decode Youtube error?

rgcosma has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I will warn the esteemed monks that the following topic will be a complete waste of their time, still: infrequently, youtube.com is known to display a funny error message stating that a team of highly trained monkeys are working on the issue, followed by a block that looks like base64:

igyxGJ0v1HiKUBebTGamoM1n3CaQ1HBRehCHp2EH5dlhDpkR6ciaNWxnsiYU
9kIoak0BaYFzlWGoAC70p7VEGi95oTDapqPgB3-4p1kg2fdFDQqkkp6-cTuk
Kovj-3u7-AeWRAnzX4_g1D4i8vA1plkcRp0FGqdLZTk0-rdrJVWfhI98brCK
tIDth1u-sLmz8tT0iJtDXv33qnWLeU4sQudDSD4XydgaHLUK6hXfsEQZqu0v
ujKsOdQkQTDvZ0lFiChiK4KZcSdcoRE7xU36-x8ATf4Tl3nrArz5wkyiTaFN
jfa5eTgprRHNQ1j0lZe-M-3iAwbQ1tariPHWhaxtiwNg0_uTV3S_yKGEk3-e
x5Qv4FIMH1ncIN2TtAwhz5TazF5dUzgXvvRDnbWQLOmobh-6JKQ4B8KIQmxO
0o29hns3F2P_ys8-4NhJnCTITt97M2CsOk32Cz7VAKX5r0doJ-AuVamZUoQ8
aizFeQUm6OZ-BSMizn6m19I1YnCzgYsUxiFgH022qYYljx27Zgx8z6X71NA6
p2vIx1DvnjNr4a2oHSGINZzm7_ysagLfaSdJjigY4QrWDpj-bpkHC9DEZlKe
_1TmCXxIXzrlMMPA74oz-1ImnewtEBd8_k7cQow8c_tW6GkCw-AXsu0pCIoN
AE99VvVNmEtPlq4JpPbpGou7J-509RTeLVE7rAy3Q545akwvgn_s-yicghvv
TIxxwimKzT0essSVtElnWJJB3NX9qiLNPXqY5MlmAB8ISAS8w_S7vO9Xzmnd
EsMCjdd-2Xn319UBBN7n9X44kKSJDUdz_bAKSF4LiQrRpnnrsLyp8epCRyy-
6APIpG_wSFtFgDxdLhCGdZ608JVjtAVx5sUO_Uyu2DfhzOVcTLRp7yX1l0EA
9TmpoZ00t7l0MVyuKzWlYafGaetYeLvA426xgnxzxGb5DVlWLyStZciKeYFW
-xVPNCIgQuEHD7rznoa28Lr0I4UDCOVztj7gmYUa_z8Lihxhxkc1repp86rX
9Ob5PRReaip-BWL_Ii29oysIR9qYrSsOmnwtTsJIBzVEm1HGAP21bku-QV07
47evO4UZpykOtoC_z3SRS0S7NpndZ3cMCMUzCSFtmSUIN6VGJLG8AK3k8CXQ
AfBzkjFkXOIxDr7KAC1Y-bZEOFGceDZQDhAMiwOgj_ddn_8KrtQrTdParDaq
sa28AfSiVETEPKhMn-xj5J3__iuhPtfVr3NJsB-CE43Ly88XHrDqKN101ktj
u8vpdM9vRVqiXWa17MBhWEW3KnWaE_uqR8vKFDE8hL-KXCfD7qHcLyZGWWMk
xkA0yYOUJwot8v1xuI8VjTtIRF6lqmmwphz_YCyqdoGZigLNpc8hKmw7rkUf
6jB2dX21EM527-WQzAGQnFIZeEo_MWeEB42ihgFHHk3mCXZ99vWtxdMiO-C0
r3HnYJ5PMybab4yaJ5nWmyN4l5iyF6m0N-LKjgoiWV6v37YazH1tziKDa-P_
I4GcjEnbuTeSOaNMuxRUq7BzK-hJ6IeDi4EYHKZ-uekbV4dX8d5huK932LgZ
xc3cJRyouLmoRcNJeFIaAoYQTYVUPC2XEoivYco5cgYgJlLeXTwBdEmjpUsu
Ho1iQN5hgG8Opvf-Wk-Xx-1NYjKingW9DJIN6akNl7G4leSJh2EOkBmz5QZh
E49lNFNthhQinhwIJjiL5FfGU8-GNCu0REL3_bMT19fGn0UYZG2AoI9Sm4aC
XVtx6Y4o3r-i-jpiCPIdZXx45tpkAr8=

Can anyone guess if the above translates into human-readable information? It's been bothering me to no end and I must know!

Comment on decode Youtube error?

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Re: decode Youtube error? by zwon (Abbot) on Oct 23, 2010 at 16:59 UTC
This is not valid base64. Difference is that Base64 includes `/` and `+`, and here they seems replaced with `-` and `_`. Try to replace characters and decode them using e.g. `base64 -d` or MIME::Base64	[reply] [d/l] [select]
Re: decode Youtube error? by Corion (Patriarch) on Oct 23, 2010 at 14:59 UTC
Have you tried to decode it, using for example MIME::Base64? Have you looked at what the Youtube (API) documentation says? Where in your Perl code do you encounter this problem? You can help us help you better by reducing your Perl code to a small program of about 20 lines that reliably reproduces the problem. Then we can much easier reproduce the problem locally and come up with a relevant solution.	[reply]
Re: decode Youtube error? by Marshall (Canon) on Oct 24, 2010 at 06:57 UTC
I don't know for sure what this is but, it looks similar to a MS "__VIEWSTATE". If that is what it is, then essentially this is some internal server info that the server asks the client to save. This reduces server storage space/db access at the expense of client<->server communication bandwidth. The client acts like extended storage of the server. Its been awhile since I wrote an LWP client to talk to an MS ASP server that required this, but what happens is that the server sends you a bunch of gibberish that you save and then re-send on the next request. The server then supplies "new" gibberish that you save again for the next request. What is that "gibberish", who knows? The client does nothing at all with it. The client just functions as temporary storage for this stuff. Don't know what is happening here, but this is one of the possibilities. And if so, there is no way that you will ever figure out what this bunch of gibberish means. It is server/application specific "state-of-the-connection" information.	[reply]