alltube/resources/FAQ.md

Frequently asked questions

My browser plays the video instead of downloading it

Most recent browsers automatically play a video if it is a format they know how to play. You can usually download the video by doing File > Save to or ctrl + S.

alltubedownload.net is too slow

alltubedownload.net is hosted on a free Heroku server so it has low RAM and CPU.

AllTube probably won't switch to a more expensive hosting because this project does not earn any financial ressources (although donations are welcome) and you are encouraged to host it yourself.

alltubedownload.net often says "An error occurred in the application…"

See above.

Change config parameters

You need to create a YAML file called config.yml in the config/ folder.

See config.example.yml for a list of parameters you can set and their default value.

Enable audio conversion

In order to enable audio conversion, you need to add this to your config.yml file:

convert: true
avconv: path/to/avconv

You will also need to install avconv on your server:

sudo apt-get install libav-tools

Deploy AllTube on Heroku

Create a dyno with the following buildpacks:

• heroku/php
• heroku/nodejs
• heroku/python

You might also need to add the following config variables:

CONVERT=1
PYTHON=/app/.heroku/python/bin/python

Then push the code to Heroku and it should work out of the box.

I can't download videos from some websites (e.g. Dailymotion)

Some websites generate an unique video URL for each IP address. When using AllTube, the URL is generated for our server's IP address and your computer is not allowed to use it. (This is also known to happen with Vevo YouTube videos.)

There are two known workarounds:

• You can run AllTube locally on your computer.
• You can enable streaming videos through the server (see below). Please note that this can use a lot of resources on the server (which is why we won't enable it on alltubedownload.net).

CSS and JavaScript files are missing

You probably don't have the minified files (in the dist folder). You need to either:

• Use a release package
• Run yarn install (see detailed instructions in the README)

I get a 404 error on every page except the index

This is probably because your server does not have mod_rewrite or AllowOverride is disabled. You can work around this by adding this to your config.yml file:

uglyUrls: true

Enable streaming videos through the server

You need to add this to your config.yml file:

stream: true

Note that this can use a lot of ressources on your server.

Download M3U videos

You need to enable streaming (see above).

The downloaded videos have a strange name like videoplayback.mp4

AllTube can rename videos automatically if you enable streaming (see above).

Download a video that isn't available in my country

If the video is available in the server's country, you can download it if you enable streaming (see above).

Run the Docker image

docker run -p 8080:80 rudloff/alltube

Run Heroku locally

You should be able to use heroku local like this:

sudo APACHE_LOCK_DIR=. APACHE_PID_FILE=./pid APACHE_RUN_USER=www-data \
    APACHE_RUN_GROUP=www-data APACHE_LOG_DIR=. \
    heroku local

You might need to create some symlinks before that:

ln -s /usr/sbin/apache2 /usr/sbin/httpd
ln -s /usr/sbin/php-fpm7.0 /usr/sbin/php-fpm

And you probably need to run this in another terminal after heroku local has finished launching php-fpm:

chmod 0667 /tmp/heroku.fcgi.5000.sock

Download 1080p videos from Youtube

Youtube distributes HD content in two separate video and audio files. So AllTube will offer you video-only and audio-only formats in the format list.

You then need to merge them together with a tool like ffmpeg.

You can also enable the experimental remux mode that will merge the best video and the best audio format on the fly:

remux: true

Convert videos to something other than MP3

By default the convert option only allows converting to MP3, in order to keep things simple and ressources usage low. However, you can use the convertAdvanced option like this:

convertAdvanced: true
convertAdvancedFormats: [mp3, avi, flv, wav]

This will add new inputs on the download page that allow users to converted videos to other formats.