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Puzzle about SCALAR reference when downloading

user-857

When I download with get_iplayer, sometimes I receive the message:
Not a SCALAR reference at get_iplayer.pl line 7099.
I am then told that my recording is complete.
If I try to download again, I get the same message, but after a few goes the download will take place okay.
What is going on?

user-2

That is a bug which has been fixed for next release. Instead of that error, get_iplayer should print a warning about a missing element in an HLS playlist and continue processing. It's most likely that one of the CDNs was returning a blank or malformed HLS playlist and it took a number of retries to get a working playlist and thus avoid the broken warning code.

user-857

Thanks for the reply. But why has the problem only started now? If I read your reply correctly, surely I should have been receiving the error messages lots of times, rather than the problem starting for the first time a few days ago.

user-30

Quote:Quote:surely I should have been receiving the error messages lots of times, rather than the problem starting for the first time a few days ago.

Maybe you just got lucky previously and had no "missing element in an HLS playlist" during any of your downloads.

Put another way: the error is caused by the way get_iplayer handles the CDN doing something wrong. If the CDN wasn't doing something wrong for you previously then you wouldn't have seen the error.

user-857

Well, yes, I suppose I have to agree. I do often get lots of error messages when I download, but the download then proceeds okay. So maybe I was just lucky beforehand.

The problem isn't a major one, because I always manage to download ... eventually. So roll on the next release!

user-929

It's worth knowing that the workaround until the issue is fixed, is to edit line 7099 by hand and change $$conn to $conn

user-585

Or you can add
Code:
--exclude-supplier=akamai
or
Code:
--exclude-supplier=limelight
to your command.

user-837

Quote:Quote:It’s worth knowing that the workaround until the issue is fixed, is to edit line 7099 by hand and change $$conn to $conn

Quote

I also edited line 7107 and changed $$conn to $conn

user-585

You don't need to do that anymore. Update to 2.93.

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