diff --git a/tubesync/sync/models/media__tasks.py b/tubesync/sync/models/media__tasks.py
index 1c6d63835..ea99b884e 100644
--- a/tubesync/sync/models/media__tasks.py
+++ b/tubesync/sync/models/media__tasks.py
@@ -10,6 +10,7 @@
 from django.conf import settings
 from django.utils import timezone
 from django.utils.translation import gettext_lazy as _
+from yt_dlp.utils import DownloadError
 from ..choices import Val, SourceResolution
 from ..utils import filter_response, write_text_file
 
@@ -167,9 +168,13 @@ def refresh_formats(self):
     last_attempt = round((now - self.posix_epoch).total_seconds())
     self.save_to_metadata(attempted_key, last_attempt)
     self.skip = False
-    metadata = self.index_metadata()
-    if self.skip:
+    try:
+        metadata = self.index_metadata()
+    except DownloadError:
         return (False, True, 'found no formats; trying again')
+    else:
+        if self.skip:
+            return (False, True, 'found no formats; trying again')
 
     fmt_dict = defaultdict(str)
     response = metadata
diff --git a/tubesync/sync/youtube.py b/tubesync/sync/youtube.py
index 5b8ab1a48..bb03c2b5c 100644
--- a/tubesync/sync/youtube.py
+++ b/tubesync/sync/youtube.py
@@ -267,6 +267,7 @@ class NoDefaultValue: pass # a unique Singleton, that may be checked for later
                     raise YouTubeError(f'Failed (again) to extract_info for "{url}": {ee}') from ee
                 # validate the response is what we expected
                 if not _subscriber_only(response=response):
+                    log.debug(f'get_media_info: response: {response}')
                     response = {}
 
     if not response: