ytdl-org/youtube-dl · error · ExtractorError

not a media file

Error message

not a media file

What it means

RaiIE (the older link-resolver path, around line 502) inspects media['type'] from the resolved media JSON: if it contains 'Audio' it builds an audio format, if it contains 'Video' it uses _extract_relinker_info, otherwise it raises ExtractorError('not a media file'). The check is substring-based ('Audio' in media_type / 'Video' in media_type), so any other type value — e.g. an article, image gallery, or new content type — falls through. Not marked expected=True.

Source

Thrown at youtube_dl/extractor/rai.py:502

        media = self._download_json(
            'http://www.rai.tv/dl/RaiTV/programmi/media/ContentItem-%s.html?json' % content_id,
            content_id, 'Downloading video JSON')

        title = media['name'].strip()

        media_type = media['type']
        if 'Audio' in media_type:
            relinker_info = {
                'formats': [{
                    'format_id': media.get('formatoAudio'),
                    'url': media['audioUrl'],
                    'ext': media.get('formatoAudio'),
                }]
            }
        elif 'Video' in media_type:
            relinker_info = self._extract_relinker_info(media['mediaUri'], content_id)
        else:
            raise ExtractorError('not a media file')

        self._sort_formats(relinker_info['formats'])

        thumbnails = []
        for image_type in ('image', 'image_medium', 'image_300'):
            thumbnail_url = media.get(image_type)
            if thumbnail_url:
                thumbnails.append({
                    'url': compat_urlparse.urljoin(url, thumbnail_url),
                })

        subtitles = self._extract_subtitles(url, media)

        info = {
            'id': content_id,
            'title': title,
            'description': strip_or_none(media.get('desc')),
            'thumbnails': thumbnails,

View on GitHub (pinned to 956b8c5855)

Solutions

1. Make sure the URL points to an actual audio/video page on Rai, not an article or gallery.
2. Update youtube-dl — new media types and resolver changes get patched in extractor updates.
3. Inspect media['type'] for your id (download the resolved JSON) to see what the API thinks the content is.
4. Pick the canonical media page URL from the Rai site UI and retry.

# Pre-check the media type when you have the resolved JSON
is_media = ('Audio' in media.get('type', '')) or ('Video' in media.get('type', ''))

def is_media_payload(media: dict) -> bool:
    t = media.get('type') or ''
    return 'Audio' in t or 'Video' in t

try:
    info = ydl.extract_info(url)
except ExtractorError as e:
    if 'not a media file' in str(e):
        find_media_page_url(url)

When it happens

Trigger: The media JSON for the resolved id has a 'type' field containing neither 'Audio' nor 'Video' (e.g. 'photo', 'article', 'page'); typically reached when a content id resolves to a non-media resource or the resolver returns an unexpected payload shape.

Common situations: Urls for Rai news articles or photo pages rather than media pages; API changes introducing new type strings; id mix-ups where an article id is passed to the media resolver.

Related errors

• %s is not a video or animated image
• No sources found for video %s. Maybe a plain image?
• Unsupported page type %s
• This video is DRM protected.

AI-assisted analysis of ytdl-org/youtube-dl@956b8c5855 (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/aa6efa4e21422515. Report an issue: GitHub.