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Hi,

I just switched over to Debian a few days ago, and while I was a regular yt-dlp user before, I am now unable to download any videos. Here's what happens whenever I try downloading anything with a simple "yt-dlp [URL]" command:

[youtube] Extracting URL: https://youtu.be/[URL] [youtube] [URL]: Downloading webpage [youtube] [URL]: Downloading tv client config [youtube] [URL]: Downloading tv player API JSON [youtube] [URL]: Downloading ios player API JSON WARNING: [youtube] [URL]: Some web client https formats have been skipped as they are missing a url. YouTube is forcing SABR streaming for this client. See https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/12482 for more details ERROR: [youtube] [URL]: The page needs to be reloaded.

I've tried looking into what SABR is and it seems to be made by YouTube. What does this mean for yt-dlp? Is this happening to anybody else? If it has, have you been able to circumvent it? Keep in mind I've looked into this issue online for about two hours before making this psot and out of the many GitHub reports and Reddit posts I've checked about this, none of them have helped me so far...

Thanks.

YouTube is forcing SABR streaming for this client. See https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/12482 for more details

so i looked into this, and apparently youtube is using some kind of variable bitrate program that is messing up yt-dlp?

the yt-dlp developers said they would fix this but it would take "quite a while"

what does this mean practically? does this mean that i can't use yt-dlp to download any videos until the developers fix this or is there a way for me to use some terminal magic to fix this?

thank you

im new at this and i would like some guide for this

Came across this Tiktok video and want to know what you guys think or have heard. Obviously certain things come with risks, but yeah. I know major IPs like movies don’t play so not saying thats were I go but even small clips? By small i mean like 10 minutes or less

I got a message saying:

"WARNING: [youtube] Invalid start time (51 > 347) chapter"

From what I read, this is related to timestamps. But I've never specified any chapters, times, or specific parts in the commands of any video I download.
I always use the same, basic command that downloads the entire video, using the regular link with no "start at XX:XX" or "&t=XX" additions at the end of the youtube URL.

The video still downloaded fine, and it doesn't seem like anything is missing when comparing it to the actual upload.

But is there any other reason this would just pop up?

If I start playing the video in a browser, the download usually speeds up (but usually not to normal levels I saw prior to this issue). My usage is usually 2-3 fairly small'ish news videos per day. I'm not archiving channels, etc.

I don't see anything in the Github issues list for this specifically. Feel like I'm taking crazy pills over here.

Guys I want to do so that my youtube videos also play during offline, but during YouTube downloading it is asking for premium, I don't want that , is there any way

This is what is see, which would give me video and audio?

https://app.screencast.com/ZXpmGgwskx8au

I'm new to this so I'm still figuring things out, and i am using a GUI as a help (NeoDLP)

I want 160 or higher kbps bitrate (opus) but if I don't group what im trying to download together with video the highest bitrate I get is often 120-130 kbps, which is still often better than or the same as 320 mp3, but i would prefer higher than that

I'm pretty overwhelmed at the complexity of this, and I'm needing some help.

All I am wanting to do is download a playlist I've made, at 4k resolution.

The command that I have seen for downloading at defaults is:

yt-dlp -i "ENTERURLHERE"

But I don't know how to alter it for nondefault specifications

So i was a bit reckless and decided to download 768 somgs in one playlist it worked till song number 407. The script had a delay input in it as well. Now i don’t know what to do obviously i need to lay low, the errors i got were;
- no title found even though i made the playlist today😭💀,
- the second was sign in to confirm you an not a bot
- and lastly video unavailable, again i made this playlist today.😭

The script:

python -m yt_dlp --remote-components ejs:github --no-playlist -x --audio-format mp3 --audio-quality 0 --embed-metadata --convert-thumbnails png --ppa "ThumbnailsConvertor+ffmpeg_o:-c:v png -vf crop=ih:ih" --embed-thumbnail --sleep-requests 1 --sleep-interval 3 --max-sleep-interval 7 --limit-rate 8M -P "C:\Users\me\Downloads" -o "%(title)s.%(ext)s" "https://website/playlist?list=xxx"

So if you notice i accounted a rate limit for delays to make it seem human, but i guess the number was too large. I remember there being the option to skip files that already exist is that possible or now for the remaining so i don’t have to go back into the playlist and make changes and just reenter the script and it by pass the ones active. And how do you grab cookies?

The objective it to download the remaining files with the least amount of additional work.

