

But the critical step that I hope you understood from his video is that first, you have
to buy the course you want to download. You have to buy the course. That means random
users like me can't test this out. I'm not going to buy a Udemy course in order to help
you. You have to buy the course. Once you have bought the course, you can apply the
technique shown in this video. Or you can try one of the other methods we have outlined
in the other VDH thread mentioned above. But you have to buy the course first. Then you
have to mine the Network Monitor for content. If you are lucky, there will be some
manifests in there. If you display All the content in the Network Monitor & sort the
display on the Type column, the HLS manifests will all sort down near the bottom of the
Network Monitor display. They will be of type x-mpegurl. Sometimes, they will be of
type application/vnd.apple.com or something like that. You can also try filling in the
filter field with the string m3u8. That works most of the time, but not always. It
depends on the choice the web site has made for its convention for naming files. Once
you have the HLS manifest, you should be able to use ffmpeg to get the unit of the course
you have bought. I say again, you have to buy the course before you have any hope of
making anything work. But it is not guaranteed that ffmpeg will work, even if you have
the HLS master manifest. It is possible that Udemy has put protections on the manifests
so that you will see 403 Forbidden errors in ffprobe & ffmpeg. However, if you can find
an HLS master manifest, VDH will find it as well. I have encountered cases in which
ffmpeg hits the 403 Forbidden error but VDH actually works. This is the case with my
Golf Channel broadcasts. So don't give up on VDH.

But all of that is maybe. The approach in that video is only one of the several
techniques we outline in our thread on here. You need to try other things as well. It
also seems to me that you ought to contact the author of that video to let him know that
his technique did not work for you. He does ask people to do that. Do it. It seems he
is a member of Udemy & he is more likely to be able to respond intelligently to your
problem description. I'm not joining Udemy & buying a course just so I can help you.
You have to help yourself.