signature issue when I want to get a direct URL from YouTube via PHP

Question

after research to how i get direct URL from YouTube videos like this one asking : How to get direct URL of video from YouTube URL? [closed]

i finally made a simple script to generate a direct URL from YouTube video with php and it works just fine, but not with all videos

it doesn't work with "signature" videos,

this is my code:

if(isset($_GET['url']) && $_GET['url'] != ""){
    parse_str( parse_url( $_GET['url'], PHP_URL_QUERY ), $vars );


    $id=$vars['v'];
    $dt=file_get_contents("https://www.youtube.com/get_video_info?video_id=$id&el=embedded&ps=default&eurl=&gl=US&hl=en");
    //var_dump(explode("&",$dt));
    if (strpos($dt, 'status=fail') !== false) {

        $x=explode("&",$dt);
        $t=array(); $g=array(); $h=array();

        foreach($x as $r){
            $c=explode("=",$r);
            $n=$c[0]; $v=$c[1];
            $y=urldecode($v);
            $t[$n]=$v;
        }

            $x=explode("&",$dt);
            foreach($x as $r){
                $c=explode("=",$r);
                $n=$c[0]; $v=$c[1];
                $h[$n]=urldecode($v);
            }
            $g[]=$h;
            $g[0]['error'] = true;
            $g[0]['instagram'] = "egy.js";
            $g[0]['apiMadeBy'] = 'El-zahaby';
        echo json_encode($g,JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);

    }else{

        $x=explode("&",$dt);
        $t=array(); $g=array(); $h=array();

        foreach($x as $r){
            $c=explode("=",$r);
            $n=$c[0]; $v=$c[1];
            $y=urldecode($v);
            $t[$n]=$v;
        }
        $streams = explode(',',urldecode($t['url_encoded_fmt_stream_map']));
        foreach($streams as $dt){ 
            $x=explode("&",$dt);
            foreach($x as $r){
                $c=explode("=",$r);
                $n=$c[0]; $v=$c[1];
                $h[$n]=urldecode($v);
            }
            $g[]=$h;
        }
        echo json_encode($g,JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
       // var_dump( $g[1]["quality"],true);
    }
}else{
    @$myObj->error = true;
    $myObj->msg = "there is no youtube link";

    $myObj->madeBy = "El-zahaby";
    $myObj->instagram = "egy.js";
    $myJSON = json_encode($myObj,JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);

    echo $myJSON;

}

example of issue : https://you-link.herokuapp.com/?url=yt.com?v=csy7cF1T2vk

update:

the code on : gist.github

any solution ? thanks a lot

Assignor

Hi @a-el-zahaby how do you solve this ? I want MP4 URL from YouTube URL, any suggestion ? – Referee

Answer 1

This is my solution based on the latest Youtube Website Update (2022).

<?php
    function YT_IN_DX($url){
        $cookie_file_path = "cookies.txt";
        $agent = "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:43.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/46.0";
        $ch = curl_init();
        $headers[] = "Connection: Keep-Alive";
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $agent);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, $cookie_file_path); 
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, $cookie_file_path); 
        curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
        $res = curl_exec($ch);
        curl_close($ch);
        return $res;
    }
    function YT_V_INFO($v){
        $url="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=$v";
        $html=YT_IN_DX($url);
        $json_code=Explode_Content('var ytInitialPlayerResponse = ', ';</script><div id="player" class="skeleton flexy"', $html);
        $jsondownload1=json_decode($json_code, true)["streamingData"]["formats"];
        $data=str_replace("\u0026","&",$jsondownload1);
        return $data;
    }

    function Explode_Content($first, $last, $string){
        $exp=explode($first,$string);
        $exp=explode($last,$exp[1]);
        return $exp[0];
    }
    
    // Include these functions at the top.
    
    $video_info = YT_V_INFO("6chhghoMGVQ"); // Add Youtube Video ID
    
    //// Get direct video link
    echo YT_V_INFO("6chhghoMGVQ")[0]["url"];
    
    //// Get video quality informations in array.
    print_r($video_info);
?>

For the video quality you can get only the low, for the medium or the HD quality you get the video separated AUDIO-LINK / VIDEO-LINK.

Victoir

Can you please explain this code by add // comment on the lines – Assignor

Hello, please tell me first if the code work with you? – Victoir

Yes, it works, but I was hoping to get all the qualities – Assignor

You can get other qualities but separated AUDIO-LINK / VIDEO-LINK, so if you want, i complete the code for you – Victoir

@AnassElFakir hi I am trying your php functions from my local setup but $videolink returns empty? Should it still work?? – Barling

Getting PHP Warning: Trying to access array offset on value of type null in a*.php on line 29 – Feeney

Hello, I updated the code to get the video download link with the choice of quality. – Victoir

