Who here has a Youtube-DL compile for WinXP?

[nicolaasjan]

5 hours ago, autodidact said:

@nicolaasjan

I have attempted to make compatible 64-bit OpenSSL shared libraries using MSYS2.  If you would like to test them.

It works. 

[debug] Command-line config: ['-v']
[debug] User config "C:\Users\Nico\AppData\Roaming\yt-dlp\config.txt": ['--rm-cache-dir', '--console-title', '--js-runtimes', 'node', '-o', '~/Desktop/%(title)s.%(ext)s', '-S', 'res:1080,vcodec:vp9,acodec:opus', '--embed-thumbnail', '--add-metadata', '--convert-thumbnails', 'jpg', '--ppa', 'ffmpeg:-metadata synopsis=""', '--force-ipv4', '-N', '6', '--sponsorblock-remove', 'all']
[debug] Encodings: locale cp1252, fs utf-8, pref cp1252, out cp1252 (No VT), error cp1252 (No VT), screen cp1252 (No VT)
[debug] yt-dlp version nicolaasjan/yt-dlp@2026.01.09.064524 (win7_exe*)
[debug] Python 3.14.2 (CPython AMD64 64bit) - Windows-7-6.1.7601-SP1 (OpenSSL 3.6.0 1 Oct 2025)
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg N-122272-g224b3ff82a-WIN7 (fdk,setts), ffprobe N-122272-g224b3ff82a-WIN7, phantomjs 2.5.0
[debug] Optional libraries: Cryptodome-3.23.0, brotli-1.2.0, certifi-2026.01.04, curl_cffi-0.13.0, mutagen-1.47.0, requests-2.32.5, sqlite3-3.50.4, urllib3-2.6.3, websockets-16.0, yt_dlp_ejs-0.3.2
[debug] JS runtimes: node-20.19.2
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[debug] Request Handlers: urllib, requests, websockets, curl_cffi
[debug] Plugin directories: C:\Users\Nico\AppData\Roaming\yt-dlp\plugins\bgutil-ytdlp-pot-provider\yt_dlp_plugins
[debug] Loaded 1853 extractors
Removing cache dir C:\Users\Nico/.cache\yt-dlp ..

yt-dlp_win7.7z

Edited January 13 by nicolaasjan

[nicolaasjan]

My yt-dlp branch now shows:

Quote

This branch is 1 commit behind yt-dlp/yt-dlp:master.

But this change is already applied in my own builds before the patch was officially merged. 

[johk]

As I don't think that it is fair to report this to yt-dlp, as I'm using your builds under Windows 7 (and the officials aren't valid for this), and so, just in case, the fault is in this build, I want to tell that your latest, this is 2026.01.19.143412, but not the previous, this is 2026.01.18.152406, there is a problem with DNS resolving.

Instead request the OS to resolve an A DNS record (this is the IPv4 IP) for the host of the video www.youtube.com (after re-review is not the host of the video, it doesn't even reach that step, is www.youtube.com), requests a ?65? DNS record (question mark, 6, 5, question mark), that is absolutely invalid (there is no such record in the standard and so replies the Google DNS server).

I use my own DNS resolver (local resolver, I mean, not external) and so I can inspect what is going on with DNS requests and so I'm seen it and reporting it.

Where is the fault coming? I don't have the knowledge to tell. Just that in the 18th of January, it works OK.

Regards.

 

EDIT: just to add up, I double checked the hash and file download isn't corrupted.

 

EDIT2: now that I think about it... 65 matches to the decimal value of the character A (capital A)... Might be some sort of UTF or ASCII thing? DNS is pure ASCII (or maybe ANSI), so no clue what has been introduced this issue.

 

LAST EDIT: ok I wasted the time digging it, using wireshark in loopback mode, and 65 means code 41, which means EDNS.

Why on earth yt-dlp is now requesting an EDNS record for www.youtube.com :-?

Edited 13 hours ago by johk

[nicolaasjan]

2 hours ago, johk said:

I want to tell that your latest, this is 2026.01.19.143412, but not the previous, this is 2026.01.18.152406, there is a problem with DNS resolving.

I have little to no understanding of networking, so I'm afraid I can´t help you with this particular issue. 

I just tested a random video from YouTube in my Windows 7 VM and all went fine.

Edited 11 hours ago by nicolaasjan

[nicolaasjan]

What is the output of :

nslookup -querytype=TYPE65 www.youtube.com

(this checks if your local resolver/OS handles Type 65 queries correctly outside of yt-dlp)

And what is the output of a --verbose log?

Edited 12 hours ago by nicolaasjan

[nicolaasjan]

It could be, that the issue has arisen because I updated to the module curl_cffi 0.14.0. 

What happens when you add the `--force-ipv4` flag to your yt-dlp command?

[johk]

It is actually the curl stage, as it is what it fails when can't  do an OPT DNS query type 41 hex (65 is the decimal conversion)).

No, my DNS server/resolver software doesn't support it. I should have told, but I got tired of test, renames, edits... oh dear...

I know the software is old, but trusted, but, also, there shouldn't be need to hardcode EDNS queries on curl. Too paranoid, in my opinion.

I tested with the "--force-ipv4" and it is the same.

