ytdl-org/youtube-dl · warning · ExtractorError

Webpage type is "%s": only video extraction is supported for

Error message

Webpage type is "%s": only video extraction is supported for Slideshare

What it means

SlideshareIE._real_extract parses the slideshare_object JSON out of the page and checks info['slideshow']['type']. Only type 'video' is supported because the extractor builds a direct video URL from jsplayer.video_bucket/doc; any other type (e.g. 'presentation') is refused with this expected error. Slide decks without an embedded video recording have no media stream to extract.

Source

Thrown at youtube_dl/extractor/slideshare.py:38

        'url': 'http://www.slideshare.net/Dataversity/keynote-presentation-managing-scale-and-complexity',
        'info_dict': {
            'id': '25665706',
            'ext': 'mp4',
            'title': 'Managing Scale and Complexity',
            'description': 'This was a keynote presentation at the NoSQL Now! 2013 Conference & Expo (http://www.nosqlnow.com). This presentation was given by Adrian Cockcroft from Netflix.',
        },
    }

    def _real_extract(self, url):
        mobj = re.match(self._VALID_URL, url)
        page_title = mobj.group('title')
        webpage = self._download_webpage(url, page_title)
        slideshare_obj = self._search_regex(
            r'\$\.extend\(.*?slideshare_object,\s*(\{.*?\})\);',
            webpage, 'slideshare object')
        info = json.loads(slideshare_obj)
        if info['slideshow']['type'] != 'video':
            raise ExtractorError('Webpage type is "%s": only video extraction is supported for Slideshare' % info['slideshow']['type'], expected=True)

        doc = info['doc']
        bucket = info['jsplayer']['video_bucket']
        ext = info['jsplayer']['video_extension']
        video_url = compat_urlparse.urljoin(bucket, doc + '-SD.' + ext)
        description = get_element_by_id('slideshow-description-paragraph', webpage) or self._html_search_regex(
            r'(?s)<p[^>]+itemprop="description"[^>]*>(.+?)</p>', webpage,
            'description', fatal=False)

        return {
            '_type': 'video',
            'id': info['slideshow']['id'],
            'title': info['slideshow']['title'],
            'ext': ext,
            'url': video_url,
            'thumbnail': info['slideshow']['pin_image_url'],
            'description': description.strip() if description else None,
        }

View on GitHub (pinned to 956b8c5855)

Solutions

Confirm on the page that a video player (not just the slide viewer) exists for the item.
If you want the slides, download the presentation file (PDF/PPT) directly or use the Slideshare API - this extractor will never handle it.
Find the speaker's recording of the same talk on YouTube/Vimeo instead.
If the item definitely has a video but the error fires, the slideshare_object regex may be stale - update yt-dlp.

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

info = json.loads(slideshare_obj)
if info['slideshow']['type'] != 'video':
    print('not a video slideshow - use another method for the deck')

Type guard

def is_video_slideshow(info: dict) -> bool:
    return info.get('slideshow', {}).get('type') == 'video'

Try / catch

try:
    extract(url)
except ExtractorError as e:
    if 'only video extraction' in str(e):
        download_slides_via_api(url)
    else:
        raise

Prevention

Check for a video player on the Slideshare page before queueing.
Use the Slideshare API/official download for decks, not youtube-dl.
Warn users in batch tooling that non-video decks are skipped by design.

When it happens

Trigger: Extracting a Slideshare URL whose slideshow object has type != 'video' - i.e. a plain presentation, document, or infographic upload with no recorded video track.

Common situations: Users pasting links to ordinary slide decks expecting a download (only the PDF could be fetched, not via this extractor); presentations where the author disabled the video recording; changes to the slideshare_object JSON structure making 'type' resolve to an unexpected value.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of ytdl-org/youtube-dl@956b8c5855 (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2311ce2b9f984c06. Report an issue: GitHub.