ERROR: unable to download video data: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden

[dugasdev]

Before continuing with the bug report, does updating to the latest version fix this issue? [Yes/No]
No. Happening as of 15/02/2026

Describe the bug
I was using the program to play music in loop to my friends in a ttrpg session and sadly it's not working anymore.
With a lot of youtube URLs it now gives out the error "ERROR: unable to download video data: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden".

Debugging Information
pymusiclooper play --url https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyZz7g2CUMk
ERROR: unable to download video data: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden

It's just a random video url with song I tried inputting to see of anything happened.

Expected behavior
Normally the program always tried to find a loop and play that loop as expected, but now it fails to even download the track.

Environment Information (please complete the following information):
Windows 11
pymusiclooper 3.6.0
ffmpeg installed and working

Additional context
I'm supposing it might be an outdated yt-dlp, but I'm not sure. Updating yt-dlp might fix things. I honestly don't know how to make pymusiclooper use a newer version of yt-dlp lol.

[Bonboon229]

You need to use the nightly version of yt-dlp, but the error is a rate limit issue on your end imposed by youtube, your IP address is likely temperorily blocked.
It's a yt-dlp issue at the end of the day, not a pymusiclooper issue.

[dugasdev]

I wrote a separate script that called my own separated installation of yt-dlp and then fed the .mp3 file to pymusiclooper and it worked fine. If no one has the same problem with using pymusiclooper alone as is then please ignore lol idk

[Bonboon229]

Solution:
Upgrade YT-DLP Python Version to nightly with the following

python -m pip install -U --pre "yt-dlp[default]"