ERROR: unable to download video data: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden

[scottkyoung]

Fairly long download which ended abnormally.
I had previously downloaded day 2 without a problem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwAuvNoFZl0 But couldn't download day 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsyfAzTbxjA

The download started at ‎Tuesday, ‎December ‎6, ‎2022, ‏‎12:30:15 AM and failed at ‎Tuesday, ‎December ‎6, ‎2022, ‏‎6:30:45 AM.

The verbose log is as follows:

D:\Users\esnsy\Videos>youtube-dl -f "bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsyfAzTbxjA --verbose
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['-f', 'bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]', 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UsyfAzTbxjA', '--verbose']
[debug] Encodings: locale cp1252, fs mbcs, out cp437, pref cp1252
[debug] youtube-dl version 2021.12.17
[debug] Python version 3.4.4 (CPython) - Windows-10-10.0.22621
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg git-2020-06-12-38737b3, ffprobe git-2020-06-12-38737b3
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[youtube] UsyfAzTbxjA: Downloading webpage
[youtube] UsyfAzTbxjA: Downloading player ac058a09
[debug] Invoking downloader on 'https://rr2---sn-p5qs7nsk.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?expire=1670326213&ei=ZdOOY83MKo2G8wShwpGICg&ip=68.118.229.46&id=o-AFuCJ7trYuRFQaHdzfglRGPeyv_uU7785Q93xYWM0mDJ&itag=137&aitags=134%2C136%2C137%2C160%2C243&source=youtube&requiressl=yes&mh=FT&mm=31%2C26&mn=sn-p5qs7nsk%2Csn-vgqsknsk&ms=au%2Conr&mv=m&mvi=2&pl=19&initcwndbps=1885000&vprv=1&mime=video%2Fmp4&ns=LCo8OyWfzqAf9GQUKEepRrUJ&gir=yes&clen=5733731037&dur=10404.998&lmt=1670245827748908&mt=1670304340&fvip=4&keepalive=yes&fexp=24001373%2C24007246&c=WEB&txp=7219224&n=uUI047hTgh4zTJF&sparams=expire%2Cei%2Cip%2Cid%2Caitags%2Csource%2Crequiressl%2Cvprv%2Cmime%2Cns%2Cgir%2Cclen%2Cdur%2Clmt&lsparams=mh%2Cmm%2Cmn%2Cms%2Cmv%2Cmvi%2Cpl%2Cinitcwndbps&lsig=AG3C_xAwRAIgUBZ1oO_Bt8_vhcnbFBPvmoBhpL07ktjEpExhc8dEG_UCIDNWofEz7sj6_wxuFP7yEHCmSEaFIOzSeDXOPXt-HJa_&sig=AOq0QJ8wRgIhAKVX2elPRcCxG_Vv9UHQeVhTdQUgnwvKCGRprerdqrJFAiEAlAeJo9o9BOs2drOwyl7BAoRmI9jRBNalzhX76XU7Lws='
[download] Destination: 2022 Gompei Invitational, Day 3 Finals-UsyfAzTbxjA.f137.mp4
[download]  11.9% of 5.34GiB at 77.19KiB/s ETA 17:45:42 [download] Got server HTTP error: [WinError 10054] An existing connection was forcibly closed by the remote host. Retrying (attempt 1 of 10)...
[download] Destination: 2022 Gompei Invitational, Day 3 Finals-UsyfAzTbxjA.f137.mp4
[download]  23.4% of 5.34GiB at 50.00KiB/s ETA 23:49:02      ERROR: unable to download video data: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\ytdl-org\tmpupik7c6w\build\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 1970, in process_info
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\ytdl-org\tmpupik7c6w\build\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 1915, in dl
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\ytdl-org\tmpupik7c6w\build\youtube_dl\downloader\common.py", line 366, in download
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\ytdl-org\tmpupik7c6w\build\youtube_dl\downloader\http.py", line 351, in real_download
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\ytdl-org\tmpupik7c6w\build\youtube_dl\downloader\http.py", line 116, in establish_connection
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\ytdl-org\tmpupik7c6w\build\youtube_dl\downloader\http.py", line 110, in establish_connection
  File "C:\Users\dst\AppData\Roaming\Build archive\youtube-dl\ytdl-org\tmpupik7c6w\build\youtube_dl\YoutubeDL.py", line 2288, in urlopen
  File "C:\Python\Python34\lib\urllib\request.py", line 470, in open
  File "C:\Python\Python34\lib\urllib\request.py", line 580, in http_response
  File "C:\Python\Python34\lib\urllib\request.py", line 508, in error
  File "C:\Python\Python34\lib\urllib\request.py", line 442, in _call_chain
  File "C:\Python\Python34\lib\urllib\request.py", line 588, in http_error_default
urllib.error.HTTPError: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden

D:\Users\esnsy\Videos>

[dirkf]

Sometimes YT offers a media link that gives 403, or 404.

You could try a different video format, or hope that YT fixes its CDN.

