ytdl-org/youtube-dl · error · ExtractorError

reason

Error message

reason

What it means

Raised by the Google Drive extractor when get_video_info returns no 'title' but does return a 'reason' — Drive's own error string (e.g. 'This video is not available' or a quota message). Marked expected=True. This is the early bail-out before any format parsing.

Source

Thrown at youtube_dl/extractor/googledrive.py:176

        origin_lang_code = track.attrib.get('lang_code')
        if not origin_lang_code:
            return
        return self._get_captions_by_type(
            video_id, subtitles_id, 'automatic_captions', origin_lang_code)

    def _real_extract(self, url):
        video_id = self._match_id(url)
        video_info = compat_parse_qs(self._download_webpage(
            'https://drive.google.com/get_video_info',
            video_id, query={'docid': video_id}))

        def get_value(key):
            return try_get(video_info, lambda x: x[key][0])

        reason = get_value('reason')
        title = get_value('title')
        if not title and reason:
            raise ExtractorError(reason, expected=True)

        formats = []
        fmt_stream_map = (get_value('fmt_stream_map') or '').split(',')
        fmt_list = (get_value('fmt_list') or '').split(',')
        if fmt_stream_map and fmt_list:
            resolutions = {}
            for fmt in fmt_list:
                mobj = re.search(
                    r'^(?P<format_id>\d+)/(?P<width>\d+)[xX](?P<height>\d+)', fmt)
                if mobj:
                    resolutions[mobj.group('format_id')] = (
                        int(mobj.group('width')), int(mobj.group('height')))

            for fmt_stream in fmt_stream_map:
                fmt_stream_split = fmt_stream.split('|')
                if len(fmt_stream_split) < 2:
                    continue
                format_id, format_url = fmt_stream_split[:2]

View on GitHub (pinned to 956b8c5855)

Solutions

  1. Open the drive.google.com URL in a browser to see the actual reason
  2. If quota-exceeded, wait 24h or ask the owner to make a copy and share the new link
  3. Sign in to Google in a browser and use a cookies-from-browser capable tool (yt-dlp --cookies-from-browser)
  4. If the file is private, get the owner to grant access
Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

import requests
from urllib.parse import parse_qs
qi = parse_qs(requests.get('https://drive.google.com/get_video_info', params={'docid': fid}).text)
if qi.get('reason') and not qi.get('title'):
    print('Drive refusal:', qi['reason'][0])

Type guard

def drive_video_available(video_info_qs):
    return bool(video_info_qs.get('title')) and not video_info_qs.get('reason')

Try / catch

try:
    ydl.extract_info(url)
except DownloadError as e:
    if 'quota' in str(e).lower() or 'not available' in str(e).lower():
        schedule_retry_24h(url)  # quota windows reset daily
    else:
        raise

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Requesting a Drive docid whose get_video_info response contains reason=... and no title: video removed, made private, download-quota-exceeded, or requires sign-in.

Common situations: Shared files that hit Google's daily download quota ('Sorry, you can't view or download this file at this time'), deleted/private videos, or files where the owner disabled downloading.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of ytdl-org/youtube-dl@956b8c5855 (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/decd73e2cbc59cb1. Report an issue: GitHub.