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Troubleshooting

EmilDeuOfficial edited this page Aug 22, 2026 · 1 revision

Troubleshooting

Common problems and how to solve them. The exact error message is always shown in the log panel at the bottom of the window.


Spotify

"No Spotify API credentials"

Client ID and Client Secret are missing. Setup is described in Getting Started.

"Spotify auth error"

Possible causes:

Cause Fix
Typo in Client ID or Secret Copy the values from the dashboard again
Redirect URI does not match Enter exactly http://127.0.0.1:8888/callback in the dashboard
Token cache corrupted Delete %USERPROFILE%\.spotify_downloader\.spotify_token_cache
App deleted in the dashboard Create a new app and enter the new credentials

The most common case is the redirect URI. localhost instead of 127.0.0.1 does not work, and neither does a missing or extra trailing slash.

The browser keeps opening again

The token cache cannot be written. Check that %USERPROFILE%\.spotify_downloader\ exists and is writable. If in doubt delete the folder, the app recreates it.

The wrong track was downloaded

The app picks the result with the most similar duration out of five YouTube matches. For remixes, live versions or covers with nearly identical duration this can go wrong. Fix: download that track through the YouTube Downloader with the specific video URL.

"Error resolving URL"

Cause Fix
The playlist is private and not yours Make it public or use a different one
URL copied incompletely Paste the full URL
Region lock The track is not available in your region

YouTube

"Video unavailable"

The video is private, deleted, age-restricted or region-locked. For age-restricted videos the app cannot help, it has no login support.

A playlist only downloads one video

The URL contained watch?v= together with list=. That is intentional, see YouTube Downloader. For the whole playlist use the plain playlist?list= URL.

"Sign in to confirm you are not a bot"

YouTube is throttling your IP address. Possible measures:

  • Reduce parallel downloads to 1
  • Set the speed limit to 5 MB/s
  • Wait a few minutes
  • Update yt-dlp: pip install -U yt-dlp

Subtitles are missing from the file

Check Explanation
Is FFmpeg present? No embedding without FFmpeg
Does the video offer subtitles? Auto-generated subtitles are not always available
Is the language code correct? Use de and en, not german or deutsch
Video mode? Subtitle embedding in audio files is of limited use

SponsorBlock does not cut anything

There are no community entries for that video in the SponsorBlock database. This is normal for smaller channels.


TikTok

"Unable to extract"

TikTok changes its page structure regularly. Updating yt-dlp usually helps:

pip install -U yt-dlp

With the installed EXE you have to wait for an app update, since yt-dlp is bundled there.

Cryptic filenames

TikTok often provides no usable titles. The app then builds the name from the uploader name plus the upload date or the video ID. Details in TikTok Downloader.

A profile does not download all videos

TikTok limits how many entries can be read without a login. A complete profile download is therefore not guaranteed.


FFmpeg

FFmpeg is not found

On startup the console shows a warning that audio conversion is limited. Without FFmpeg the app only downloads the raw source format, usually WebM or M4A. Format selection, thumbnails, subtitles and normalization then have no effect.

Fix:

winget install yt-dlp.FFmpeg

Restart the app afterwards. Every location the app searches is listed in Installation.

Still not found after the winget install

Open a new terminal so the updated PATH takes effect. The app also searches the winget package directory, so it usually finds the installation even without a PATH entry.


Files and folders

The file does not appear in the output folder

Check Explanation
Status in the log Is there an error there?
Write permissions Folders under C:\Program Files are blocked without admin rights
Already present Existing files are skipped and marked as done immediately
Different extension Without FFmpeg you get the raw format, so .webm instead of .mp3

Characters are missing from the filename

Windows forbids certain characters. \ / * ? " < > are removed, pipe and colon are replaced with visually identical Unicode characters. Details in Filename Templates.


Application

"Missing Dependencies" on startup

This only happens with a manual install from source. Run the pip install command shown in the dialog and restart.

If the dialog appears with the installed EXE, the build artifact is broken. In that case install the newest version from the releases page.

The app does not start

  1. Install the newest version from the Releases page
  2. Reset the configuration: delete %USERPROFILE%\.spotify_downloader
  3. Check your antivirus, PyInstaller EXEs are occasionally flagged by mistake

The window appears in the wrong place or is not visible

The app remembers window positions. If a second monitor has been disconnected, the window may sit outside the visible area. Fix: delete the keys sp_win_geo, yt_win_geo, tt_win_geo and launcher_pos from config.json, or reset the configuration entirely.

Downloads are very slow

Cause Fix
A speed limit is active Set it to "No limit" in the settings
Too many parallel downloads Reduce to 2 or 3, more leads to throttling
Server-side throttling Update yt-dlp and try again later

Still stuck?

Open an issue in the repository and include:

  • The app version (shown in the Spotify downloader window title)
  • Your Windows version
  • Which downloader and which format
  • The full text from the log panel
  • The URL you used, as long as it points to public content

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