Otherwise, run youtube-dl --get-url --f 137 UsyfAzTbxjA to find the up-to-date media link, similar to that listed above:

https://rr2---sn-p5qs7nsk.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?expire=1670326213&ei=ZdOOY83MKo2G8wShwpGICg&ip=68.118.229.46&id=o-AFuCJ7trYuRFQaHdzfglRGPeyv_uU7785Q93xYWM0mDJ&itag=137&aitags=134%2C136%2C137%2C160%2C243&source=youtube&requiressl=yes&mh=FT&mm=31%2C26&mn=sn-p5qs7nsk%2Csn-vgqsknsk&ms=au%2Conr&mv=m&mvi=2&pl=19&initcwndbps=1885000&vprv=1&mime=video%2Fmp4&ns=LCo8OyWfzqAf9GQUKEepRrUJ&gir=yes&clen=5733731037&dur=10404.998&lmt=1670245827748908&mt=1670304340&fvip=4&keepalive=yes&fexp=24001373%2C24007246&c=WEB&txp=7219224&n=uUI047hTgh4zTJF&sparams=expire%2Cei%2Cip%2Cid%2Caitags%2Csource%2Crequiressl%2Cvprv%2Cmime%2Cns%2Cgir%2Cclen%2Cdur%2Clmt&lsparams=mh%2Cmm%2Cmn%2Cms%2Cmv%2Cmvi%2Cpl%2Cinitcwndbps&lsig=AG3C_xAwRAIgUBZ1oO_Bt8_vhcnbFBPvmoBhpL07ktjEpExhc8dEG_UCIDNWofEz7sj6_wxuFP7yEHCmSEaFIOzSeDXOPXt-HJa_&sig=AOq0QJ8wRgIhAKVX2elPRcCxG_Vv9UHQeVhTdQUgnwvKCGRprerdqrJFAiEAlAeJo9o9BOs2drOwyl7BAoRmI9jRBNalzhX76XU7Lws=

In this enormous URL YT has hidden backup host details. Find the URL query parameter mm and fvip:

mn=sn-p5qs7nsk%2Csn-vgqsknsk
fvip=4

Split the mn value into two parts, on either side of %2C.

Replace the digit(s) before the --- in the hostname with the value of fvip; replace the remaining part of the first host domain component after the --- (which should match the first part of the mn value) with the second part of the mn value. Thus:

https://rr4---sn-vgqsknsk.googlevideo.com/videoplayback?expire=1670326213&ei=ZdOOY83MKo2G8wShwpGICg&ip=68.118.229.46&id=o-AFuCJ7trYuRFQaHdzfglRGPeyv_uU7785Q93xYWM0mDJ&itag=137&aitags=134%2C136%2C137%2C160%2C243&source=youtube&requiressl=yes&mh=FT&mm=31%2C26&mn=sn-p5qs7nsk%2Csn-vgqsknsk&ms=au%2Conr&mv=m&mvi=2&pl=19&initcwndbps=1885000&vprv=1&mime=video%2Fmp4&ns=LCo8OyWfzqAf9GQUKEepRrUJ&gir=yes&clen=5733731037&dur=10404.998&lmt=1670245827748908&mt=1670304340&fvip=4&keepalive=yes&fexp=24001373%2C24007246&c=WEB&txp=7219224&n=uUI047hTgh4zTJF&sparams=expire%2Cei%2Cip%2Cid%2Caitags%2Csource%2Crequiressl%2Cvprv%2Cmime%2Cns%2Cgir%2Cclen%2Cdur%2Clmt&lsparams=mh%2Cmm%2Cmn%2Cms%2Cmv%2Cmvi%2Cpl%2Cinitcwndbps&lsig=AG3C_xAwRAIgUBZ1oO_Bt8_vhcnbFBPvmoBhpL07ktjEpExhc8dEG_UCIDNWofEz7sj6_wxuFP7yEHCmSEaFIOzSeDXOPXt-HJa_&sig=AOq0QJ8wRgIhAKVX2elPRcCxG_Vv9UHQeVhTdQUgnwvKCGRprerdqrJFAiEAlAeJo9o9BOs2drOwyl7BAoRmI9jRBNalzhX76XU7Lws=

Download this with a yt-dl command like so:

youtube-dl -o "2022 Gompei Invitational, Day 3 Finals-UsyfAzTbxjA.f137.mp4" "modified_enormous_URL"`

Then, if you run the original download command (don't use --no-continue, not that you would), yt-dl will recognise the .f137. file that you just created, and won't try to download it again, instead downloading the .f140. audio file and merging them.

[observeroftime01]

Thanks for breaking down how to decipher the backup URL embedded in YouTube media URLs. Haven't seen anyone elaborate on that before, and I was curious how that worked. Thanks for that 👍.

[dirkf]

See

• https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/1986
• https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/5639.

[dirkf]

Duplicate of #31247.

[v-nhandt21]

Try to upgrade to the latest version of yt-dlp

python -m pip install -U yt-dlp