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?

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.

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.

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.

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!

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

Or you can add or to your command.

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

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