ytdl-org/youtube-dl · error · ExtractorError

%s said: %s

Error message

%s said: %s

What it means

Raised by TVPIE when the tvp.pl.tvplayer.php page contains a 'notAvailable__text' paragraph or a 'msg error' element — i.e. the station's own page declares the material unavailable (usually geo-restricted to Poland, or the material was removed). The extractor scrapes that DOM error node and rethrows it verbatim. Expected error.

Source

Thrown at youtube_dl/extractor/tvp.py:128

        },
        'skip': 'Transmisja została zakończona lub materiał niedostępny',
    }, {
        'url': 'tvp:22670268',
        'only_matching': True,
    }]

    def _real_extract(self, url):
        video_id = self._match_id(url)

        webpage = self._download_webpage(
            'http://www.tvp.pl/sess/tvplayer.php?object_id=%s' % video_id, video_id)

        error = self._html_search_regex(
            r'(?s)<p[^>]+\bclass=["\']notAvailable__text["\'][^>]*>(.+?)</p>',
            webpage, 'error', default=None) or clean_html(
            get_element_by_attribute('class', 'msg error', webpage))
        if error:
            raise ExtractorError('%s said: %s' % (
                self.IE_NAME, clean_html(error)), expected=True)

        title = self._search_regex(
            r'name\s*:\s*([\'"])Title\1\s*,\s*value\s*:\s*\1(?P<title>.+?)\1',
            webpage, 'title', group='title')
        series_title = self._search_regex(
            r'name\s*:\s*([\'"])SeriesTitle\1\s*,\s*value\s*:\s*\1(?P<series>.+?)\1',
            webpage, 'series', group='series', default=None)
        if series_title:
            title = '%s, %s' % (series_title, title)

        thumbnail = self._search_regex(
            r"poster\s*:\s*'([^']+)'", webpage, 'thumbnail', default=None)

        video_url = self._search_regex(
            r'0:{src:([\'"])(?P<url>.*?)\1', webpage,
            'formats', group='url', default=None)
        if not video_url or 'material_niedostepny.mp4' in video_url:

View on GitHub (pinned to 956b8c5855)

Solutions

  1. If the notice mentions territory, use a Polish IP/VPN.
  2. Open the tvp.pl page in a browser to read the exact notice and confirm the material still exists.
  3. Look for the item on TVP VOD's newer domain (vod.tvp.pl) and use its extractor/URL.
  4. Update to yt-dlp for the rewritten TVP extractors.
Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

import requests
html = requests.get('http://www.tvp.pl/sess/tvplayer.php?object_id=' + video_id).text
if 'notAvailable__text' in html or 'msg error' in html:
    skip(video_id, 'TVP reports unavailable')

Type guard

def tvp_unavailable(html: str) -> bool:
    return 'notAvailable__text' in html or 'class="msg error"' in html

Try / catch

try:
    ydl.extract_info(url)
except ExtractorError as e:
    if 'said:' in str(e) and ('dost' in str(e) or 'unavailable' in str(e).lower()):
        mark_geo_or_removed(url)
    else:
        raise

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Downloading http://www.tvp.pl/sess/tvplayer.php?object_id=<id> whose HTML matches <p class="notAvailable__text">…</p> or contains an element with class 'msg error' — typically 'materiał niedostępny' (material unavailable) or a territorial notice.

Common situations: Accessing TVP VOD from outside Poland, deleted archive items, expired live-stream windows, regional content blocked by broadcaster policy.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of ytdl-org/youtube-dl@956b8c5855 (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/e896bc5369f1c6b5. Report an issue: GitHub.