Video players completely broken

WubTheCaptain · August 19, 2026, 6:13am

Hi, I have a deep understanding of the underlying issues so I can provide input. I’m not going to file any bug reports about this against VRChat (there’s already too many), because there’s generally nothing that can be done at the moment.

TL;DR: YouTube made changes and it’s likely going to be more challenging than usual for the community to continue supporting YouTube playback in VRChat now or in the future (plausibly without significant re-engineering efforts in the VRChat client), while VRChat compatible legacy playback formats are becoming gradually unavailable from YouTube.

Video players in Unity/VRChat are generally working, but your issue is with YouTube (and yt-dlp) and not with VRChat. It’s not just you, it affects all yt-dlp users in general, mpv video player software, anything that hooks into yt-dlp for remote video playback (including VRChat).

When you input a URL into a video player, VRChat calls a customized %LocalAppdata%Low\VRChat\VRChat\Tools\yt-dlp.exe (a VRChat modified yt-dlp 2026.07.04) to download and stream the video for you. The requirements for successful playback are:

The URL is online/available to access for download.
yt-dlp supports the service (e.g. YouTube) or it’s a generic URL.
It’s one of the common formats with audio+video in the same stream for VRChat video players to support it. (Individual audio only/video only formats are not supported in VRChat generally.)

Behind the scenes it looks similar to this picture:

yt-dlp fetches the YouTube web page, lists available video/audio formats from the android_vr extractor, and then VRChat picks the only compatible format 18 (360p video with low quality audio) for playback.

See the last part from the screenshot where I attempt to redownload the same video? It says ERROR: unable to download video data: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden. That’s an intermittent error from YouTube, specific to the android_vr extractor. In VRChat, you would see this as a generic video error or “Failed to load video” message on video players. The upstream issue is linked below.

github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp

[Youtube] ERROR: unable to download video data: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden (with `android_vr`)

