Unable to use --cookies-from-browser for Flatpak applications

[rambalachandran]

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Checklist

• I'm reporting a bug unrelated to a specific site
• I've verified that I'm running yt-dlp version 2023.01.06 (update instructions) or later (specify commit)
• I've checked that all provided URLs are playable in a browser with the same IP and same login details
• I've checked that all URLs and arguments with special characters are properly quoted or escaped
• I've searched the bugtracker for similar issues including closed ones. DO NOT post duplicates
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Provide a description that is worded well enough to be understood

How to pass the cookies from browser (--cookies-from-browser), if the browser (in this case Chrome) is installed through Flatpak.

I have installed chrome through flatpak that saves the config in ~/.var/app/com.google.Chrome. When I try to run the command

yt-dlp --cookies-from-browser chrome "URL"

it throws the error '/home/<user>/.config/local': No such file or directory

As a shortcut, I have symlinked the config folder and it works, but it might be useful to have a clean implementation, given flatpak is increasingly becoming a favored choice for most GUI applications in Linux.

Provide verbose output that clearly demonstrates the problem

• Run your yt-dlp command with -vU flag added (yt-dlp -vU <your command line>)
• Copy the WHOLE output (starting with [debug] Command-line config) and insert it below

Complete Verbose Output

[debug] Command-line config: ['-vU', '--cookies-from-browser', 'chrome', 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRBksDVs4tg']
[debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs utf-8, pref UTF-8, out utf-8, error utf-8, screen utf-8
[debug] yt-dlp version 2023.01.06 [6becd25] (zip)
[debug] Python 3.10.6 (CPython x86_64 64bit) - Linux-5.15.0-58-generic-x86_64-with-glibc2.35 (OpenSSL 3.0.2 15 Mar 2022, glibc 2.35)
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 4.4.2 (setts), ffprobe 4.4.2
[debug] Optional libraries: certifi-2020.06.20, secretstorage-3.3.1, sqlite3-2.6.0
[Cookies] Extracting cookies from chrome
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/runpy.py", line 196, in _run_module_as_main
    return _run_code(code, main_globals, None,
  File "/usr/lib/python3.10/runpy.py", line 86, in _run_code
    exec(code, run_globals)
  File "/usr/local/bin/yt-dlp/__main__.py", line 17, in <module>
  File "/usr/local/bin/yt-dlp/yt_dlp/__init__.py", line 970, in main
  File "/usr/local/bin/yt-dlp/yt_dlp/__init__.py", line 930, in _real_main
  File "/usr/local/bin/yt-dlp/yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py", line 649, in __init__
  File "/usr/local/bin/yt-dlp/yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py", line 3814, in print_debug_header
  File "/usr/local/bin/yt-dlp/yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py", line 3858, in _setup_opener
  File "/usr/local/bin/yt-dlp/yt_dlp/cookies.py", line 99, in load_cookies
  File "/usr/local/bin/yt-dlp/yt_dlp/cookies.py", line 120, in extract_cookies_from_browser
  File "/usr/local/bin/yt-dlp/yt_dlp/cookies.py", line 281, in _extract_chrome_cookies
FileNotFoundError: could not find chrome cookies database in "/home/ram/.config/google-chrome"

[pukkandan]

Pass the profile path like --cookies-from-browser chrome:~/.var/app/com.google.Chrome/Default

[rambalachandran]

Thank you. That's very helpful

[rambalachandran]

I have created a pull request to update the wiki in yt-dlp/yt-dlp-wiki#13 to include this information.