ytdl-org/youtube-dl · error · ExtractorError

Incomplete YouTube ID %s. URL %s looks truncated.

Error message

Incomplete YouTube ID %s. URL %s looks truncated.

What it means

Raised by YoutubeTruncatedIDIE, a catch-all extractor whose _VALID_URL only matches youtube.com/watch?v=<id> URLs where the video id is 1-10 characters. Real YouTube ids are exactly 11 characters, so this extractor only fires when the generic YouTube extractor (which requires 11 chars) did not match. The error is marked expected=True, so youtube-dl reports it as a clean user-facing failure rather than a bug.

Source

Thrown at youtube_dl/extractor/youtube.py:4495

            'like  youtube-dl '
            '"https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=foo&v=BaW_jenozKc" '
            ' or simply  youtube-dl BaW_jenozKc  .',
            expected=True)


class YoutubeTruncatedIDIE(InfoExtractor):
    IE_NAME = 'youtube:truncated_id'
    IE_DESC = False  # Do not list
    _VALID_URL = r'https?://(?:www\.)?youtube\.com/watch\?v=(?P<id>[0-9A-Za-z_-]{1,10})$'

    _TESTS = [{
        'url': 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_708QY7Ob',
        'only_matching': True,
    }]

    def _real_extract(self, url):
        video_id = self._match_id(url)
        raise ExtractorError(
            'Incomplete YouTube ID %s. URL %s looks truncated.' % (video_id, url),
            expected=True)

View on GitHub (pinned to 956b8c5855)

Solutions

1. Check the id in the 'v=' parameter: it must be exactly 11 characters from [0-9A-Za-z_-]; re-copy the full URL from the browser address bar
2. Quote the URL on the command line (single quotes) so '&' does not background the command and drop the query string
3. If the URL comes from a script or file, verify no line-wrapping/truncation happened before passing it to youtube-dl
4. Confirm the video still exists by opening the URL in a browser

Example fix

# before
youtube-dl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_708QY7Ob
# after (full 11-char id, quoted URL)
youtube-dl 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_708QY7ObE'

import re

def is_valid_youtube_watch_url(url):
    m = re.match(r'^https?://(?:www\.)?youtube\.com/watch\?v=([0-9A-Za-z_-]{11})$', url)
    return m is not None

# reject before invoking the downloader
assert is_valid_youtube_watch_url(url), 'YouTube video id must be exactly 11 chars'

try:
    ydl.download([url])
except ExtractorError as e:
    if 'Incomplete YouTube ID' in str(e):
        log.warning('URL truncated, re-check source: %s', url)  # expected, do not retry
    else:
        raise

When it happens

Trigger: Calling youtube-dl with a URL like 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_708QY7Ob' (id shorter than 11 chars). Typical causes: copy/paste cut the id off, a script truncated the URL, or a shell/environment variable holding the URL chopped the query string.

Common situations: URLs pasted into terminals where '&' splits the query string and only 'v=<partial>' survives; ids mangled by text editors or log truncation; feeding URLs from a file or playlist where lines were wrapped.

Related errors

• Invalid URL
• Invalid URL: %s
• Invalid path
• Unauthorized user "%s"
• Missing "id" field in extractor result

AI-assisted analysis of ytdl-org/youtube-dl@956b8c5855 (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e5f2862636e99145. Report an issue: GitHub.