opened 02:26AM - 18 Aug 26 UTC

closed 06:46PM - 19 Aug 26 UTC

j3pic

site-bug site:youtube

### Checklist - [x] I've read the [**NO AI / NO LLM POLICY**](https://github.co…m/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#no-ai--no-llm-policy) and understand I may be blocked from the repository if it is violated - [x] I'm reporting that yt-dlp is broken on a **supported** site - [x] I've verified that I have **updated yt-dlp to nightly or master** ([update instructions](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#update-channels)) - [x] I've checked that all provided URLs are playable in a browser with the same IP and same login details - [x] I've checked that all URLs and arguments with special characters are [properly quoted or escaped](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/FAQ#video-url-contains-an-ampersand--and-im-getting-some-strange-output-1-2839-or-v-is-not-recognized-as-an-internal-or-external-command) - [x] I've searched [known issues](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/3766), [the FAQ](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/FAQ), and the [bugtracker](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20-label%3Aspam%20%20) for similar issues **including closed ones**. DO NOT post duplicates - [x] I've read about [sharing account credentials](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#are-you-willing-to-share-account-details-if-needed) and I'm willing to share it if required ### Region United States ### Provide a description that is worded well enough to be understood The latest stable version (stable@2027.07.04) does this: ``` $ yt-dlp "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93jxWV0PXRQ" [youtube] Extracting URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93jxWV0PXRQ [youtube] 93jxWV0PXRQ: Downloading webpage WARNING: [youtube] No supported JavaScript runtime could be found. Only deno is enabled by default; to use another runtime add --js-runtimes RUNTIME[:PATH] to your command/config. YouTube extraction without a JS runtime has been deprecated, and some formats may be missing. See https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/EJS for details on installing one [youtube] 93jxWV0PXRQ: Downloading android vr player API JSON [info] 93jxWV0PXRQ: Downloading 1 format(s): 400+251 ERROR: unable to download video data: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden ``` I'm in the US. The video is accessible through a non-logged-in browser. ### Provide verbose output that clearly demonstrates the problem - [x] Run **your** yt-dlp command with **-vU** flag added (`yt-dlp -vU <your command line>`) - [x] If using API, add `'verbose': True` to `YoutubeDL` params instead - [x] Copy the WHOLE output (starting with `[debug] Command-line config`) and insert it below ### Complete Verbose Output ```shell [debug] Command-line config: ['-vU', 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93jxWV0PXRQ'] [debug] Encodings: locale utf-8, fs utf-8, pref utf-8, out utf-8 (No ANSI), error utf-8 (No ANSI), screen utf-8 (No ANSI) [debug] yt-dlp version stable@2026.07.04 from yt-dlp/yt-dlp [997fa1408] (zip) [debug] Python 3.11.2 (CPython x86_64 64bit) - Linux-6.1.0-40-amd64-x86_64-with-glibc2.36 (OpenSSL 3.0.17 1 Jul 2025, glibc 2.36) [debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 5.1.8-0 (setts), ffprobe 5.1.8-0, rtmpdump 2.4 [debug] Optional libraries: Cryptodome-3.11.0, brotli-1.0.9, certifi-2022.12.07, mutagen-1.46.0, pyxattr-0.8.1, requests-2.28.2, sqlite3-3.40.1, urllib3-1.26.15 (unsupported), websockets-10.4 (unsupported), yt_dlp_ejs-0.8.0 [debug] JS runtimes: none [debug] Proxy map: {} [debug] Request Handlers: urllib [debug] Plugin directories: none [debug] Loaded 1744 extractors [debug] Fetching release info: https://api.github.com/repos/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases/latest Latest version: stable@2026.07.04 from yt-dlp/yt-dlp yt-dlp is up to date (stable@2026.07.04 from yt-dlp/yt-dlp) [debug] [youtube] [pot] PO Token Providers: none [debug] [youtube] [pot] PO Token Cache Providers: memory [debug] [youtube] [pot] PO Token Cache Spec Providers: webpo [debug] [youtube] [jsc] JS Challenge Providers: bun (unavailable), deno (unavailable), node (unavailable), quickjs (unavailable) [youtube] Extracting URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93jxWV0PXRQ [youtube] 93jxWV0PXRQ: Downloading webpage WARNING: [youtube] No supported JavaScript runtime could be found. Only deno is enabled by default; to use another runtime add --js-runtimes RUNTIME[:PATH] to your command/config. YouTube extraction without a JS runtime has been deprecated, and some formats may be missing. See https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/EJS for details on installing one [debug] [youtube] Forcing "main" player JS variant for player c74cbcd6 original url = /s/player/c74cbcd6/player_es6.vflset/en_US/base.js [youtube] 93jxWV0PXRQ: Downloading android vr player API JSON [debug] Sort order given by extractor: quality, res, fps, hdr:12, source, vcodec, channels, acodec, lang, proto [debug] Formats sorted by: hasvid, ie_pref, quality, res, fps, hdr:12(7), source, vcodec, channels, acodec, lang, proto, size, br, asr, vext, aext, hasaud, id [debug] Default format spec: bestvideo*+bestaudio/best [info] 93jxWV0PXRQ: Downloading 1 format(s): 400+251 [debug] Invoking http downloader on "https://rr3---sn-jpocxaa-a03z.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?expire=1787041421&ei=LcKDar-qH8qDkucPpez1uAo&ip=72.49.35.78&id=o-AG0Ne0dBRzfOvqM7yQsDc4yCfcwsyV1IqG8kYVIkFuvT&itag=400&source=youtube&requiressl=yes&xpc=EgVo2aDSNQ%3D%3D&met=1787019821%2C&mh=8t&mm=18%2C29&mn=sn-jpocxaa-a03z%2Csn-2o5ua5-5g&ms=aub%2Crdu&mv=m&mvi=3&pl=24&rms=aub%2Caub&initcwndbps=4458750&bui=AR3QkAkkXimDvWTwVGjceLoXNE34yUPqEOsA1mUfdIWGOHW5SXad5Sv2UzMd5__ejTGVOfVbtiRZYsCm&spc=KBGBcvhzP97MQKMJspFmMuXOGU-kyP__zrHdZCMirQ&vprv=1&svpuc=1&mime=video%2Fmp4&rqh=1&gir=yes&clen=172422605&dur=1271.269&lmt=1786984897540288&mt=1787018922&fvip=4&keepalive=yes&fexp=51565115%2C51946838&c=ANDROID_VR&txp=5309224&sparams=expire%2Cei%2Cip%2Cid%2Citag%2Csource%2Crequiressl%2Cxpc%2Cbui%2Cspc%2Cvprv%2Csvpuc%2Cmime%2Crqh%2Cgir%2Cclen%2Cdur%2Clmt&sig=AE0s2JYwRgIhAJ3id28yJKqp2SXdG0Jnqzl7tvjeoGbz587bXSfVgWqwAiEAi9yNbKjSz9aDyq-vnT7OmPFav4KgfhrZU85FrOLRU9M%3D&lsparams=met%2Cmh%2Cmm%2Cmn%2Cms%2Cmv%2Cmvi%2Cpl%2Crms%2Cinitcwndbps&lsig=APaTxxMwRAIgRyJfuCj0QAQ0GgwZ2LvitMdctqCD-9xQwhiau_mbvIkCIGIET2eosWF7p1Fbm5dy0DfIa_vSpTGA49n5seydbI89" ERROR: unable to download video data: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/src/yt-dlp/./yt-dlp/yt_dlp/networking/_urllib.py", line 419, in _send res = opener.open(urllib_req, timeout=self._calculate_timeout(request)) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/lib/python3.11/urllib/request.py", line 525, in open response = meth(req, response) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/lib/python3.11/urllib/request.py", line 634, in http_response response = self.parent.error( ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/lib/python3.11/urllib/request.py", line 563, in error return self._call_chain(*args) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/lib/python3.11/urllib/request.py", line 496, in _call_chain result = func(*args) ^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/lib/python3.11/urllib/request.py", line 643, in http_error_default raise HTTPError(req.full_url, code, msg, hdrs, fp) urllib.error.HTTPError: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden The above exception was the direct cause of the following exception: Traceback (most recent call last): File "/usr/local/src/yt-dlp/./yt-dlp/yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py", line 3571, in process_info partial_success, real_download = self.dl(fname, new_info) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/local/src/yt-dlp/./yt-dlp/yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py", line 3324, in dl return fd.download(name, new_info, subtitle) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/local/src/yt-dlp/./yt-dlp/yt_dlp/downloader/common.py", line 480, in download ret = self.real_download(filename, info_dict) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/local/src/yt-dlp/./yt-dlp/yt_dlp/downloader/http.py", line 362, in real_download establish_connection() File "/usr/local/src/yt-dlp/./yt-dlp/yt_dlp/downloader/http.py", line 119, in establish_connection ctx.data = self.ydl.urlopen(request) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/local/src/yt-dlp/./yt-dlp/yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py", line 4305, in urlopen return self._request_director.send(req) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/local/src/yt-dlp/./yt-dlp/yt_dlp/networking/common.py", line 117, in send response = handler.send(request) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/local/src/yt-dlp/./yt-dlp/yt_dlp/networking/_helper.py", line 194, in wrapper return func(self, *args, **kwargs) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/local/src/yt-dlp/./yt-dlp/yt_dlp/networking/common.py", line 359, in send return self._send(request) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/usr/local/src/yt-dlp/./yt-dlp/yt_dlp/networking/_urllib.py", line 424, in _send raise HTTPError(UrllibResponseAdapter(e.fp), redirect_loop='redirect error' in str(e)) from e yt_dlp.networking.exceptions.HTTPError: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden ```

