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Troubleshooting

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Salehin Ashfi edited this page Jun 2, 2026 · 1 revision

Troubleshooting & FAQ

❌ "403 Forbidden" or "Unauthorized" error

Cause: Your Spotify session cookies have expired or are invalid.

Fix:

  1. Open [open.spotify.com](https://open.spotify.com) in a private/incognito window.
  2. Log in with your Premium account.
  3. Re-export cookies and replace ~/.dotify/cookies.txt.
  4. Run dotify env doctor to verify.

❌ Getting 128kbps audio even with --audio-quality aac-high or flac-flac

Cause: AAC 256kbps and FLAC are Spotify Premium-exclusive. Either your cookies belong to a free account, or your .wvd is missing/invalid.

Fix:

  1. Ensure cookies.txt was exported from a Premium account session.
  2. Ensure device.wvd is at ~/.dotify/keys/device.wvd.
  3. Run dotify env doctor — it will report which credential is missing or invalid.

❌ Downloads stuck or failing for video/podcast files

Cause: mp4decrypt or MP4Box is not installed or not in PATH.

Fix:

mp4decrypt --version
MP4Box -version

If in a non-standard location, add to config.json:

{
  "mp4decrypt_path": "/usr/local/bin/mp4decrypt",
  "mp4box_path": "/usr/local/bin/MP4Box"
}

❌ CLI says ffmpeg is not found

Cause: FFmpeg is not in your system PATH.

Fix (Option A): Add FFmpeg's bin/ directory to your PATH environment variable.

Fix (Option B): Set the full path in config.json:

{ "ffmpeg_path": "C:/ffmpeg/bin/ffmpeg.exe" }

❌ dotify command not found after pip install

Cause: Python's scripts directory is not in your PATH.

Fix (Option A): Run as a module:

python -m dotify "spotify:track:..."

Fix (Option B): Reinstall with --user:

pip install dotify-cli --upgrade --user

On Windows, user scripts are typically at %APPDATA%\Python\Scripts — add that to your PATH.

❌ dotify env doctor reports failures after upgrading from v1.x

Cause: Dotify v2.0.0 moved default config and credential file locations.

Fix:

dotify env setup
mv cookies.txt ~/.dotify/cookies.txt
mv device.wvd ~/.dotify/keys/device.wvd
dotify env doctor

❌ Aria2c not being used / slow downloads

Cause: Aria2c is not installed or not found in PATH.

Fix: Install Aria2c and verify:

aria2c --version

Or set its path in config.json:

{ "aria2c_path": "/usr/local/bin/aria2c" }

❌ Metadata or cover art not embedded in downloaded files

Cause: FFmpeg may not be functioning correctly, or the output format doesn't support embedded metadata.

Fix:

  1. Run ffmpeg -version to confirm FFmpeg is working.
  2. Set "log_level": "DEBUG" in config.json and re-run to see the full FFmpeg output.
  3. Ensure you're not accidentally using --synced-lyrics-only (which skips audio entirely).

Still stuck?

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