What causes "Invalid video password" in yt-dlp/yt-dlp?

Re-confirm the current password with the video owner (passwords are case-sensitive)

yt-dlp/yt-dlp · error · ExtractorError

Invalid video password

Error message

Invalid video password

What it means

Same Loom GraphQL signal (__typename 'VideoPasswordMissingOrIncorrect') but a video password WAS supplied via get_param('videopassword') — meaning the password was submitted and still rejected: it is wrong (changed, typo'd, or mangled by shell/API encoding). Raised with expected=True as 'Invalid video password'.

Source

Thrown at yt_dlp/extractor/loom.py:371

        return filter_dict({
            'en': traverse_obj(subs_data, (
                'data', 'fetchVideoTranscript',
                ('source_url', 'captions_source_url'), {
                    'url': {url_or_none},
                })) or None,
        })

    def _real_extract(self, url):
        video_id = self._match_id(url)
        metadata = traverse_obj(
            self._call_graphql_api('GetVideoSSR', video_id, 'Downloading GraphQL metadata JSON', fatal=False),
            ('data', 'getVideo', {dict})) or {}

        if metadata.get('__typename') == 'VideoPasswordMissingOrIncorrect':
            if not self.get_param('videopassword'):
                raise ExtractorError(
                    'This video is password-protected, use the --video-password option', expected=True)
            raise ExtractorError('Invalid video password', expected=True)

        video_data = self._call_graphql_api(
            'GetVideoSource', video_id, 'Downloading GraphQL video JSON')
        chapter_data = self._call_graphql_api(
            'FetchChapters', video_id, 'Downloading GraphQL chapters JSON', fatal=False)
        duration = traverse_obj(metadata, ('video_properties', 'duration', {int_or_none}))

        return {
            'id': video_id,
            'duration': duration,
            'chapters': self._extract_chapters_from_description(
                traverse_obj(chapter_data, ('data', 'fetchVideoChapters', 'content', {str})), duration) or None,
            'formats': self._extract_formats(video_id, metadata, video_data),
            'subtitles': self.extract_subtitles(video_id),
            **traverse_obj(metadata, {
                'title': ('name', {str}),
                'description': ('description', {str}),
                'uploader': ('owner', 'display_name', {str}),

View on GitHub (pinned to 81ecd58b13)

Solutions

Re-confirm the current password with the video owner (passwords are case-sensitive)
Quote the value properly on the CLI: --video-password 'p@ss w0rd!'; in the Python API pass it as the videopassword option verbatim
Check scripts for double-encoding (percent-signs, URL-encoding) applied before the value reaches yt-dlp
Verify by opening the share URL in a browser and entering the same password

Example fix

# before (shell mangles the ! or spacing)
VIDEO_PW=p@ss word! yt-dlp --video-password $VIDEO_PW <url>

# after (single-quoted, exact value)
yt-dlp --video-password 'p@ss word!' 'https://www.loom.com/share/abc123'

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Type guard

def is_loom_bad_password(err) -> bool:
    from yt_dlp.utils import ExtractorError
    return isinstance(err, ExtractorError) and 'Invalid video password' in str(err)

Try / catch

import yt_dlp
from yt_dlp.utils import ExtractorError

for pw in candidate_passwords:               # e.g. current + last-rotated value
    try:
        with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL({'videopassword': pw}) as ydl:
            info = ydl.extract_info(url, download=True)
        break
    except ExtractorError as e:
        if 'Invalid video password' not in str(e):
            raise
else:
    ask_owner_for_current_password()

Prevention

Single-quote --video-password values on the shell to avoid ! and $ expansion
Strip whitespace from programmatically sourced passwords before passing them
When owners rotate passwords, update your stored value at the same time

When it happens

Trigger: Passing --video-password (or the videopassword option) whose value does not match the one the owner set on the Loom video; passwords with shell-special characters getting misquoted, or values accidentally URL-encoded twice when injected programmatically.

Common situations: Owner rotated the password; copy/paste with trailing whitespace; quoting bugs in scripts ($ or ! characters); password managers auto-filling a stale value.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of yt-dlp/yt-dlp@81ecd58b13 (2026-08-22). Data as JSON: /api/errors/ba4f4ce9f96453e1. Report an issue: GitHub.