The solution from the upstream yt-dlp project to download YouTube videos has been to remove android_vr from the default list of clients, and use the new visionos extractor client in yt-dlp nightly. The issue is visionos does not have any compatible legacy formats (audio+video in the same format) for VRChat. This leaves VRChat with no remaining compatible extractors for YouTube playback for the foreseeable future.

This started in July 2026 with YouTube killing off the web_safari client, which formerly provided 1080p videos without login and PO tokens for YouTube playback in VRChat. You may not have noticed it being gone, because android_vr was available as a fallback for 360p video playback in VRChat.

github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp

Intermittent missing hlsManifestUrl (m3u8 formats) in YouTube webpage for 'web_safari' client

opened 06:03AM - 05 Jul 26 UTC

closed 11:36PM - 20 Jul 26 UTC

kmudov

site:youtube

### Checklist - [x] I've read the [**NO AI / NO LLM POLICY**](https://github.co…m/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#no-ai--no-llm-policy) and understand I may be blocked from the repository if it is violated - [x] I'm reporting that yt-dlp is broken on a **supported** site - [x] I've verified that I have **updated yt-dlp to nightly or master** ([update instructions](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp#update-channels)) - [x] I've checked that all provided URLs are playable in a browser with the same IP and same login details - [x] I've checked that all URLs and arguments with special characters are [properly quoted or escaped](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/FAQ#video-url-contains-an-ampersand--and-im-getting-some-strange-output-1-2839-or-v-is-not-recognized-as-an-internal-or-external-command) - [x] I've searched [known issues](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/3766), [the FAQ](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/FAQ), and the [bugtracker](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues?q=is%3Aissue%20-label%3Aspam%20%20) for similar issues **including closed ones**. DO NOT post duplicates - [x] I've read about [sharing account credentials](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#are-you-willing-to-share-account-details-if-needed) and I'm willing to share it if required ### Region Philippines ### Provide a description that is worded well enough to be understood While investigating intermittent failures with the 'web_safari' client, I noticed that YouTube sometimes returns different HTML for the exact same video and request. When the issue occurs, the downloaded webpage does not contain `hlsManifestUrl`. As a consequence, yt-dlp logs: WARNING: Only images are available for download. ERROR: Requested format is not available. Repeating exactly the same request a few seconds later often returns a webpage containing `hlsManifestUrl`, after which yt-dlp extracts formats normally. The attached verbose log corresponds to one of the failing cases. ### Provide verbose output that clearly demonstrates the problem - [x] Run **your** yt-dlp command with **-vU** flag added (`yt-dlp -vU <your command line>`) - [x] If using API, add `'verbose': True` to `YoutubeDL` params instead - [x] Copy the WHOLE output (starting with `[debug] Command-line config`) and insert it below ### Complete Verbose Output ```shell [debug] Encodings: locale utf-8, fs utf-8, pref utf-8, out utf-8, error utf-8, screen utf-8 [debug] yt-dlp version stable@2026.07.04 from yt-dlp/yt-dlp [997fa1408] (pip) API [debug] params: {'quiet': False, 'verbose': True, 'skip_download': True, 'nocheckcertificate': True, 'extract_flat': True, 'writesubtitles': False, 'writeautomaticsub': False, 'remote_components': {'ejs:github'}, 'extractor_args': {'youtube': {'player_client': ['web_safari']}}, 'js_runtimes': {'deno': {}}, 'compat_opts': set(), 'http_headers': {'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/148.0.0.0 Safari/537.36', 'Accept': 'text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8', 'Accept-Language': 'en-us,en;q=0.5', 'Sec-Fetch-Mode': 'navigate'}} [debug] Python 3.12.3 (CPython x86_64 64bit) - Linux-6.12.76-linuxkit-x86_64-with-glibc2.39 (OpenSSL 3.0.13 30 Jan 2024, glibc 2.39) [debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 6.1.1 (setts), ffprobe 6.1.1 [debug] Optional libraries: Cryptodome-3.23.0, brotli-1.2.0, certifi-2026.06.17, mutagen-1.48.1, requests-2.34.2, sqlite3-3.45.1, urllib3-2.7.0, websockets-16.0, yt_dlp_ejs-0.8.0 [debug] JS runtimes: deno-2.9.1 [debug] Proxy map: {} [debug] Request Handlers: urllib, requests, websockets [debug] Plugin directories: none [debug] Loaded 1744 extractors [debug] [youtube] [pot] PO Token Providers: none [debug] [youtube] [pot] PO Token Cache Providers: memory [debug] [youtube] [pot] PO Token Cache Spec Providers: webpo [debug] [youtube] [jsc] JS Challenge Providers: bun (unavailable), deno, node (unavailable), quickjs (unavailable) [youtube] Extracting URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkFqg5wAuFk [youtube] AkFqg5wAuFk: Downloading webpage [debug] [youtube] Forcing "main" player JS variant for player 0053e6c9 original url = /s/player/0053e6c9/player_es6.vflset/en_US/base.js [debug] [youtube] AkFqg5wAuFk: Detected experiment to bind GVS PO Token to video ID for web_safari client [debug] [youtube] AkFqg5wAuFk: Some web_safari 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 [debug] [youtube] AkFqg5wAuFk: Some web_safari client subtitles require a PO Token which was not provided. They will be discarded since they are not downloadable as-is. You can manually pass a Subtitles PO Token for this client with --extractor-args "youtube:po_token=web_safari.subs+XXX" . For more information, refer to https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/wiki/PO-Token-Guide [debug] [youtube] AkFqg5wAuFk: There are missing subtitles languages because a PO token was not provided. Subtitles for these languages are missing: es, pt, en. Automatic captions for 1 languages are missing. WARNING: Only images are available for download. use --list-formats to see them [debug] Sort order given by extractor: quality, res, fps, hdr:12, source, vcodec, channels, acodec, lang, proto [debug] Formats sorted by: hasvid, ie_pref, quality, res, fps, hdr:12(7), source, vcodec, channels, acodec, lang, proto, size, br, asr, vext, aext, hasaud, id [debug] Default format spec: bestvideo*+bestaudio/best ERROR: [youtube] AkFqg5wAuFk: Requested format is not available. Use --list-formats for a list of available formats Traceback (most recent call last): File "/opt/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py", line 1732, in wrapper return func(self, *args, **kwargs) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/opt/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py", line 1888, in __extract_info return self.process_ie_result(ie_result, download, extra_info) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/opt/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py", line 1947, in process_ie_result ie_result = self.process_video_result(ie_result, download=download) ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ File "/opt/venv/lib/python3.12/site-packages/yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py", line 3097, in process_video_result raise ExtractorError( yt_dlp.utils.ExtractorError: [youtube] AkFqg5wAuFk: Requested format is not available. Use --list-formats for a list of available formats ```

There’s a long list of issues previously worked around with YouTube playback in yt-dlp and VRChat. I’ve tried to keep most of the current and previous issues documented in the comments on VRChat Feedback:

The problem now becomes that VRChat cannot generally “just update yt-dlp” to make playback work again with YouTube URLs when a new stable release of yt-dlp becomes available.

In the future, for YouTube playback to become available with the current methods, this is going to require SABR support in yt-dlp (unavailable/unimplemented in general, experimental in a separate branch) in addition to support in VRChat video players to play separate audio & video streams (merging video formats).

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Video players completely broken

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