--no-abort-on-error --ignore-errors do not work on Youtube private videos

[maaaaz]

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France

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Hello there,

The following command should be provoke an error thanks to the options passed --no-abort-on-error --ignore-errors, but unfortunately it is:

$ yt-dlp --no-abort-on-error --ignore-errors --restrict-filenames -f 'bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best' 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBwJ7ETeRdE' ; echo $?
[youtube] Extracting URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBwJ7ETeRdE
[youtube] wBwJ7ETeRdE: Downloading webpage
[youtube] wBwJ7ETeRdE: Downloading ios player API JSON
[youtube] wBwJ7ETeRdE: Downloading android player API JSON
WARNING: [youtube] YouTube said: ERROR - Precondition check failed.
WARNING: [youtube] HTTP Error 400: Bad Request. Retrying (1/3)...
[youtube] wBwJ7ETeRdE: Downloading android player API JSON
WARNING: [youtube] YouTube said: ERROR - Precondition check failed.
WARNING: [youtube] HTTP Error 400: Bad Request. Retrying (2/3)...
[youtube] wBwJ7ETeRdE: Downloading android player API JSON
WARNING: [youtube] YouTube said: ERROR - Precondition check failed.
WARNING: [youtube] HTTP Error 400: Bad Request. Retrying (3/3)...
[youtube] wBwJ7ETeRdE: Downloading android player API JSON
WARNING: [youtube] YouTube said: ERROR - Precondition check failed.
WARNING: [youtube] Unable to download API page: HTTP Error 400: Bad Request (caused by <HTTPError 400: Bad Request>); please report this issue on  https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues?q= , filling out the appropriate issue template. Confirm you are on the latest version using  yt-dlp -U
ERROR: [youtube] wBwJ7ETeRdE: Private video. Sign in if you've been granted access to this video
1

Technical information about the results above:

$ cat /etc/issue*
Kali GNU/Linux Rolling \n \l

Kali GNU/Linux Rolling

$ yt-dlp --version
2023.11.16

$ uname -mrsa
Linux adm-ClawVintage 5.15.0-102-generic #112-Ubuntu SMP Tue Mar 5 16:50:32 UTC 2024 x86_64 GNU/Linux

Can you fix that bug ?

Cheers !

Provide verbose output that clearly demonstrates the problem

• Run your yt-dlp command with -vU flag added (yt-dlp -vU <your command line>)
• If using API, add 'verbose': True to YoutubeDL params instead
• Copy the WHOLE output (starting with [debug] Command-line config) and insert it below

Complete Verbose Output

$ yt-dlp --no-abort-on-error --ignore-errors --restrict-filenames -f 'bestvideo[ext=mp4]+bestaudio[ext=m4a]/best[ext=mp4]/best' 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBwJ7ETeRdE' ; echo $?
[youtube] Extracting URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBwJ7ETeRdE
[youtube] wBwJ7ETeRdE: Downloading webpage
[youtube] wBwJ7ETeRdE: Downloading ios player API JSON
[youtube] wBwJ7ETeRdE: Downloading android player API JSON
WARNING: [youtube] YouTube said: ERROR - Precondition check failed.
WARNING: [youtube] HTTP Error 400: Bad Request. Retrying (1/3)...
[youtube] wBwJ7ETeRdE: Downloading android player API JSON
WARNING: [youtube] YouTube said: ERROR - Precondition check failed.
WARNING: [youtube] HTTP Error 400: Bad Request. Retrying (2/3)...
[youtube] wBwJ7ETeRdE: Downloading android player API JSON
WARNING: [youtube] YouTube said: ERROR - Precondition check failed.
WARNING: [youtube] HTTP Error 400: Bad Request. Retrying (3/3)...
[youtube] wBwJ7ETeRdE: Downloading android player API JSON
WARNING: [youtube] YouTube said: ERROR - Precondition check failed.
WARNING: [youtube] Unable to download API page: HTTP Error 400: Bad Request (caused by <HTTPError 400: Bad Request>); please report this issue on  https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues?q= , filling out the appropriate issue template. Confirm you are on the latest version using  yt-dlp -U
ERROR: [youtube] wBwJ7ETeRdE: Private video. Sign in if you've been granted access to this video
1

[bashonly]

--no-abort-on-error is the default, but you have only passed 1 URL for a single video (not a playlist), so it is irrelevant in your example.

Regarding --ignore-errors, I think this isn't a bug, but rather a case where the documentation may need to be clarified.

The Python API documentation is more accurate, IMO:

    ignoreerrors:      Do not stop on download/postprocessing errors.
                       Can be 'only_download' to ignore only download errors.
                       Default is 'only_download' for CLI, but False for API

--ignore-errors tells yt-dlp to continue past an error if there is anything to continue to. But in your example log, there is an error during extraction of a single video URL and thus there is nothing else to be done.

There is no mention of exit codes in either the CLI docs or the API docs for this option.

[bashonly]

Possibly related: #9614, #2947

[maaaaz]

Thanks.
I indeed want to highlight here the fact that --ignore-errors should return an exit 0 code, nothing else as it is misleading.

[maaaaz]

Here is a way to filter private videos in a playlist:

$ yt-dlp <playlist_url> --ignore-errors --flat-playlist --dump-single-json | jq --raw-output -M '.entries | .[] | select(.title != "[Private video]") | .url'