The original post: /r/datahoarder by /u/fmillion on 2025-01-28 06:29:48.
The main symptom is yt-dlp failing with an error "Please sign in to prove you're not a bot." It just started for me this week. I'm not a super heavy user of yt-dlp but I do use it to pull videos I particularly like/want to save. I don't feel like I've used it enough to be above the "noise" though - I'm definitely not doing what Nvidia supposedly did with downloading ~100 years worth of videos daily for AI training purposes (and apparently not being too cautious with that fact).
From all the research I've done, this has to do with Google starting to crack down on downloaders. The yt-dlp docs do have instructions for pulling cookies from a browser and even manually grabbing ephemeral (~12-hour) validation tokens but I have seen a few reports of people finding their IP banned completely, to where even a browser won't work (the mobile app apparently still does but nothing on PC works apparently with "something went wrong" errors). The only advice they have for you is "get a new IP from your ISP", since it seems Google has already blocked most known cloud hosting and VPN IP ranges.
I can't change my IP without a ton of hassle because I have a static from my provider. Obviously VPNs don't help (I tried - same error). I'm kinda nervous to actually use my login cookies - if my home IP gets fully blocked that would actually suck since I do watch a lot of tech news and just other general content on YT - I even pay for premium.
I can't even make a new Google account since it won't let me create one without an SMS loop ("to prove I'm not a bot"), and it says my number has been used too many times (I've done two junk/spam Email accounts with my number before - I've heard the limit is indeed 3 activations per phone number).
Just thought I'd start a thread to see if anyone else has had the issue, and what you ultimately did about it. Are full IP bans even if logged in really happening?