If the curl update is really necessary... I'll have to change the software, but it is really dumb reason :/

It works if I redirect queries to an external resolver (example: 1.1.1.1)... but defeats the purpose of using a local one in first place

Do you know what is really curious? That I almost always perform formats queries first, and it does this without a problem (querying correctly an A record for www.youtube.com), but when queries it again (or direct download, without query formats first) for download...  In other words, it happens at download time

Quote

[info] Writing video subtitles to: x:\I_support_NYC_Mayor_Mamdani_s_executive_order_11_-_here_s_what
_I_hope_it_focuses_on Louis_Rossmann 20260118 ZCaOuftYMMg 256x144 19-58 avc1.4d400c.en-orig.srt
[debug] Invoking http downloader on "https://www.youtube.com/api/timedtext?v=ZCaOuftYMMg&ei=4_tvaafa
Lt2IvdIPocaX0A8&caps=asr&opi=112496729&xoaf=4&xowf=1&xospf=1&hl=en&ip=0.0.0.0&ipbits=0&expire=176897
1859&sparams=ip%2Cipbits%2Cexpire%2Cv%2Cei%2Ccaps%2Copi%2Cxoaf&signature=D76B73CBED247243809B00D393F
A81C25F3A7B.47AC922C966E90FC4576A9BE345A85EAECABE737&key=yt8&kind=asr&lang=en&fmt=srt"
[download] Got error: Failed to perform, curl: (28) Resolving timed out after 20004 milliseconds. Se
e https://curl.se/libcurl/c/libcurl-errors.html first for more details.. Retrying (1/10)...
[download] Got error: Failed to perform, curl: (28) Resolving timed out after 20010 milliseconds. Se
e https://curl.se/libcurl/c/libcurl-errors.html first for more details.. Retrying (2/10)...
[download] Got error: Failed to perform, curl: (28) Resolving timed out after 20007 milliseconds. Se
e https://curl.se/libcurl/c/libcurl-errors.html first for more details.. Retrying (3/10)...
[download] Got error: Failed to perform, curl: (28) Resolving timed out after 20007 milliseconds. Se
e https://curl.se/libcurl/c/libcurl-errors.html first for more details.. Retrying (4/10)...

In the version of curl I have I don't have such an EDNS option to test.

Quote

curl 8.10.0 (x86_64-w64-mingw32) libcurl/8.10.0 LibreSSL/3.9.2 zlib/1.3.1 brotli/1.1.0 zstd/1.5.6 Wi
nIDN libpsl/0.21.5 libssh2/1.11.0 nghttp2/1.63.0 ngtcp2/1.7.0 nghttp3/1.5.0
Release-Date: 2024-09-11
Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher gophers http https imap imaps ipfs ipns ldap ldaps mqtt pop3 po
p3s rtsp scp sftp smb smbs smtp smtps telnet tftp ws wss
Features: alt-svc AsynchDNS brotli CAcert HSTS HTTP2 HTTP3 HTTPS-proxy IDN IPv6 Kerberos Largefile l
ibz NTLM PSL SPNEGO SSL SSPI threadsafe UnixSockets zstd

Edited 10 hours ago by johk

[VistaLover]

@johk

What happens if you switch to the 32-bit yt-dlp variant for Win7 ? 

https://github.com/nicolaasjan/yt-dlp/releases/download/2026.01.19.143412/yt-dlp_x86_win7.exe

That one doesn't come with the curl_cffi Python module bundled (it's currently only 64-bit); some sites require this module to work, but NOT youtube.com (yet) ...

1 hour ago, johk said:

In the version of curl I have I don't have such an EDNS option to test

curl_cffi is a Python binding (wrapper) for curl-impersonate, not for "ordinary" curl ; curl-impersonate uses Google's BoringSSL crypto lib (not Libre/OpenSSL), making it incompatible with < Win7  (I have Vista) ...

curl 8.15.0-IMPERSONATE (Windows) 

libcurl/8.15.0-IMPERSONATE 
BoringSSL 
zlib/1.3
brotli/1.1.0 
zstd/1.5.6 
c-ares/1.30.0 
WinIDN 
nghttp2/1.63.0 
ngtcp2/1.11.0 
nghttp3/1.9.0

Release-Date: [unreleased]

Protocols: dict file ftp ftps gopher gophers http https imap imaps ipfs ipns ldap ldaps mqtt pop3 pop3s rtsp smb smbs smtp smtps telnet tftp ws wss
Features: alt-svc AsynchDNS brotli ECH HSTS HTTP2 HTTP3 HTTPS-proxy HTTPSRR IDN IPv6 Largefile libz NTLM SSL SSLS-EXPORT threadsafe Unicode UnixSockets zstd

[johk]

1 hour ago, VistaLover said:

What happens if you switch to the 32-bit yt-dlp variant for Win7 ? 

https://github.com/nicolaasjan/yt-dlp/releases/download/2026.01.19.143412/yt-dlp_x86_win7.exe

That's it!!!

Oh lord , what a waste of day doing tests back and forth, searching for alternatives, finding BIND9 stopped support for Windows on 9.17.14.... Anything, but not with the x86 build...

I'll end with a correction to myself.

I should have said that EDNS is not for security only. I always mix it with DNSSEC (which actually is a feature of the upstream curl utility), despite this requires EDNS, too.But, anyway, there is no need for such implementation, IMHO.

Edited 7 hours ago by johk

[nicolaasjan]

I don't think there will be many users of the 64-bit version that also have an old local DNS resolver, but nevertheless I will downgrade curl_cffi to version 0.13.0 for the next release.
Forcing these modern DNS extensions on a legacy-OS target is counter-productive anyway.

Meanwhile, here is a 64-bit test version, so we can see if curl_cffi 0.13.0 doesn't give issues for you with 2026.01.19.143412.