u/AkilTheKhatri

This is a copy of the issue I have created on the GitHub page of yt-dlp https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/16781

Checklist

• I'm reporting that yt-dlp is broken on a supported site
• I've verified that I have updated yt-dlp to nightly or master (update instructions)
• 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 known issues, the FAQ, and the bugtracker for similar issues including closed ones. DO NOT post duplicates
• I've read the policy against AI/LLM contributions and understand I may be blocked from the repository if it is violated
• I've read about sharing account credentials and I'm willing to share it if required

Region

India

Provide a description that is worded well enough to be understood

I am not able to download YT live streams when I add --live-from-start to download from the start and --cookies to prevent bot detection.

Though if I remove either of those the download works fine.

Here are the commands:

• The one not working (the output provided is for this command): yt-dlp --live-from-start --wait-for-video 600 --cookies "cookies.txt" -vU https://youtube.com/@NASA/live

These work:

• yt-dlp --wait-for-video 600 --cookies "cookies.txt" -vU https://youtube.com/@NASA/live
• yt-dlp --live-from-start --wait-for-video 600 -vU https://youtube.com/@NASA/live

I am running these commands in my local machine where I can make do without passing cookies but I want to run them in cloud environment where I need to pass cookies to pass bot detection.

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

[debug] Command-line config: ['--live-from-start', '--wait-for-video', '600', '--cookies', 'cookies.txt', '-vU', 'https://youtube.com/@NASA/live']
[debug] Encodings: locale cp1252, fs utf-8, pref cp1252, out utf-8, error utf-8, screen utf-8
[debug] yt-dlp version nightly@2026.05.16.233954 from yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds [32f1671a9] (win_exe)
[debug] Python 3.10.11 (CPython AMD64 64bit) - Windows-10-10.0.26200-SP0 (OpenSSL 1.1.1t  7 Feb 2023)
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 2024-07-07-git-0619138639-full_build-www.gyan.dev (setts), ffprobe 2024-07-07-git-0619138639-full_build-www.gyan.dev
[debug] Optional libraries: Cryptodome-3.23.0, brotli-1.2.0, certifi-2026.04.22, curl_cffi-0.15.0, mutagen-1.47.0, requests-2.33.1, sqlite3-3.40.1, urllib3-2.6.3, websockets-16.0, yt_dlp_ejs-0.8.0
[debug] JS runtimes: deno-2.5.6
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[debug] Request Handlers: urllib, requests, websockets, curl_cffi
[debug] Plugin directories: none
[debug] Loaded 1864 extractors
[debug] Fetching release info: https://api.github.com/repos/yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds/releases/latest
Latest version: nightly@2026.05.16.233954 from yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds
yt-dlp is up to date (nightly@2026.05.16.233954 from yt-dlp/yt-dlp-nightly-builds)
[debug] [youtube:tab] Found YouTube account cookies
[youtube:tab] Extracting URL: https://youtube.com/@NASA/live
[youtube:tab] @NASA/live: Downloading webpage
[debug] [youtube] Found YouTube account cookies
[debug] [youtube] [pot] PO Token Providers: none
[debug] [youtube] [pot] PO Token Cache Providers: memory
[debug] [youtube] [pot] PO Token Cache Spec Providers: webpo
[debug] [youtube] [jsc] JS Challenge Providers: bun (unavailable), deno, node (unavailable), quickjs (unavailable)
[youtube] Extracting URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FuuC4dpSQ1M
[youtube] FuuC4dpSQ1M: Downloading webpage
[debug] [youtube] Forcing "main" player JS variant for player 0d0138e0
        original url = /s/player/0d0138e0/player_es6.vflset/en_US/base.js
[youtube] FuuC4dpSQ1M: Downloading tv downgraded player API JSON
WARNING: Video should already be available according to extracted info
[wait] Waiting for 00:10:00 - Press Ctrl+C to try now
[wait] Remaining time until next attempt: 00:09:52

I have vibe-coded python script(s) that actively check for streams on specified YT channels and download them when the channels go live

Basic command looks like this:
yt-dlp --verbose --live-from-start --wait-for-video 300 --cookies cookies.txt -o "./downloads/NASA.mp4" https://www.youtube.com/@NASA/live

This works when not providing cookies but I want to run this on a cloud VM where the Google blocks me and asks to signin due to bot detection

But providing cookies the following happens and a message appears "WARNING: Video should already be available according to extracted info" and stream does not start downloading

Logs
C:\Programming\yt-recorder>yt-dlp --verbose --live-from-start --wait-for-video 300 --cookies cookies.txt -o "./downloads/NASA.mp4" https://www.youtube.com/@NASA/live

[debug] Command-line config: ['--verbose', '--live-from-start', '--wait-for-video', '300', '--cookies', 'cookies.txt', '-o', './downloads/NASA.mp4', 'https://www.youtube.com/@NASA/live']

[debug] Encodings: locale cp1252, fs utf-8, pref cp1252, out utf-8, error utf-8, screen utf-8

[debug] yt-dlp version stable@2026.03.17 from yt-dlp/yt-dlp [04d6974f5] (win_exe)

[debug] Python 3.10.11 (CPython AMD64 64bit) - Windows-10-10.0.26200-SP0 (OpenSSL 1.1.1t 7 Feb 2023)

[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 2024-07-07-git-0619138639-full_build-www.gyan.dev (setts), ffprobe 2024-07-07-git-0619138639-full_build-www.gyan.dev

[debug] Optional libraries: Cryptodome-3.23.0, brotli-1.2.0, certifi-2026.02.25, curl_cffi-0.14.0, mutagen-1.47.0, requests-2.32.5, sqlite3-3.40.1, urllib3-2.6.3, websockets-16.0, yt_dlp_ejs-0.8.0

[debug] JS runtimes: deno-2.5.6

[debug] Proxy map: {}

[debug] Request Handlers: urllib, requests, websockets, curl_cffi

[debug] Plugin directories: none

[debug] Loaded 1864 extractors

[debug] [youtube:tab] Found YouTube account cookies

[youtube:tab] Extracting URL: https://www.youtube.com/@NASA/live

[youtube:tab] u/NASA/live: Downloading webpage

[debug] [youtube] Found YouTube account cookies

[debug] [youtube] [pot] PO Token Providers: none

[debug] [youtube] [pot] PO Token Cache Providers: memory

[debug] [youtube] [pot] PO Token Cache Spec Providers: webpo

[debug] [youtube] [jsc] JS Challenge Providers: bun (unavailable), deno, node (unavailable), quickjs (unavailable)

[youtube] Extracting URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWasdbDVNvc

[youtube] sWasdbDVNvc: Downloading webpage

[debug] [youtube] Forcing "main" player JS variant for player 0980151a

original url = /s/player/0980151a/player_es6.vflset/en_US/base.js

[youtube] sWasdbDVNvc: Downloading tv downgraded player API JSON

WARNING: Video should already be available according to extracted info

[wait] Waiting for 00:05:00 - Press Ctrl+C to try now