Why does ffmpeg ignore protocol_whitelist flag when converting https m3u8 stream?

Question

I am attempting to download and convert an m3u8 stream to mp4 using ffmpeg. The command I first tried was

ffmpeg -i MIE.m3u8 -c copy -bsf:a aac_adtstoasc -safe 0         


        

Answer 1

protocol_whitelist is a parameter only on the input file (in your case, MIE.m3u8), so it must be specified before the input in your command.

Specify -protocol_whitelist file,http,https,tcp,tls prior to -i and it'll work as you expect:

ffmpeg -protocol_whitelist file,http,https,tcp,tls,crypto -i MIE.m3u8 -c copy -bsf:a aac_adtstoasc MIE.mp4

You can a similar case on a Debian Bugs discussion board, and read up more on the syntax of ffmpeg commands.