Video Download Helper cannot download video as of latest firefox

[Trifecta]

fx 95.0

vdh 7.6.0

companion app 1.6.3

I try to download and it takes forever, 1, second, it is stuck on aggregating. File in folder is stuck at 888kb or something like that. Also it says mkv. wtf? I didn't change any settings at all. Why isn't it copying the steam. it should be mp4 shoudn't it? I download the same video (but lower quality) on Bitchute and it literally took 10 seconds and it's mp4. Get your act together man.

[Trifecta]

What I menat was, thanks for the add-on, hope there is a solution soon. Thanks.

[Trifecta]

forgot to mention I was initially trying to download a youtube video. It's not working with Youtube. Bitchute works fine.

[Wild Willy]

You might want to take a look in here:

https://groups.google.com/g/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a/c/BzPLK2YyL-s

There's a tutorial in there on how to use VDH. Perhaps there's something you've
accidentally skipped. In addition, there's references in there to how to report a
problem. You've got it almost complete but not quite. You'll need to tell us what
operating system you're on & at least one URL that is failing for you. Also, do you have
a VDH license? Don't post your license number, just say whether you have a license. It
might also help if you posted some screenshots of the steps you took that led to your
failure to download, as well as the alternative steps you took that made it work.

[Matthew Pfluger]

Hi Trifecta,

I'm on the same settings as you (including Windows 10 - latest updates).  I just installed the Firefox app today with all default settings.  I purchased a Chrome extension since that's the browser I use most often.

I'm getting the same issue as you when downloading this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwX97X5bFAw

Can you confirm you have the issue with this video, too?

[Wild Willy]

Thank you for posting a URL.  That is a critical part of permitting anybody to
investigate the problem.

For the record, I'm on Windows 7 64-bit, Firefox 95.0 64-bit, licensed VDH 7.6.3a1 beta,
CoApp 1.6.3.

When I first visited the page, I got the VDH menu you can see in attached image #01.  I
changed the resolution to 1920x1080 & that gave the menu you can see in attached image
#02.  The only change to the VDH menu was the last variant listed.  It shows no
resolution, no file type, no duration, only a file size.  Very weird.  Since it was the
only thing that got added when I changed resolution, I assumed it must be the 1920x1080
variant.  So I downloaded it.  It turned out to be of type MKV, duration 24:31 (which is
the duration as reported by YouTube), resolution 1920x1080, & the size was the advertised
206M.  It played fine in VLC with both video & audio all the way to the end.  I didn't
actually watch it all the way through, just sampled it at 1 minute intervals, but it did
seem to be complete.

How does your VDH menu differ from the one I'm showing?  Which variant or variants did
you attempt to download?  I assume your download processor in the VDH Settings is the
CoApp.  I believe the CoApp is required these days to get YouTube content.  Perhaps some
screenshots would be helpful.

[Matthew Pfluger]

Hi Wild Willy,

Thanks for the reply and the attempt on your end.  You're right on the settings: I'm using the Companion Application as my download processor (see vdh-settings.json).  When I first load the page in FF, I see the VDH menu shown in the First Menu.jpg file.  The video resolution defaults to Auto 720p.  I notice the menu looks different than yours.  I changed the video quality to 1080p, and then the VDH menu shows what you see in Second Menu.jpg.  I then did a Quick Download on the 208 MB hit.  It took about 10 minutes to download, but then VDH got stuck on "Aggregating" (see Aggregating.jpg).  That's actually what happened with the last attempt, too.

I'm looking through your excellent User Guide post trying to find other things to try.  have any other suggestions?

Thanks,

Matthew

[Matthew Pfluger]

Here are hit details, in case that is helpful.  Also, I'm a developer, so I'm willing to try a few things that the average user may not be ale or willing to do.

[Matthew Pfluger]

Last message: I tried switching to the 1080p quality and downloading again.  See the screenshot and text output.  As I type this, the file is 64% complete in downloading, but I expect it to stop at the aggregating step as before.

[Matthew Pfluger]

An interesting update: I was able to find the temp files in my ~AppData/Temp folder.  The video and audio streams are in separate files.  It appears that VDH ws not able to stitch them together quickly.  I was able to play each file separately in VLC.  Perhaps I can manually stitch them together in a video editor.  However, I'd really like VDH to do this for me. :-)

[Wild Willy]

It's weird that you don't see as many variants as I do on first visiting the page.  I can't explain that.  Another thing I can't explain is the default resolution.  I always get 480p as the default.  That's why I always end up changing the resolution.  Maybe that's why we don't see the same variants on first visit.  Also, I hardly ever visit YouTube when I'm logged on to Google.  Logging on to Google logs you on to GMail, Groups, YouTube, Drive, all their properties simultaneously.  I'm logged on now because this thread gave me trouble last night trying to post via E-mail.  So I just skipped the extra step today & logged on.

Before any time I visit YouTube, I open about:config, search on autoplay, and change one setting:

media.autoplay.blocking.policy

Normally, I have this set to 1.  For YouTube I set it to 2.  This prevents ads and videos themselves from automatically playing.  But it seems to be necessary only on YouTube.  Other sites don't need the value 2 for their content to be blocked from autoplaying.  YouTube is just completely non-standard in probably every conceivable way.  I discovered this advice via web searches.  It was rather hard to find.  In any case, that may or may not affect what VDH displays when you first visit the page.

Ten minutes to download.  That is pretty bad, isn't it?  That's about what I see all the time on YouTube.  It seems to me that they mercilessly throttle their download speeds.  It seems like they give you whatever speed they believe is enough to play the content smoothly in the player on the web page.  So you end up using an even tinier fraction of your bandwidth than you think it ought to.  They don't seem to be very friendly towards downloaders.  I wonder if their own downloader uses more bandwidth.  I'm sure if you buy a subscription, which they are constantly trying to get me to do, you get better bandwidth usage for downloads.  But I'm not shelling out the cash to find out.

When it comes to separate video & audio, you can just play them synchronously in VLC.  There's a reference for that in the User's Guide Table of Contents.  I suspect you may need to copy the 2 files you found out of the temporary directory into a place that's more longlasting.  You never know when something might get deleted from temp.  But if the individual files don't play properly, they won't play synchronously, either.  If they do play individually, and you said they do, you should be set.

I don't know if this might make any difference.  I haven't added it to the Table of Contents yet because nobody else has tried it yet.  I just posted my VDH Settings in another thread:

https://groups.google.com/g/video-downloadhelper-q-and-a/c/hOV6g2EYZS8

If you take my settings & it makes the problem go away, then you have to go through them one by one & try to decide which one might have affected the problem.  On the other hand, if you take my settings & it makes no difference, I'm not sure what that would mean.  Maybe that would mean it's something to do with differences between W7 & W10.

Then again . . . Do you have a license?  That definitely affects the speed of aggregating.  You'll find a discussion of that via the Table of Contents.  Before I got a license, a 5 minute video from YouTube could easily take 8-12 hours . . . yes, HOURS . . . to aggregate.  Maybe you're just not waiting long enough.  But that's only if you don't have a Firefox license.  You said you have a Chrome license but you didn't mention anything about a Firefox license.

The short content errors are noise.  I see 2 of those pretty much every time I download anything from YouTube.  The downloads complete correctly despite them.  I ignore them.

If you meant to post hit details, that didn't work.  But I don't know whether that information would advance problem resolution any.

And thanks for letting me know the Table of Contents is useful.  I hoped it would be but so many posters seem to just ignore my attempts to direct their attention there.