What causes "Youku said: Sorry, this video is private" in ytdl-org/youtube-dl?

Verify the video opens in a browser while logged in as the owner — if it 403s/privates there, the error is correct and the video simply cannot be downloaded anonymously.

ytdl-org/youtube-dl · error · ExtractorError

Youku said: Sorry, this video is private

Error message

Youku said: Sorry, this video is private

What it means

Raised by YoukuIE._real_extract when the ups.youku.com UPS JSON response contains an error whose note includes the Chinese string '该视频被设为私密' (this video was set to private). It is an expected=True ExtractorError, meaning the video exists but the uploader made it private, so no formats can be retrieved. youtube-dl marks it expected so it is reported as a user-facing extraction failure rather than a bug.

Source

Thrown at youtube_dl/extractor/youku.py:183

            basic_data_params['password'] = video_password

        headers = {
            'Referer': url,
        }
        headers.update(self.geo_verification_headers())
        data = self._download_json(
            'https://ups.youku.com/ups/get.json', video_id,
            'Downloading JSON metadata',
            query=basic_data_params, headers=headers)['data']

        error = data.get('error')
        if error:
            error_note = error.get('note')
            if error_note is not None and '因版权原因无法观看此视频' in error_note:
                raise ExtractorError(
                    'Youku said: Sorry, this video is available in China only', expected=True)
            elif error_note and '该视频被设为私密' in error_note:
                raise ExtractorError(
                    'Youku said: Sorry, this video is private', expected=True)
            else:
                msg = 'Youku server reported error %i' % error.get('code')
                if error_note is not None:
                    msg += ': ' + error_note
                raise ExtractorError(msg)

        # get video title
        video_data = data['video']
        title = video_data['title']

        formats = [{
            'url': stream['m3u8_url'],
            'format_id': self.get_format_name(stream.get('stream_type')),
            'ext': 'mp4',
            'protocol': 'm3u8_native',
            'filesize': int(stream.get('size')),
            'width': stream.get('width'),

View on GitHub (pinned to 956b8c5855)

Solutions

Verify the video opens in a browser while logged in as the owner — if it 403s/privates there, the error is correct and the video simply cannot be downloaded anonymously.
If you own the video, change its privacy setting on Youku back to public and retry.
If a playlist crawl, catch this expected error per-entry and skip the private item instead of aborting the whole playlist.
If the video is public in a browser but the error persists, the note-matching heuristic may have drifted — compare the raw error note and update the substring match in youtube_dl/extractor/youku.py.

Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Try / catch

try:
    info = ydl.extract_info(youku_url)
except ExtractorError as e:
    if 'this video is private' in str(e):
        skip_or_log(youku_url)  # owner-privated video; not retryable
    else:
        raise

Prevention

Curate link lists before bulk downloads; private Youku videos can never be fetched anonymously.
Treat expected=True extractor errors as skip signals in playlist crawls rather than aborting the run.

When it happens

Trigger: Calling the extractor on a Youku URL whose video the owner has set to private; the API call to https://ups.youku.com/ups/get.json returns data.error with note containing '该视频被设为私密'.

Common situations: Old bookmarked/shared Youku links whose owners later privated the video; crawling playlist entries where some members are private; testing with stale video IDs from unit tests or documentation.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of ytdl-org/youtube-dl@956b8c5855 (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/196df8c547de2f9a. Report an issue: GitHub.