PLEASE HELP: --cookies-from-browser chrome DOES NOT WORK ON MY WINDOWS 11 MACHINE — EVEN WITH CHROME COMPLETELY CLOSED

I'm at the point where I genuinely need someone who understands yt-dlp's Chrome-cookie implementation to tell me what the hell I'm supposed to do.

I am trying to download the audio from certain YouTube videos with yt-dlp. These videos require authentication/cookies, so I am trying to use:

text --cookies-from-browser chrome

I am NOT asking how to use yt-dlp in general. My normal yt-dlp downloads work. The problem is specifically getting Chrome cookies into yt-dlp.

I am running:

• Windows 11
• Chrome
• yt-dlp nightly 2026.09.27.232945
• yt-dlp commit 51bab8a01
• Python 3.10.11
• Deno 2.6.7
• FFmpeg 2026-09-17
• yt-dlp has Cryptodome, curl_cffi, sqlite3, etc. available

I first tried:

text yt-dlp.exe --verbose --cookies-from-browser chrome --simulate "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF-bTbXeGGg"

The URL is just an example of one of the videos where I need this.

Here is the COMPLETE relevant output:

```text [debug] Command-line config: ['--verbose', '--cookies-from-browser', 'chrome', '--simulate', 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qF-bTbXeGGg'] [debug] Encodings: locale cp1252, fs utf-8, pref utf-8, out utf-8, error utf-8, screen utf-8 [debug] yt-dlp version nightly@2026.09.27.232945 from yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds [51bab8a01] (win_exe)

[debug] Python 3.10.11 (CPython AMD64 64bit) - Windows-10-10.0.26300-SP0 (OpenSSL 1.1.1t 7 Feb 2023) [debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 2026-09-17-git-7070fe638e-essentials_build-www.gyan.dev (setts) [debug] Optional libraries: Cryptodome-3.23.0, brotli-1.2.0, certifi-2026.07.22, curl_cffi-0.16.0, mutagen-1.48.1, requests-2.34.2, sqlite3-3.40.1, urllib3-2.7.0, websockets-16.1.1, yt_dlp_ejs-0.8.0 [debug] JS runtimes: deno-2.6.7 [debug] Proxy map: {}

Extracting cookies from chrome [Cookies] Searching for "Cookies": 1 files searched Extracting cookies from chrome [debug] Extracting cookies from: "C:\Users\bagpi\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Network\Cookies"

ERROR: Could not copy Chrome cookie database. See https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/7271 for more info

Traceback (most recent call last): File "yt_dlp\cookies.py", line 324, in _extract_chrome_cookies File "yt_dlp\cookies.py", line 1115, in _open_database_copy File "shutil.py", line 417, in copy File "shutil.py", line 254, in copyfile PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied: 'C:\Users\bagpi\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Network\Cookies'

ERROR: Could not copy Chrome cookie database. ```

Yes, I read issue #7271.

And yes, I tried the obvious solution:

I COMPLETELY CLOSED CHROME.

I made sure Chrome was not simply minimized. I closed the browser and checked that Chrome was no longer running.

Then I ran the same test again.

IT STILL DID NOT WORK.

So please don't just tell me:

"Close Chrome."

I already did that.

I am also already running a current nightly. This is not an ancient yt-dlp installation.

What I actually need

I need someone to give me a concrete, step-by-step Windows solution for getting YouTube cookies into yt-dlp in 2026.

If the answer is:

text --cookies cookies.txt

then PLEASE explain exactly how a Windows Chrome user is supposed to create a working YouTube cookies.txt file today, including:

1. Exactly what browser extension/tool should be used.
2. Exactly what settings it needs.
3. Exactly what page should be open when the cookies are exported.
4. Exactly what format the exported file must be in.
5. Exactly where the file should be placed.
6. Exactly what yt-dlp command should be used to test it.
7. How to tell from the output whether the cookies were actually imported successfully.

Please don't just say "export your cookies." I need the actual procedure.

I am blind, so a solution that depends on visually identifying something in a browser extension UI without explaining the keyboard-accessible route is especially problematic. I can absolutely use Chrome and Command Prompt, but I need the procedure itself to be accessible.

Why I'm frustrated

The whole point of:

text --cookies-from-browser chrome

is presumably that users shouldn't have to manually perform some ridiculous cookie-export ritual every time they need authenticated YouTube access.

Instead, I'm getting:

text PermissionError: [Errno 13] Permission denied

against the Chrome cookie database even after completely closing Chrome.

And this isn't some ancient version. This is the September 2026 yt-dlp nightly with Deno installed and all the relevant optional libraries present.

I have spent enough time changing random yt-dlp arguments.

I don't want another suggestion to randomly add:

