I've recently upgraded my laptop to Xubuntu 14.04 (from a pretty old version of Mint, where I had an older version of get_iplayer working fine). get_iplayer installed from the ppa (I got all the listed dependencies), and TV downloads work fine, however radio (which is most of what I want to get) will only do wma, which is pretty useless since it downloads in realtime.

Here's an example of the output when I try a radio download (I don't actually want the Shipping Forecast, but it would be quick to download as a test!):


$ get_iplayer --type=radio --get 12482
get_iplayer 2.86-ppa17, Copyright (C) 2008-2010 Phil Lewis
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details use --warranty.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain
conditions; use --conditions for details.

Matches:
12482: Shipping Forecast - 23/04/2014, BBC Radio 4, Radio

INFO: 1 Matching Programmes
INFO: Checking existence of default version
INFO: flashaacstd1,flashaaclow1 modes will be tried for version default
INFO: Trying flashaacstd1 mode to record radio: Shipping Forecast - 23/04/2014
INFO: File name prefix = Shipping_Forecast_-_23_04_2014_b0414008_default
RTMPDump v2.4-n87-gita9f353c-ppa8~saucy
(c) 2010 Andrej Stepanchuk, Howard Chu, The Flvstreamer Team; license: GPL
Connecting ...
ERROR: RTMP_Connect0, failed to connect socket. 111 (Connection refused)
INFO: Command exit code 3 (raw code = 768)
WARNING: Failed to stream file /home/hedley/Shipping_Forecast_-_23_04_2014_b0414008_default.partial.m4a.flv via RTMP
INFO: skipping flashaacstd1 mode
INFO: Trying flashaaclow1 mode to record radio: Shipping Forecast - 23/04/2014
INFO: File name prefix = Shipping_Forecast_-_23_04_2014_b0414008_default
RTMPDump v2.4-n87-gita9f353c-ppa8~saucy
(c) 2010 Andrej Stepanchuk, Howard Chu, The Flvstreamer Team; license: GPL
Connecting ...
ERROR: RTMP_Connect0, failed to connect socket. 111 (Connection refused)
INFO: Command exit code 3 (raw code = 768)
WARNING: Failed to stream file /home/hedley/Shipping_Forecast_-_23_04_2014_b0414008_default.partial.m4a.flv via RTMP
INFO: skipping flashaaclow1 mode
INFO: You may wish to try --modes=wma for version default
INFO: Note that wma mode is real-time only, and thus is generally only suitable for recording live radio.
ERROR: Failed to record 'Shipping Forecast - 23/04/2014 (b0414008)'



If I use modes=wma then it works:


$ get_iplayer --type=radio --get 12482 --modes=wma
get_iplayer 2.86-ppa17, Copyright (C) 2008-2010 Phil Lewis
This program comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details use --warranty.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it under certain
conditions; use --conditions for details.

Matches:
12482: Shipping Forecast - 23/04/2014, BBC Radio 4, Radio

INFO: 1 Matching Programmes
INFO: Checking existence of default version
INFO: wma1 modes will be tried for version default
INFO: Trying wma1 mode to record radio: Shipping Forecast - 23/04/2014
INFO: File name prefix = Shipping_Forecast_-_23_04_2014_b0414008_default
INFO: Streaming to file /home/hedley/Shipping_Forecast_-_23_04_2014_b0414008_default_part01.wma
INFO: Streaming thread has completed for file /home/hedley/Shipping_Forecast_-_23_04_2014_b0414008_default_part01.wma
INFO: Thread #1 Recorded 7.63MB in 00:11:07 at 94kbps to /home/hedley/Shipping_Forecast_-_23_04_2014_b0414008_default_part01.wma
INFO: All streaming threads completed



Does anyone have any idea of how I can get any other mode to work? Many thanks for reading!

This bit seems to be key:





RTMPdump is notoriously flaky but you are certainly not the only one currently experiencing issues with radio downloads at the moment.

The cause doesn't seem to be totally consistent across each user but RTMP is invariably involved.

The usual advice is to wait a bit and try again. Having tested it myself on Windows I completed the raido downloads successfully and without any of the issues others are reporting which likely points to a connection issue or something on the Beeb's end when you are trying to execute a download.

If you make an attempt now, do you face the same issue?

I still seem to have the same issue right now. :o(

It didn't worked yesterday morning, yesterday night, this morning or now.

Just tried again and succeeded! Hooray!

Thanks for your help - I'd assumed it was not installed correctly, but I guess it's just temperamental.