ytdl-org/youtube-dl · error · ExtractorError

Unable to resolve clip

Error message

Unable to resolve clip

What it means

PluralsightIE raises ExtractorError('Unable to resolve clip') after downloading the full course JSON and failing to find a clip whose clipIndex (or index) matches the clip query parameter within any module whose moduleName or name matches the name parameter. Unlike 'Invalid URL', this error is NOT marked expected=True, so it surfaces as an unexpected extraction failure. It means the course metadata was fetched successfully but the requested clip does not exist in it.

Source

Thrown at youtube_dl/extractor/pluralsight.py:307

        collection = course['modules']

        clip = None

        for module_ in collection:
            if name in (module_.get('moduleName'), module_.get('name')):
                for clip_ in module_.get('clips', []):
                    clip_index = clip_.get('clipIndex')
                    if clip_index is None:
                        clip_index = clip_.get('index')
                    if clip_index is None:
                        continue
                    if compat_str(clip_index) == clip_idx:
                        clip = clip_
                        break

        if not clip:
            raise ExtractorError('Unable to resolve clip')

        title = clip['title']
        clip_id = clip.get('clipName') or clip.get('name') or clip['clipId']

        QUALITIES = {
            'low': {'width': 640, 'height': 480},
            'medium': {'width': 848, 'height': 640},
            'high': {'width': 1024, 'height': 768},
            'high-widescreen': {'width': 1280, 'height': 720},
        }

        QUALITIES_PREFERENCE = ('low', 'medium', 'high', 'high-widescreen',)
        quality_key = qualities(QUALITIES_PREFERENCE)

        AllowedQuality = collections.namedtuple('AllowedQuality', ['ext', 'qualities'])

        ALLOWED_QUALITIES = (
            AllowedQuality('webm', ['high', ]),

View on GitHub (pinned to 956b8c5855)

Solutions

  1. Open the course page in a browser and re-copy the player URL so author/name/clip/course match the current course structure.
  2. Confirm the clip number: the extractor compares str(clipIndex) to the 'clip' param, so pass the exact index as a string (e.g. clip=3).
  3. Check that 'name' matches a module name exactly (it is compared with `in` against moduleName/name), not the clip title.
  4. If it persists, dump the course JSON via _download_course and inspect module/clip indices to see how they shifted.
Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Try / catch

try:
    info = ydl.extract_info(url)
except ExtractorError as e:
    if 'Unable to resolve clip' in str(e):
        # course structure changed; re-fetch page and rebuild URL
        ...

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: The 'clip' query value has no matching clipIndex/index in the course's modules JSON; the module 'name' does not equal the 'name' param so clips are never scanned; or clips lack both 'clipIndex' and 'index' keys (both None -> continue). Any mismatch between URL-encoded clip number and the actual course structure triggers it.

Common situations: Course content updated and the clip index shifted or the clip was removed; clip index is 0-based in the URL but the course data uses different indexing; name slug typo versus the module's moduleName; stale copied URLs from an old course revision.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of ytdl-org/youtube-dl@956b8c5855 (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/93efaa4d99fa01bf. Report an issue: GitHub.