youtube downloads failing after starting for 2 months now

[shu126]

Your question

for just over 2 months now youtube has been failing after the download bar starts.

Country - Sri Lanka
Link I tried for error fail details -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qsipM0xwHgo

Exit code: 1

moz-extension://e22a22c1-2f54-4758-943a-c1058c5ddd1e/background/main.js:1
receive@moz-extension://e22a22c1-2f54-4758-943a-c1058c5ddd1e/background/main.js:1:13135
bd</callCatchAppNotFound/</<@moz-extension://e22a22c1-2f54-4758-943a-c1058c5ddd1e/background/main.js:1:42669

Addon & CoApp version and details

version: 9.5.0.2
channel: stable
build date: 2025-05-28
build options: linuxlic: false, noyt: false, browser: firefox
lang: en-US
license: accepted
key (only 16 first characters): 05952babfd934619
platform: x86-64 win
UA: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:140.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/140.0
coapp: yes. Info:
{
"id": "net.downloadhelper.coapp",
"name": "VdhCoApp",
"version": "2.0.19",
"binary": "C:\Program Files\DownloadHelper CoApp\vdhcoapp.exe",
"displayName": "VdhCoApp",
"description": "Video DownloadHelper companion app",
"target": {
"os": "windows",
"arch": "x86_64",
"node": "18"
},
"home": "C:\Users\user1",
"converterBinary": "C:\Program Files\DownloadHelper CoApp\ffmpeg.exe",
"converterBase": "ffmpeg",
"converterBaseVersion": "c30f360955"
}

[GrampaWildWilly]

i do not work for VDH. I'm just another user. Also, please read #2214.

I'm running Windows 11 Pro 64-bit version 24H2 build 26100.4484, Firefox 140.0.2 64-bit, licensed VDH 9.5.0.2, CoApp 2.0.20.

I visited your YouTube video & this is what happened:

The download completed without incident. The resulting file looked like this:

Here it is playing in VLC:

You can see it was playing fine. You'll have to take my word for it that the audio was equally fine, although I must admit I had to pump the volume up rather higher than I usually need to in order to hear anything.

It is looking very much like there is some sort of geographic component to these problems being reported on YouTube. I have not experienced any such issues, but then I'm in the US.

[shu126]

Yes this is believable, because there are 2 reasons for this post I made.
one is I have been following both VDH forum and YouTube anti ad block & download block behavior announcements,
the YouTube regional issue update or rather an announcement was brought up close to the timeline of a YouTube anti ad block modification, and was said to tell location to developers due to regional issue. (VDH can also bypass ads while its not even played and frozen on screen and download the target videos properly).

Second is that previously when I tried some methods through out the 2 months time, VDH works on and off, eventually it does not after working for a slightly prolonged period in a day after my last post, and now it just does not work.
And there has been no response to the last post since then after I reported this issue too.

Looking at your screenshot I noticed something else, My download times have gotten very long too. used to be very fast, but recently even a Youtube short would take significantly longer.

My Programs and versions seems to be the same as yours except for CoApp i seem to have 2.0.19, will update and try again.

I tried updating CoApp, but it seems 2.0.19 is the latest available.

[shu126]

Also do you stay logged into youtube account when downloading? wondering if that could be a thing which is causing issues.

[shu126]

Tried Imitating what was shown on the reply screen shots, I was using classic Ui, and now tried the new one also after uninstalling and re installing the CoApp. the same videos seems to work. don't know if it will end up the same as previously, but will try for a while and with multiple downloads and check if it fails after a while like before.

[GrampaWildWilly]

You can see in my screenshots that I am not signed in on YouTube. Maybe that's a factor. I hardly ever sign in on YouTube. The only time I sign in is to look at age-restricted content. We already know that's a problem. There's plenty of posts on here complaining about that. I had to sign in once to get something I had purchased. That was several years ago & VDH would not download that. I think it was so long ago, I was on VDH 7. Probably also Windows 7. Back in the Dark Ages. I ended up OBSing the content, which worked fine then. I suspect OBS or your screen recorder of choice may be necessary in some cases.

But this issue of downloads for a few & then blocks for some number of hours, then after the appropriate period of penitence in timeout, you can download some more . . . That does not seem like a VDH issue. I suppose it's possible there might be something VDH could do to not upset Google & avoid the penitentiary period. Only Paul could answer that. Maybe @jcfrog Jérôme could get Paul to make a pronouncement on this.

[shu126]

Oh you are right, I did not see it, you are not signed in, I will try a prolonged period without signing in, and see if I get some results.
I keep signed in to track the videos I want. Now this brings up the question,
Will it be ok if I copy the links from a signed in PC and then paste it to another PC or a 2nd Firefox browser installed on the same PC then tried downloading it, but still on the same internet connection. Will try this too.

Additionally... I am completely new to GitHub forums, regarding re posting you brought up.
I want to ask about somethings related to the VDH License. How should I post the question, or is the topic already there?

Should I just post a new topic or could it get flagged as spamming?

these questions -

How many PCs can I have a single License key with the same email activated at the same time?
If I make a 2nd purchase of a License under the same email could I increase the number of PCs or would it just overwrite it?
Should I just buy under a new email to increase the amount of activated PCs?

I use multiple PCs on the same network and environment and Multiple Browser installations of the same browsers on each PC to reduce clutter in the browser and for my own convenience of categorically separating purpose per browser.

[GrampaWildWilly]

If there's no tracking qualifiers in the URL, you can paste the URL into any computer you like. A bare YouTube URL without tracking qualifiers looks like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=something. Tracking qualifiers would be junk that follows the something token, typically things that begin with question marks. They are dross. You can safely ditch those.

There is a section of this forum devoted to licenses. You'll find your answers there. As a newbie, you should learn to use the search feature of GitHub. Don't go buying multiple licenses until you read up a bit on the subject. Here's a boost, but you should do some searches & find more information: #928, #1091.

[jcfrog]

@shu126 you can use your license on all your devices, there is just a simple security check by email every 8 installs, but no limit.

[shu126]

Thank you very much for all the advice @GrampaWildWilly , it has cleared up a lot so I can do my own workaround much more efficiently.
And thanks for the License usage confirmation @jcfrog
I will update this discussion with the results and what I did to get that, after trying a few days.