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Troubleshooting

YouTube 403 / restricted content (cookies)​

Sometimes you’ll hit HTTP Error 403: Forbidden or need login-only access.

MediaFetch can pass a cookies.txt file through to yt-dlp.

1) Export cookies​

Use a browser extension that exports cookies in Netscape format (“cookies.txt”), log into the site, export, and save it as:

  • cookies.txt in your MediaFetch app project folder (/app/cookies.txt)

2) Mount cookies into the container​

Add this to your Compose volumes:

volumes:
  - ./downloads:/data/downloads
  - ./cookies.txt:/app/cookies.txt

Be sure to add COOKIES_FILE=/app/cookies.txt to your environment variables.

Restart:

```bash
docker compose up -d

Never commit or share cookies.txt. It contains active session data.

Download links wrong behind a proxy

Set:

PUBLIC_BASE_URL=https://your-domain.example

Without it, links can point at internal hostnames/ports.