Youtube-DL Cookie Setting

Help!
1

As many others have been seeing, Youtube is cracking down on youtube-dl. I was struck with it about a week ago, and now my friends are experiencing it too. The error is:

VideoError: [youtube] 28KRPhVzCus: Sign in to confirm you�re not a bot. Use --cookies-from-browser or --cookies for the authentication. See FAQ · yt-dlp/yt-dlp Wiki · GitHub for how to manually pass cookies. Also see Extractors · yt-dlp/yt-dlp Wiki · GitHub for tips on effectively exporting YouTube cookies

Is there a way to have youtube-dl launch with these options, as that seems straightforward? If not, I know you can have a .bat file run whenever a command window runs, which can hook into these, however it seems like it just makes the window fail to run the subsequent commands. Is there a way to configure something that solves this issue?

2 Likes
2

I was speaking with a friend, and they mentioned that after blocking Youtube in their HOSTS file for 1 week and trying again, they were able to visit Youtube again. I will do the same and report back. For now that might be the fix.

3

No, you can’t set your own arguments. VRChat locks them in at startup. The real problem isn’t YT-DLP; it’s how VRChat connects to YouTube. YT-DLP is just collateral damage in Google’s anti-scraping crackdown, which is mostly aimed at AI data harvesting. The only reliable workaround is toggling IPv6 in your network adapter or changing your IP. What gets flagged is your IP, especially if you’re not logged in. This issue hits German users often since ISPs like Fritz!Box rotate IPs daily.