"No such file or directory" error when merging

Question

I use bestvideo+bestaudiocommand to download higher than 720p videos from YouTube as audio and video streams are seperated. On my secondary machine I always get No such file or directory error after downloading:

ERROR: file:video.mp4: No such file or directory

This is odd since both of the files exists and are fully functional. By default the program downloads to C:\Windows\SysWOW64 on Windows. I run PowerShell as adminstrator, full command for a video:

youtube-dl -f bestvideo+bestaudio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aLjwVVNq4s

output:

youtube-dl -f bestvideo+bestaudio https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6aLjwVVNq4s
[youtube] 6aLjwVVNq4s: Downloading webpage
[youtube] 6aLjwVVNq4s: Downloading video info webpage
[youtube] 6aLjwVVNq4s: Extracting video information
WARNING: Requested formats are incompatible for merge and will be merged into mkv.
[download] Destination: End of the Line [SFM]-6aLjwVVNq4s.f137.mp4
[download] 100% of 133.01MiB in 04:03
[download] Destination: End of the Line [SFM]-6aLjwVVNq4s.f251.webm
[download] 100% of 13.10MiB in 00:19
[ffmpeg] Merging formats into "End of the Line [SFM]-6aLjwVVNq4s.mkv"
ERROR: file:End of the Line [SFM]-6aLjwVVNq4s.f137.mp4: No such file or directory

youtube-dl 2018.03.26.1 (the latest version at the time) installed.

Answer 1

By default the program downloads to C:\Windows\SysWOW64 on Windows.

As a small niggle, youtuble-dl downloads files to the relative directory it was invoked from.

In the case of an Admin Powershell or cmd prompt, the files are redirected from C:\Windows\System32 (the default folder for an Admin prompt) to C:\Windows\SysWOW64. This is not typical for non-Admin Powershell or cmd prompts (the folder or redirection).

Regarding your issue, I might try using another path (i.e. use a non-Admin prompt). I encountered no issues with C:\Windows\SysWOW64 myself but perhaps FFMpeg is choking on it for some reason in your case.