Downloading YouTube videos: Access denied by the platform

[mazezen]

YouTube Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBugHA7tleo

[mazezen]

Add the following:

1. Obtain the cookie, and include it when downloading. Set it to an empty string to disable
2. Increase the number of retry attempts for failures

code:
`

Path to yt-dlp (use Homebrew version which has YouTube fixes)

YT_DLP_PATH = os.environ.get("YT_DLP_PATH", "/opt/homebrew/bin/yt-dlp")

Browser for yt-dlp cookie extraction (set to empty string to disable)

COOKIES_BROWSER = os.environ.get("COOKIES_BROWSER", "brave")

Build --cookies-from-browser args if configured

COOKIE_ARGS = ["--cookies-from-browser", COOKIES_BROWSER] if COOKIES_BROWSER else []

cmd = [YT_DLP_PATH, "--no-playlist", "-o", out_template]
cmd += COOKIE_ARGS
cmd += ["--extractor-retries", "3", "--retries", "5"]
`

a8c5a3c

[oldmanstillcan]

Confirming the fix in #52 works — hit this same error today on macOS, same symptoms ("Sign in to confirm you're not a bot" / "Requested format is not available").

Root cause confirmed on my end: reclip.sh activates a venv whose bin/ shadows the Homebrew yt-dlp on PATH. The venv's yt-dlp can't reach Node/Deno to solve YouTube's JS "n challenge", so it falls back to no-formats / bot-check. Pinning subprocess calls to /opt/homebrew/bin/yt-dlp (where Node + Deno are reachable) resolves it.

YouTube appears to have tightened challenge enforcement around 2026-05-25 — that's when this stopped working for me, matches the report timing here.

+1 to merging #52. Would also suggest making the path env-overridable (e.g. YT_DLP_PATH) so Linux/Docker users can point at /usr/bin/yt-dlp without code edits — looks like the PR already does that. Thanks @mazezen.

[mazezen]

Confirming the fix in #52 works — hit this same error today on macOS, same symptoms ("Sign in to confirm you're not a bot" / "Requested format is not available").

Root cause confirmed on my end: reclip.sh activates a venv whose bin/ shadows the Homebrew yt-dlp on PATH. The venv's yt-dlp can't reach Node/Deno to solve YouTube's JS "n challenge", so it falls back to no-formats / bot-check. Pinning subprocess calls to /opt/homebrew/bin/yt-dlp (where Node + Deno are reachable) resolves it.

YouTube appears to have tightened challenge enforcement around 2026-05-25 — that's when this stopped working for me, matches the report timing here.

+1 to merging #52. Would also suggest making the path env-overridable (e.g. YT_DLP_PATH) so Linux/Docker users can point at /usr/bin/yt-dlp without code edits — looks like the PR already does that. Thanks @mazezen.

Yeap. Thank you