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All the YouTube error messages explained with solutions

DISCLAIMER: If you are just an user of a public instance. This documentation is not for you. Please instead redirect your Invidious instance maintainer to this page or switch to another public instance: https://instances.invidious.io

Error: non 200 status code. Youtube API returned status code 429

Error explained

YouTube is limiting the traffic that you can send to their servers. This error may appear for a duration of 24 hours.

Cause(s)

Usually it is related to a lot of traffic being generated for refreshing your subscriptions.

  • You have modified the parameter channel_refresh_interval and thus you are forcing the refresh of your subscriptions too quickly for YouTube.
  • You are subscribed to a lot of channels. YouTube may classify this as abuse due to Invidious having to check for new videos on a lot of channels.
  • You have sent a lot of traffic in another manner. Like by using the Invidious API.
  • Someone on your network is sending a lot of traffic to YouTube.

Solution(s)

  • Try to keep the channel_refresh_interval parameter commented to let Invidious refreshing your subscriptions less frequently.
  • Unsubscribe from some channels. While this may not be ideal, this will definitively send less data to YouTube.
  • Configure pubsub: /installation/#post-install-configuration. This requires your Invidious to be available on the internet and through a public domain.
    After this you can try to extend the refresh interval, like to channel_refresh_interval: 240m.
    You will still get almost instantaneous notifications from new YouTube videos thanks to pubsub but you will induce less refreshing traffic to YouTube servers. As pubsub is method for YouTube to notify your Invidious instance for new videos.
  • Change your public IP address. This may not solve the issue permanently but temporarily solve it.
  • Ask the community for advice: https://invidious.io/contact/. Don't contact the team, we won't help you by email. Only ask in Matrix or IRC.

Sign in to confirm you are not a bot - This helps protect our community

Error explained

YouTube is blocking the communication of Invidious to their servers.

Cause(s)

  • YouTube is running different mechanisms to detect the usage of non official YouTube clients. Your Invidious instance may have been detected by their system.
  • Your IP address is blacklisted from YouTube servers. It is known that YouTube block datacenter and VPN IP addresses.

Solution(s)

First make sure that you are running the latest version of Invidious and you are using Invidious companion. Please see the updated installation guide.

After which you can try these solutions:

All of these options do not guarantee you to bring back Invidious to working conditions. These are just advices for trying to unblock your Invidious instance from YouTube. Make sure to always specify any modification being done to your Invidious when reporting issues.

PO Token initialization taking too much time to complete.

Message explained

Invidious companion is trying to create a valid PO Token against YouTube servers. But it fails to create a valid one.

Creating a valid PO Token should only take under one minute.

Cause(s)

  • YouTube is running different mechanisms to detect the usage of non official YouTube clients. Your Invidious instance may have been detected by their system.
  • Your IP address is blacklisted from YouTube servers. It is known that YouTube block datacenter and VPN IP addresses.
  • The player ID has changed. YouTube have specific players for encrypting videos. Invidious companion can't decrypt the new one.

Diagnostic

Go to https://www.youtube.com with a browser and with the IP address configured for Invidious companion. Use a socks proxy from your server (ssh -D) if your server doesn't have a graphical interface.

Try to play a video. If you get "Sign in to confirm you are not a bot - This helps protect our community", then your IP is blocked from YouTube.

You can also check the logs of Invidious companion in order to understand what's going on. With Docker Compose: 

docker compose logs -f companion

Solution(s)

First make sure that you are running the latest version of Invidious and you are using Invidious companion. Please see the updated installation guide.

After which you can try these solutions if you confirmed you are blocked:

All of these options do not guarantee you to bring back Invidious to working conditions. These are just advices for trying to unblock your Invidious instance from YouTube. Make sure to always specify any modification being done to your Invidious when reporting issues.

If you are not blocked, this might be a player ID change that companion doesn't support yet. If that's the case, consult the GitHub issues if there is an existing issue. And if and ONLY if there is none, create a GitHub issue.

Videoplayback URLs returning 403 HTTP errors

Error explained

YouTube is forbidding you from viewing/downloading videos from their "googlevideo.com" server. Other functions such as viewing channels pages may still work.

Cause(s)

This error has different root causes:

  • You are loading a video stream that is restricted to the IP address that generated that URL. For example this can happen on music videos or copyright content.
  • You or someone on your network have downloaded a lot of videos. Your IP address has been blocked from YouTube servers.
  • Ask the community for advice: https://invidious.io/contact/. Don't contact the team, we won't help you by email. Only ask in Matrix or IRC.

Solution(s)

First make sure that you are running the latest version of Invidious and you are using Invidious companion. Please see the updated installation guide.

After which you can try these solutions: