#1142763 yt-dlp: should support impersonating or at least handle the lack without a python backtrace

Package:
yt-dlp
Source:
yt-dlp
Submitter:
Russell Coker
Date:
2026-07-25 09:01:02 UTC
Severity:
normal
#1142763#5
Date:
2026-07-25 08:58:05 UTC
From:
To:
Below are the results of some attempts to use the --impersonate option.

Ideally this would just work, but failing that it should handle the error
without a backtrace.

$ yt-dlp --list-impersonate-targets
[info] Available impersonate targets
Client    OS   Source
--------------------------------------------
Tor       -    curl_cffi>=0.11 (unavailable)
Edge      -    curl_cffi (unavailable)
Firefox   -    curl_cffi>=0.10 (unavailable)
Safari    -    curl_cffi (unavailable)
Chrome    -    curl_cffi (unavailable)
$ yt-dlp https://vimeo.com/235272168 --impersonate=""
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/yt-dlp", line 8, in <module>
    sys.exit(main())
             ~~~~^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/yt_dlp/__init__.py", line 1080, in main
    _exit(*variadic(_real_main(argv)))
                    ~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/yt_dlp/__init__.py", line 982, in _real_main
    with YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
         ~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py", line 770, in __init__
    raise YoutubeDLError(
    ...<2 lines>...
        f'You may be missing dependencies required to support this target.')
yt_dlp.utils.YoutubeDLError: Impersonate target "" is not available. Use --list-impersonate-targets to see available targets. You may be missing dependencies required to support this target.
$ yt-dlp https://vimeo.com/235272168 --impersonate chrome
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/bin/yt-dlp", line 8, in <module>
    sys.exit(main())
             ~~~~^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/yt_dlp/__init__.py", line 1080, in main
    _exit(*variadic(_real_main(argv)))
                    ~~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/yt_dlp/__init__.py", line 982, in _real_main
    with YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
         ~~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/usr/lib/python3/dist-packages/yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py", line 770, in __init__
    raise YoutubeDLError(
    ...<2 lines>...
        f'You may be missing dependencies required to support this target.')
yt_dlp.utils.YoutubeDLError: Impersonate target "chrome" is not available. Use --list-impersonate-targets to see available targets. You may be missing dependencies required to support this target.