Instragram stories - Failed to parse JSON

Checklist

• I’m reporting a broken site
• I’ve verified that I’m running yt-dlp version 2022.03.08.1. (update instructions)
• I’ve checked that all provided URLs are alive and playable in a browser
• I’ve checked that all URLs and arguments with special characters are properly quoted or escaped
• I’ve searched the bugtracker for similar issues including closed ones. DO NOT post duplicates
• I’ve read the guidelines for opening an issue
• I’ve read about sharing account credentials and I’m willing to share it if required

Region

UK

Description

Can’t download instragram stories on lastest version

Verbose log

yt-dlp https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17941152226024129/ -vU
[debug] Command-line config: ['-i', '--format', '((571/272/402/337/315/313/401/336/308/400/271/335/303/299/399/137/248/334/302/298/398/247/136/333/244/135/397/332/243/134/396/331/242/133/395/330/160/394/278)[protocol!=http_dash_segments])+(bestaudio[acodec=opus]/bestaudio[protocol!=http_dash_segments])/best', 'https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17941152226024129/', '-vU']
[debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs utf-8, out utf-8, err utf-8, pref UTF-8
[debug] yt-dlp version 2022.03.08.1 [c0c2c57d3] (zip)
[debug] Python version 3.9.0 (CPython 64bit) - Linux-5.10.28-Unraid-x86_64-Intel-R-_Xeon-R-_CPU_E5-2650_v2_@_2.60GHz-with-glibc2.30
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg N-54690-g682990a849-static
[debug] Optional libraries: sqlite
[debug] Proxy map: {}
Latest version: 2022.03.08.1, Current version: 2022.03.08.1
yt-dlp is up to date (2022.03.08.1)
[debug] [instagram:story] Extracting URL: https://www.instagram.com/stories/highlights/17941152226024129/
[instagram:story] 17941152226024129: Downloading JSON metadata
[instagram:story] 17941152226024129: Downloading JSON metadata
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/yt_dlp/extractor/common.py", line 1008, in _parse_json
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.9/json/__init__.py", line 346, in loads
    return _default_decoder.decode(s)
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.9/json/decoder.py", line 337, in decode
    obj, end = self.raw_decode(s, idx=_w(s, 0).end())
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.9/json/decoder.py", line 355, in raw_decode
    raise JSONDecodeError("Expecting value", s, err.value) from None
json.decoder.JSONDecodeError: Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/yt_dlp/extractor/common.py", line 617, in extract
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/yt_dlp/extractor/instagram.py", line 651, in _real_extract
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/yt_dlp/extractor/common.py", line 997, in _download_json
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/yt_dlp/extractor/common.py", line 983, in _download_json_handle
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/yt_dlp/extractor/common.py", line 1012, in _parse_json
yt_dlp.utils.ExtractorError: 17941152226024129: Failed to parse JSON  (caused by JSONDecodeError('Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)')); please report this issue on  https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp , filling out the "Broken site" issue template properly. Confirm you are on the latest version using  yt-dlp -U

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py", line 1389, in wrapper
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py", line 1459, in __extract_info
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/yt_dlp/extractor/common.py", line 643, in extract
yt_dlp.utils.ExtractorError: [instagram:story] 17941152226024129: 17941152226024129: Failed to parse JSON  (caused by JSONDecodeError('Expecting value: line 1 column 1 (char 0)')); please report this issue on  https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp , filling out the "Broken site" issue template properly. Confirm you are on the latest version using  yt-dlp -U

During handling of the above exception, another exception occurred:

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.9/runpy.py", line 197, in _run_module_as_main
    return _run_code(code, main_globals, None,
  File "/usr/lib64/python3.9/runpy.py", line 87, in _run_code
    exec(code, run_globals)
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/__main__.py", line 19, in <module>
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/yt_dlp/__init__.py", line 864, in main
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/yt_dlp/__init__.py", line 854, in _real_main
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py", line 3254, in download
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py", line 3227, in wrapper
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py", line 1380, in extract_info
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/yt_dlp/YoutubeDL.py", line 1407, in wrapper
  File "/usr/local/bin/youtube-dl/yt_dlp/utils.py", line 1088, in format_traceback
TypeError: format_exception() missing 2 required positional arguments: 'value' and 'tb'

[mehq]

I think reels API requires authentication. You should try with an account

[HobbyistDev]

I can confirm that I’m facing the same issue, even when using cookies.

Possible fix : #4074