I am trying to get my script to download subtitles from www.subscene. The problem is that the download button on webpage is made in java, and for some reason i cannot download subtitles even if i extract the URL.

I think this is the code for the download button:

<a id="s_lc_bcr_downloadLink" class="downloadLink rating0" href="javascript:WebForm_DoPostBackWithOptions(new WebForm_PostBackOptions(&quot;s$lc$bcr$downloadLink&quot;, &quot;&quot;, true, &quot;&quot;, &quot;/english/How-I-Met-Your-Mother-Seventh-Season/subtitle-482407-dlpath-90698/zip.zipx&quot;, false, true))">Download English Subtitle</a><a id="s_lc_bcr_previewLink" href="javascript:togglePreview(482407, 'zip');">(See preview)</a>

so i extract the url and tell my script to download it:

urllib.urlretrieve('.zipx','c:\\sub.zip')

(Added '')

But for some reason it doesnt download the right file. What am i supposed to do?

EDIT:

Thanks a lot! unfortunately i cant get it to work :( it says the following

from selenium import webdriver

browser = webdriver.Firefox()
browser.execute_script('WebForm_DoPostBackWithOptions(newWebForm_PostBackOptions("s$lc$bcr$downloadLink", "", true, "", "/english/How-I-Met-Your-Mother-Seventh-Season/subtitle-482407-dlpath-90698/zip.zipx", false, true))')

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#2>", line 1, in <module>
browser.execute_script('WebForm_DoPostBackWithOptions(new WebForm_PostBackOptions("s$lc$bcr$downloadLink", "", true, "", "/english/How-I-Met-Your-Mother-Seventh-Season/subtitle-482407-dlpath-90698/zip.zipx", false, true))')
File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python27\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\webdriver.py", line 385, in execute_script{'script': script, 'args':converted_args})['value']
File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python27\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\webdriver.py", line 153, in execute
self.error_handler.check_response(response)
File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python27\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\errorhandler.py", line 126, in check_response
raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace) 
WebDriverException: Message: ''

I am trying to get my script to download subtitles from www.subscene.. The problem is that the download button on webpage is made in java, and for some reason i cannot download subtitles even if i extract the URL.

I think this is the code for the download button:

<a id="s_lc_bcr_downloadLink" class="downloadLink rating0" href="javascript:WebForm_DoPostBackWithOptions(new WebForm_PostBackOptions(&quot;s$lc$bcr$downloadLink&quot;, &quot;&quot;, true, &quot;&quot;, &quot;/english/How-I-Met-Your-Mother-Seventh-Season/subtitle-482407-dlpath-90698/zip.zipx&quot;, false, true))">Download English Subtitle</a><a id="s_lc_bcr_previewLink" href="javascript:togglePreview(482407, 'zip');">(See preview)</a>

so i extract the url and tell my script to download it:

urllib.urlretrieve('http://subscene./english/How-I-Met-Your-Mother-Seventh-Season/subtitle-482407-dlpath-90698/zip.zipx','c:\\sub.zip')

(Added 'http://subscene.')

But for some reason it doesnt download the right file. What am i supposed to do?

EDIT:

Thanks a lot! unfortunately i cant get it to work :( it says the following

from selenium import webdriver

browser = webdriver.Firefox()
browser.execute_script('WebForm_DoPostBackWithOptions(newWebForm_PostBackOptions("s$lc$bcr$downloadLink", "", true, "", "/english/How-I-Met-Your-Mother-Seventh-Season/subtitle-482407-dlpath-90698/zip.zipx", false, true))')

Traceback (most recent call last):
File "<pyshell#2>", line 1, in <module>
browser.execute_script('WebForm_DoPostBackWithOptions(new WebForm_PostBackOptions("s$lc$bcr$downloadLink", "", true, "", "/english/How-I-Met-Your-Mother-Seventh-Season/subtitle-482407-dlpath-90698/zip.zipx", false, true))')
File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python27\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\webdriver.py", line 385, in execute_script{'script': script, 'args':converted_args})['value']
File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python27\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\webdriver.py", line 153, in execute
self.error_handler.check_response(response)
File "C:\Users\User\AppData\Roaming\Python\Python27\site-packages\selenium\webdriver\remote\errorhandler.py", line 126, in check_response
raise exception_class(message, screen, stacktrace) 
WebDriverException: Message: ''

• javascript
• python
• url
• download

Share Improve this question Follow edited Nov 28, 2011 at 21:38 unutbu 882k196196 gold badges1.8k1.8k silver badges1.7k1.7k bronze badges asked Nov 27, 2011 at 19:06 user1067911user1067911 4311 silver badge55 bronze badges 2

• What your trying to download (zip.zipx) is not the file, thats some javascript. i am looking into how to get the url of the download. – John Riselvato Commented Nov 27, 2011 at 19:32
• This is going to be hard to find the actual url of each file. It seems everything is retrieved from the server via javascript. Which I don't think makes a url other then maybe the local directory which you would have to take a good look at the sites javascript and how it handles these files. I noticed something alot the lines of http://subscene./downloadissue.aspx?subtitleId=482407&contentType=zip which means it finds subtitleId and then ensures contentType of zip and just grabs it from there. Which is probably organised with a form of SQL. – John Riselvato Commented Nov 27, 2011 at 19:38

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1 Answer 1

Sorted by: Reset to default 4

As John said this is not the file but javascript code. So instead of getting that file using urllib.urlretrieve, you can execute the javascript which downloads the files in turn. This can be done using selenium module -

from selenium import webdriver
browser = webdriver.Firefox()
browser.get('http://subscene./english/How-I-Met-Your-Mother-Seventh-Season/subtitle-482407.aspx')        
browser.execute_script('WebForm_DoPostBackWithOptions(new WebForm_PostBackOptions("s$lc$bcr$downloadLink", "", true, "", "/english/How-I-Met-Your-Mother-Seventh-Season/subtitle-482407-dlpath-90698/zip.zipx", false, true))')
raw_input()

I got this javascript snippet using Firebug.