[Slackbuilds-users] yt-dlp and python woes

[Didier Spaier]

On 10/22/25 21:40, B. Watson wrote:
> 
> As of last night, google changed something on youtube that prevents
> yt-dlp from working.
> 
> We have the latest release (2025.10.14), so it's not just a matter of
> a version upgrade for us.
> 
> I found that adding this to the yt-dlp command line at least allows
> some videos to be downloaded:
> 
> --extractor-args="youtube:player-client=android_vr"
> 
> We have a worse problem that's specific to Slackware: in the latest
> yt-dlp git, the devs have dropped support for python 3.9. It's not
> just a matter of a version check: they have started using python3
> syntax that got introduced in 3.10.
> 
> The yt-dlp precompiled binaries (as used by our yt-dlp-bin) include
> their own python interpreters, so they will continue to work on 15.0.
> 
> Starting with the next yt-dlp-bin update, everyone who's been
> using yt-dlp should switch to yt-dlp-bin. Unfortunately there is no
> precompiled 32-bit x86 binary, so if you're still using i586/i686,
> you'll be stuck with yt-dlp 2025.10.14, which is already outdated and
> will eventually stop working entirely.
> 
> Since python 3.9 has been officially EOLed as of October 2025, we're
> going to run into other software that can't be updated. It may even be
> worth the headache of having a newer python on SBo, to be installed in
> /opt, but that opens a large can of worms due to python modules...

Thanks for the heads-up.
I have forwarded your email to the Slint mailing list.

As an aside I already build yt-dlp against python 3.11, as I already do for Orca
and its deps (we have 3.11 it alongside 3.9, not in /opt), no fun. Indeed more
problems will appear soon. And I do not expect a new Slackware release including
 newer python (and gibc, while we are at it) any time soon...

Cheers,
Didier