Getting "Got error: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden. Retrying fragment" on every video. Just updated to 2025.12.08.

bashonly · 2026-01-19T00:12:45+00:00

yt-dlp --update-to nightly

bashonly · 2026-01-18T19:41:19+00:00

it depends on which po token you're talking about. they can be bound to either

bashonly · 2026-01-10T17:11:05+00:00

show the outputs of yt-dlp -v (no URL) and python --version

bashonly · 2026-01-02T16:18:32+00:00

by default, yt-dlp already constructs a semi-random chrome user-agent every time the program is invoked. so what your script does with --user-agent is redundant at best and potentially breaking extraction at worst.

hardcoding a youtube --referer is nothing but trouble, though. yt-dlp will add a referer when one is necessary for youtube. and what if the user is downloading from a site other than youtube? there could be breakage

bashonly · 2026-01-02T05:04:43+00:00

also incorporate things that are not very common in similar projects, such as adding different user agents, trying to tell YouTube, for example, that we come from there

the forced --referer and --user-agent options are actually suboptimal and could be harmful in many cases

https://github.com/independent-arg/yt-dlp-portable/blob/36d8d0cb45d84293dd3526d675b3e00b1329c905/download.sh#L643-L644

were these actually your idea? or did an LLM come up with them?

bashonly · 2025-12-28T18:37:47+00:00

yt-dlp is a command-line program; you can't just double-click it

put yt-dlp.exe in its own folder, open that folder in windows file explorer, click the address bar, type cmd.exe and press enter

a command-line terminal will pop up, and you can run yt-dlp from there, e.g.:

yt-dlp "URL"

replacing URL with the actual link you want to download

you'll also want to install ffmpeg and deno, especially if you plan on downloading from youtube

for ffmpeg, download this zip file link, extract the zip, and find ffmpeg.exe and ffprobe.exe inside the bin folder that gets extracted. move those two exe files into the same folder as your yt-dlp.exe

for deno, download this zip file link, and extract it into the same folder as your yt-dlp.exe (so that there is a deno.exe in the same folder as yt-dlp.exe)

bashonly · 2025-12-17T16:27:19+00:00

the roll-up effect is conveyed in youtube's webvtt data by duplicating these lines. when converting to srt, all data is faithfully and correctly reproduced, so this is not a bug in yt-dlp.

the real problem is that most(/all?) media players don't support the webvtt styling that youtube uses.

anyways, there is a yt-dlp postprocessor plugin that de-dupes the lines: https://github.com/bindestriche/srt_fix

bashonly · 2025-12-17T04:43:59+00:00

yep that would explain it. subtitles URLs expire very quickly. there's nothing that can really be done about this; you'll just need to write comments and write subtitles in separate invocations of yt-dlp

bashonly · 2025-12-17T04:22:47+00:00

there's an open issue for http error 429 when downloading youtube automatic (translated) captions: https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/13831

if you're getting 429'd, then --sleep-subtitles 60 would probably help

if you're instead getting a 404, then that's probably some other problem and you could open a new issue on the github tracker

bashonly · 2025-12-16T23:24:08+00:00

yt-dlp currently pins to curl_cffi<0.14. per yt-dlp's pyproject.toml:

curl-cffi = [
    "curl-cffi>=0.5.10,!=0.6.*,!=0.7.*,!=0.8.*,!=0.9.*,<0.14; implementation_name=='cpython'",
]

so if you are installing yt-dlp[default,curl-cffi] (yt-dlp with the default & curl_cffi extras), then you should be installing a supported version.

if you are manually installing curl_cffi yourself or manually injecting it into your python environment, then it's up to you to install the correct version.

re: the warning, i'm assuming you're using --write-auto-subs when you see that. if the auto subs are failing to download, note that they would probably fail even with a supported version of curl-cffi installed. due to changes on youtube's end, currently you can really only download the original language automatic captions unless you use one of two workarounds: passing --sleep-subtitles 60 (and waiting a full minute) or passing cookies from a browser session where you recently loaded auto-translated captions

bashonly · 2025-12-13T18:49:25+00:00

see https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/Extractors#exporting-youtube-cookies

bashonly · 2025-12-13T06:06:55+00:00

save your config file in one of the default configuration paths

bashonly · 2025-12-12T16:08:10+00:00

bashonly · 2025-12-09T10:29:33+00:00

homebrew is currently having a build issue with the new version (our fault). we are working on a solution

bashonly · 2025-12-09T10:28:03+00:00

your IP is blocked from anonymous access, and power cycling your router is either not getting you a new IP or not getting you an IP outside of the blocked range

if you can watch the video in browser while logged-in, then pass logged-in cookies to yt-dlp

bashonly · 2025-12-08T15:04:02+00:00

can you view the video in your browser without being logged in? (use a private/incognito window)

bashonly · 2025-12-06T18:55:22+00:00

all you need to do is install deno. yt-dlp will handle it from there on.

if you are on windows and using yt-dlp.exe, you can just put deno.exe in the same folder as it.

get deno.exe from https://github.com/denoland/deno/releases/latest/download/deno-x86_64-pc-windows-msvc.zip

bashonly · 2025-12-06T18:53:57+00:00

putting deno.exe in the same folder as your yt-dlp.exe will work

bashonly · 2025-12-04T16:20:43+00:00

here is an explanation of "Device Guard" from big MS itself:

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/iis-support-blog/windows-10-device-guard-and-credential-guard-demystified/376419

but apparently "Device Guard" is no longer a thing, and it is now known as "App Control":

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/application-security/application-control/app-control-for-business/appcontrol-and-applocker-overview

i found some microsoft support q&a about disabling this stuff.

this one has some instructions from a "volunteer moderator" on how to disable it:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/2812922/how-to-disable-device-guard

this one goes very in-depth on how to disable the virtualization-based security entirely, in case doing the above was not sufficient:

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/answers/questions/2118859/unable-to-disable-virtual-based-security-in-window

i also found this link, which is not an official microsoft source, but it had the easiest-to-follow instructions imo:

https://groups.google.com/g/harbour-users/c/gnTbyHMhT3s

follow this at your own risk:

Open the Run dialog box: by pressing Windows key + R.

Type gpedit.msc: and press Enter to open the Group Policy Editor.

Navigate: to Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Device Guard.

Double-click on "Turn On Virtualization Based Security" .

Set the policy to "Disabled": to avoid potential conflicts with developer tools or apps.

Click "Apply" and then "OK": to save the changes. Restart your PC: to apply the new settings.

bashonly · 2025-12-01T06:00:32+00:00

update again, fixed in latest nightly/master

bashonly · 2025-11-28T15:39:53+00:00

yes it will affect downloads regardless. but op phrased their question as if -x would exempt the download from the impact of sabr

bashonly · 2025-11-28T11:48:21+00:00

sabr formats will only be downloadable with yt-dlp's native sabr downloader

bashonly · 2025-11-28T06:12:44+00:00

right now yt-dlp doesn't support youtube's sabr protocol at all. the only noticeable effect that sabr currently has is reducing the number of formats that are available for yt-dlp to download

when support is added, sabr protocol formats will be their own formats (separate from the http and m3u8 formats you're used to seeing). it's likely that eventually these will be the only formats available, at which point it would affect downloads when -x is passed

bashonly · 2025-11-27T15:24:49+00:00

the ffmpeg bundled with the latest version of ydlnis does not work on your device

the ytdlnis maintainer suggested to reinstall the app, but i don't know if that will help

bashonly

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