Playlist Download Skips or Stops? Causes and Fixes
In short
A playlist download skips videos that are private, deleted, age-restricted or blocked in your region, then moves on to the next entry. A batch stops when YouTube starts refusing requests. In B-ROLL, read the failed cards, fix the cause, press retry on each one, and add a cookies.txt from your own account for videos that need sign-in.
On this page
Why does a YouTube playlist download skip videos?
A YouTube playlist download skips a video when that entry is private, deleted, age-restricted, blocked in your region or a live stream that has not aired yet. Private, deleted and region-blocked videos cannot be downloaded, so a playlist download marks them failed and moves on.
The moving on is yt-dlp’s default, and B-ROLL runs on yt-dlp. The yt-dlp README lists --no-abort-on-error as the default behavior: continue with the next video on download errors, for example to skip unavailable videos in a playlist.
The table sorts each skip cause by what you see and what fixes it, as of September 2026.
| Cause | How to tell | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Private video | The playlist on YouTube lists the entry as “Private video” | Skip it, unless your own signed-in account can watch it: then add your cookies.txt |
| Deleted or removed video | The playlist lists it as “Deleted video”, or the link opens no video | Nothing to do: the file is gone |
| Age-restricted video | The error mentions “confirm your age” | Add a cookies.txt from your own signed-in account, then retry |
| Blocked in your region | The video will not play in your browser either | Skip it: B-ROLL does not work around region locks |
| Live stream or premiere not aired yet | The video page shows a scheduled start | Wait until it has aired, then retry |
| Sign-in or bot check mid-batch | The card reads “Sign-in required” | Load a fresh cookies.txt, then retry the failed cards |
| YouTube refused the stream | The card reads “YouTube blocked this (HTTP 403)” | Restart B-ROLL so yt-dlp updates, then retry |
Which videos in a playlist can never be downloaded?
Deleted videos, private videos your account cannot see, and videos blocked in your country can never be downloaded from a playlist. No setting, retry or update changes that, because the video is not available to your account.
YouTube Help states that private videos and playlists can only be seen by the owner and whomever the owner chooses. A playlist you did not make can keep pointing at a video its owner later made private or deleted, so the entry stays in the list while the video is gone.
Age-restricted videos are different: they exist, but YouTube wants a signed-in adult account. B-ROLL treats an error containing “confirm your age” as a sign-in request, tries your browser logins, then opens its sign-in wizard. A cookies.txt exported from your own account settles it; the YouTube cookies.txt guide covers the export and the refresh.
Region-blocked videos stay blocked. B-ROLL does not route around a region lock, and no setting in the app changes what YouTube allows in your country.
Why does a playlist batch stop partway?
A playlist batch stops partway when YouTube starts refusing every request instead of single videos: a sign-in or bot check, or repeated HTTP 403 errors. A lost connection or a full drive stops it the same way, whatever the playlist holds.
As of September 2026, YouTube can halt a batch with “Sign in to confirm you’re not a bot”. On Ema Zamboni’s own machine, what fixed that message was exporting a fresh cookies.txt from a signed-in browser and loading it in B-ROLL. Cookies expire, so the message can come back, and the fix is the same export again.
When the cards read “YouTube blocked this (HTTP 403)”, B-ROLL has already retried once with different YouTube player settings. Close and reopen B-ROLL: yt-dlp updates itself to the latest nightly build at every launch, and Force update yt-dlp in Advanced options does it on demand. The HTTP Error 403 Forbidden fixes walk through the rest.
Check the free space on the drive too. ProRes and DNxHR conversions make large files, and a long playlist in either format fills a drive faster than the same playlist in MP4.
How do you find which playlist videos failed?
B-ROLL shows each failure on its card: the state reads failed, and the message is the sign-in line, the HTTP 403 line or the last error line from yt-dlp. Open All in the library and read the failed cards first.
Up to 5 videos chosen in the “Download from channel” dialog become separate cards, one per video. More than 5 become one grouped card, so the gaps do not show as separate failed cards.
For a grouped card, count against the credits file. With Save credits (attribution) for each download on (the default), B-ROLL appends a block to credits.txt in the folder after every finished download. Compare its titles with the playlist on YouTube, and every title missing from credits.txt is a video to check. The credits file is best effort: when the metadata lookup fails, for example behind a sign-in wall, no block is written, so confirm a gap by looking for the video file itself.
Two more gaps are not failures. The “Choose videos from a list” option shows 60 videos, so a longer playlist or channel needs “Download every video in the channel”. A playlist link from music.youtube.com or m.youtube.com is not recognized at all: paste the regular youtube.com/playlist link.
How do you finish the playlist batch without starting over?
Fix the cause, then rerun only what failed. Retrying a failed card puts that single download back in the queue, and the finished files stay where they are.
- Fix the cause from the table: load a fresh cookies.txt in Settings under Cookies file, or restart B-ROLL so yt-dlp updates.
- Press ↻ retry on each failed card. The card goes back into the queue.
- For titles missing from a grouped card, copy each video link from YouTube into a .txt file, one link per line.
- Load that file with 📄 URL list (.txt) in the sidebar. B-ROLL queues every YouTube link it finds in the text.
- If B-ROLL shows Already downloaded for a video, press Cancel: that file is already in the folder.
Two details keep a rerun clean. yt-dlp skips a file that already exists in the folder, so a repeated run does not download it twice. The ↻ on a finished card is different: it downloads the video again with the current settings and overwrites the file, so leave finished cards alone.
When the batch is your own channel, the guide to backing up your own YouTube channel adds the check that every upload made it. For the playlist and channel options themselves, see the YouTube playlist and channel downloader. Other errors are collected under YouTube downloader not working? Fixes for editors.
Frequently asked questions
Does a skipped video mean the batch failed?
No. A skipped video is one entry YouTube will not serve, and yt-dlp's default is to continue with the next video on a download error. The rest of the playlist still lands in the folder. Only the entries that failed need attention, and many of them, such as deleted or private videos, cannot be recovered at all.
How do I rerun only the failed videos?
Press retry on each failed card in B-ROLL, which puts that download back in the queue without touching the finished ones. For videos missing from a large batch, copy their links from YouTube into a .txt file, one per line, and load it with URL list (.txt) in the sidebar.
Why does a channel link say channel downloads are off?
Channel downloads are off by default in B-ROLL. Pasting a channel link therefore shows the hint 'Channel downloads are off: enable in Advanced.' Open Advanced options in the sidebar, set Download channels to Ask or Yes, and paste the link again. The full walkthrough is in the YouTube playlist and channel downloader feature page.
Sources
- yt-dlp README on GitHub github.com
- yt-dlp wiki: FAQ github.com
- YouTube Help: Change video privacy settings support.google.com
