instagram: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden

[Vrihub]

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Add the -v flag to your command line you run youtube-dl with (youtube-dl -v <your command line>), copy the whole output and insert it here. It should look similar to one below (replace it with your log inserted between triple ```):

...
[instagram:user] instagram: Downloading JSON metadata
[instagram:user] Saving request to instagram_https_-_www.instagram.com_instagram_a=1.dump
[download] Downloading playlist: instagram
[instagram:user] 25025320: Downloading JSON page 1
ERROR: Unable to download JSON metadata: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden (caused by <HTTPError 403: 'Forbidden'>); please report this issue on https://yt-dl.org/bug . Make sure you are using the latest version; see  https://yt-dl.org/update  on how to update. Be sure to call youtube-dl with the --verbose flag and include its complete output.
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py", line 519, in _request_webpage
    return self._downloader.urlopen(url_or_request)
  File "/usr/local/lib/python3.5/dist-packages/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 2199, in urlopen
    return self._opener.open(req, timeout=self._socket_timeout)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/urllib/request.py", line 472, in open
    response = meth(req, response)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/urllib/request.py", line 582, in http_response
    'http', request, response, code, msg, hdrs)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/urllib/request.py", line 510, in error
    return self._call_chain(*args)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/urllib/request.py", line 444, in _call_chain
    result = func(*args)
  File "/usr/lib/python3.5/urllib/request.py", line 590, in http_error_default
    raise HTTPError(req.full_url, code, msg, hdrs, fp)

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Description of your issue, suggested solution and other information

As of today, queries to https://instagram.com/graphql/query/... get a 403 error.
Maybe related to recent restrictions in other parts of the instagram API? (https://www.instagram.com/developer/changelog/)

[Hrxn]

Damn... that API platform changelog..

I guess that's Facebook post Cambridge Analytica. Company policy changes went into full effect.

They now seem to want to avoid any possibilities of scraping like the literal plague.
A bit ironic, considering that this is all still public data (This has not changed for private profiles).
The world has officially gone crazy, but I guess most could already tell..

[Hrxn]

FYI, seems like this is not working again...

[Vrihub]

FYI, seems like this is not working again...

Yes, the cookie solution in ff82617 worked only for a couple of days, it seems they now refined the requirements for the cookies: see comments in arc298/instagram-scraper#205 and althonos/InstaLooter#157 (comment)

[Vrihub]

Maybe these pages have useful info about the required cookies:

https://kaijento.github.io/2017/05/17/web-scraping-instagram.com/
(search for "csrftoken Cookie")

https://github.com/siongui/instago#obtain-cookies

HTH

[LaticePrime]

Is this open again? Having same problem after update to 2018.04.09

[Vrihub]

Unfortunately, the fix in 315ab3d worked for a couple of days, and now it's HTTP Error 403: Forbidden again :(

[Vrihub]

This is getting silly, 403 again.
Here is a suggested fix (tested ok): arc298/instagram-scraper#205 (comment)

[Vrihub]

Thanks again for the fix. As usual, it worked for a while, and now... HTTP Error 400: Bad Request (for a change)