ytdl-org/youtube-dl · error · ExtractorError

The video is not available, Facebook said: "%s"

Error message

The video is not available, Facebook said: "%s"

What it means

Raised by the Facebook extractor when the video page contains a 'uiInterstitialContent' block instead of video data. Facebook renders this interstitial when the video is unavailable (deleted, private, region-blocked, or age-restricted), and the extractor surfaces Facebook's own message. It is marked expected=True, so youtube-dl treats it as a user-facing availability problem rather than an extractor bug.

Source

Thrown at youtube_dl/extractor/facebook.py:521

                    parse_attachment(edge, key='node')

                video = data.get('video') or {}
                if video:
                    attachments = try_get(video, [
                        lambda x: x['story']['attachments'],
                        lambda x: x['creation_story']['attachments']
                    ], list) or []
                    for attachment in attachments:
                        parse_attachment(attachment)
                    if not entries:
                        parse_graphql_video(video)

                return self.playlist_result(entries, video_id)

        if not video_data:
            m_msg = re.search(r'class="[^"]*uiInterstitialContent[^"]*"><div>(.*?)</div>', webpage)
            if m_msg is not None:
                raise ExtractorError(
                    'The video is not available, Facebook said: "%s"' % m_msg.group(1),
                    expected=True)
            elif any(p in webpage for p in (
                    '>You must log in to continue',
                    'id="login_form"',
                    'id="loginbutton"')):
                self.raise_login_required()

        if not video_data and '/watchparty/' in url:
            post_data = {
                'doc_id': 3731964053542869,
                'variables': json.dumps({
                    'livingRoomID': video_id,
                }),
            }

            prefetched_data = extract_relay_prefetched_data(r'"login_data"\s*:\s*{')
            if prefetched_data:

View on GitHub (pinned to 956b8c5855)

Solutions

  1. Open the same URL in a browser to confirm the video still exists and is public
  2. Pass cookies from a logged-in session (--cookies from a cookies.txt dump) since Facebook hides many videos from anonymous requests
  3. Update youtube-dl/youtube-dl to the latest version, since Facebook changes its page markup frequently and old extractors miss video data
  4. If the video is genuinely gone, obtain a re-upload or mirror URL

Example fix

# before
youtube_dl 'https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1234567890'
# raises: The video is not available, Facebook said: "..."

# after
youtube_dl --cookies cookies.txt 'https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1234567890'
Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Try / catch

from youtube_dl.utils import ExtractorError
try:
    ydl.extract_info(url, download=True)
except ExtractorError as e:
    if 'The video is not available' in str(e):
        mark_url_unavailable(url)  # skip permanently
    else:
        raise

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: The matcher for class="uiInterstitialContent"><div>(.*?)</div> succeeds on the downloaded webpage while video_data is empty. Concretely: opening a removed/privatized facebook.com/watch or fb.watch URL, a video whose privacy setting was changed to friends-only, or an age-gated video served without login cookies.

Common situations: Old bookmarked fb.watch links after the owner deleted the video; corporate pages taking videos offline; scraping pages while not logged in so Facebook serves the interstitial instead of the player.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of ytdl-org/youtube-dl@956b8c5855 (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2230ddeed19a418b. Report an issue: GitHub.