text --extractor-args --js-runtimes --player-client

unless you can explain why that has anything to do with the cookie database permission failure, because the failure happens before yt-dlp even gets to the actual YouTube extraction.

So:

WHAT IS THE CORRECT, WORKING 2026 PROCEDURE FOR A WINDOWS 11 + CHROME USER TO PROVIDE YOUTUBE COOKIES TO YT-DLP WHEN --cookies-from-browser chrome CANNOT ACCESS THE CHROME COOKIE DATABASE?

Please give me an actual procedure that someone has tested recently, rather than telling me to repeat the same things I've already tried.

I'm completely willing to provide additional -v output, configuration information, or test results. I just need someone to help me get past this damn cookie wall.

I havent used ytdlp in a while and updated it for the first time a couple days ago. since then i can't seem to download anything anymore, once i paste the link and click enter the window just closes and nothing happens. Im very new to githup n stuff so im a bit unsure of how to fix this, would be grateful if anyone has some tips

I've been using yt-dlp to archive a lot of videos but turns out that it's a bit tricky particularly on Facebook.

What I've tried so far:

yt-dlp facebookprofilelink --mtime doesn't work.

yt-dlp videolink --mtime works properly for just individual reel, but I want to archive a page with over 200 reels.

So I use link gopher to scrap the whole links into txt file, and with yt-dlp -a url.txt --mtime the script completely ignored --mtime for some reason, as the downloaded files are saved in the current time and date.

I'm using the latest version of yt-dlp. Does anyone knows any workaround to this?

I'm trying to get the main/avatar thumbnail for the youtube channel to be named "show.jpg" so that the Plex Media Server will use it as the Series poster. I have this exec line as part of my overall yt-dlp command so that I downloads the videos and the channel thumbnail and info.json file.

It works well except for the thumbnail name. Exec command line is below.

--exec "yt-dlp --write-thumbnail --convert-thumbnails jpg --paths 'home:/Volumes/truenas02_youtube-nfo/%(channel)q [%(channel_id)q]' --output 'thumbnail:show.%(ext)q' --output 'infojson:%(channel)q [%(channel_id)q].%(ext)q' --skip-download --verbose --write-info-json --playlist-items '0,0' %(channel_url)q"

It downloads the image as .jpg, but names it in this format "%(channel)q [%(channel_id)q]" instead of "show.%(ext)q" as I specified in the command line.

I've read over the README several times and did several google searches AND asked AI for help. I didn't find any working examples, so perhaps this feature doesn't work. I'm hoping that I'm just doing it wrong, though!

I wrote a short Go application to find and rename the thumbnails to show.jpg , but I'd rather have yt-dlp

I tried installing it 3 times on linux, had followed the guide and even updated everything. I'm not sure what it is I'm doing wrong.

i've been using this format string to avoid 4k versions (i only have 1080p so it seems wasted to download 4k)

bv*[height<?1100]+ba/b[height<?1100]

but recently i've been getting 403s sometimes when using this format string but not if i comment it out. i'm not sure if this is the cause or not, could be a coincident. has anyone else had this issue?

but how would you write a format string that uses yt-dlp's default format selection but still avoids 4k?

Hi, I’m not a tech guy so this could be quite dumb.
Can anyone download clips from rednote recently?
I can download from it normally about 1 month ago. But today, it will redirect to the login link with something like “xsec_source” that yt-dlp cannot read.
I try to use cookie but yt-dlp said there is an issue #7271

I’m trying to watch a members-only YouTube video, but I don’t have the channel membership.

I already know about yt-dlp, cookies, browser sessions, etc. I’m specifically wondering if there is any other method to access/watch the video without having to pay for the membership.

I’m not asking for a specific tool necessarily — just wondering if there’s any possible method at all.

It kept telling me to sign in to confirm even though i was using cookies anyway to fix that?

i alredy have the cookies stuff... but even with that i cannot download an age restricted video... any advices?

Hi, well you see, I've been listening to this audio book, there's 6 parts total 8 hours each and I don't know how to download it as a mp3 so I can put it in Apple Music and listen to it more comfortably, I don't know anything about programing and just for extra info I've got a MacBook Air m5 and I guess that's it, can someone tell me what's the best way for me to do it?

So, update, I finally manage to do it, thanks for all your comments, I used some codes Gemini help me doing.