Answer 2

This is another code to get each video qualities from youtube get_video_info

<?php
function YT_IN_DX($url){
    $cookie_file_path = "cookies.txt";
    $agent            = "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:43.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/46.0";
    $ch               = curl_init();
    $headers[]        = "Connection: Keep-Alive";
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $headers);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYHOST, 0);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, false);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_USERAGENT, $agent);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, 1);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEFILE, $cookie_file_path);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_COOKIEJAR, $cookie_file_path);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $url);
    $res = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);
    return $res;
}
function YT_V_INFO($v){
    $url         = "https://www.youtube.com/get_video_info?video_id=$v";
    $html        = urldecode(YT_IN_DX($url));
    $video_links = Explode_Content('playabilityStatus', 'adSafetyReason', $html);
    $json        = str_replace("\u0026", "&", $video_links);
    $json        = '{"playabilityStatus' . $json . 'adSafetyReason":{"isEmbed":true}}';
    $array       = json_decode($json, true);
    if (isset($array["playabilityStatus"]["status"]) && $array["playabilityStatus"]["status"] == "UNPLAYABLE") {
        $data = array("error" => $array["playabilityStatus"]["status"]);
    }else{
        $formats = $array["streamingData"]["formats"];
        for ($a = 0; $a <= (count($formats) - 1); $a++){
            $data[] = array(
                "url" => $array["streamingData"]["formats"][$a]["url"],
                "mimeType" => $array["streamingData"]["formats"][$a]["mimeType"],
                "quality" => $array["streamingData"]["formats"][$a]["quality"],
                "qualityLabel" => $array["streamingData"]["formats"][$a]["qualityLabel"],
                "width" => $array["streamingData"]["formats"][$a]["width"],
                "height" => $array["streamingData"]["formats"][$a]["height"],
                "audioQuality" => $array["streamingData"]["formats"][$a]["audioQuality"],
                "approxDurationMs" => $array["streamingData"]["formats"][0]["approxDurationMs"]
            );
        }
    }
    return $data;
}
function Explode_Content($first, $last, $string)
{
    $exp = explode($first, $string);
    $exp = explode($last, $exp[1]);
    return $exp[0];
}
$videoinfo = YT_V_INFO("6chhghoMGVQ");
// $videoinfo=YT_V_INFO("sJsoyuQAepQ");
print_r($videoinfo);

?>

With this method you can't get some videos ID data, if not allowed by owner. this is two examples :

$videoinfo = YT_V_INFO("6chhghoMGVQ");

Output :

Array
(
    [0] => Array
        (
            [url] => https://r4---sn-p5h-gc5d.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?id=e9c861821a0c1954&itag=18&source=youtube&requiressl=yes&mm=31,26&mn=sn-p5h-gc5d,sn-hpa7znsd&ms=au,onr&mv=m&pl=21&ei=fmWRXLGxLIKZ1wb61YyIBQ&susc=yt&initcwndbps=232500&mime=video/mp4&gir=yes&clen=13861924&ratebypass=yes&dur=276.271&lmt=1448537568788216&mt=1553032481&fvip=4&c=WEB&ip=196.64.208.187&ipbits=0&expire=1553054174&sparams=ip,ipbits,expire,id,itag,source,requiressl,mm,mn,ms,mv,pl,ei,susc,initcwndbps,mime,gir,clen,ratebypass,dur,lmt&signature=E2DEC9FF027D3810BF4309AD81E1C22E51BDA8F8.DCA10F844A294D5D267F518DBF0951B757855D2B&key=yt8
            [mimeType] => video/mp4; codecs="avc1.42001E, mp4a.40.2"
            [quality] => medium
            [qualityLabel] => 360p
            [width] => 640
            [height] => 360
            [audioQuality] => AUDIO_QUALITY_LOW
            [approxDurationMs] => 276271
        )

    [1] => Array
        (
            [url] => https://r4---sn-p5h-gc5d.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?id=e9c861821a0c1954&itag=22&source=youtube&requiressl=yes&mm=31,26&mn=sn-p5h-gc5d,sn-hpa7znsd&ms=au,onr&mv=m&pl=21&ei=fmWRXLGxLIKZ1wb61YyIBQ&susc=yt&initcwndbps=232500&mime=video/mp4&ratebypass=yes&dur=276.271&lmt=1470942139723144&mt=1553032481&fvip=4&c=WEB&ip=196.64.208.187&ipbits=0&expire=1553054174&sparams=ip,ipbits,expire,id,itag,source,requiressl,mm,mn,ms,mv,pl,ei,susc,initcwndbps,mime,ratebypass,dur,lmt&signature=B99844F18562D76976B29A1E6358A3C6D6A0DA78.CD747441B3C6883D3639B584BDACC4023C0A9082&key=yt8
            [mimeType] => video/mp4; codecs="avc1.64001F, mp4a.40.2"
            [quality] => hd720
            [qualityLabel] => 720p
            [width] => 1280
            [height] => 720
            [audioQuality] => AUDIO_QUALITY_MEDIUM
            [approxDurationMs] => 276271
        )

    [2] => Array
        (
            [url] => https://r4---sn-p5h-gc5d.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?id=e9c861821a0c1954&itag=43&source=youtube&requiressl=yes&mm=31,26&mn=sn-p5h-gc5d,sn-hpa7znsd&ms=au,onr&mv=m&pl=21&ei=fmWRXLGxLIKZ1wb61YyIBQ&susc=yt&initcwndbps=232500&mime=video/webm&gir=yes&clen=16923548&ratebypass=yes&dur=0.000&lmt=1448363037942780&mt=1553032481&fvip=4&c=WEB&ip=196.64.208.187&ipbits=0&expire=1553054174&sparams=ip,ipbits,expire,id,itag,source,requiressl,mm,mn,ms,mv,pl,ei,susc,initcwndbps,mime,gir,clen,ratebypass,dur,lmt&signature=B477F9D1D7A34ECFAF8C7CDBC94A46B365633A26.DEC0E30537E6DE02FD960E515CC5DDB4CFEFC65C&key=yt8
            [mimeType] => video/webm; codecs="vp8.0, vorbis"
            [quality] => medium
            [qualityLabel] => 360p
            [width] => 640
            [height] => 360
            [audioQuality] => AUDIO_QUALITY_MEDIUM
            [approxDurationMs] => 276271
        )

)

This is another video ID not allowed by his owner.

$videoinfo=YT_V_INFO("sJsoyuQAepQ");

Output :

Array ( [error] => UNPLAYABLE )

Victoir

Please accept the answer if this is exactly what you want (A. El-zahaby). – Victoir

I get a 403 when I try to visit the URL. – Jackelynjackeroo

not working any more :( ,, but my old code still working – Assignor