[Udemy] Course download does not work on some courses and returns 403 forbidden after passing the publically available preview videos

Checklist

• I’m reporting a broken site support
• I’ve verified that I’m running youtube-dl version 2021.04.26
• 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

Verbose log

user1@user1 udemy-dl % youtube-dl --cookies /Users/user1/Downloads/udemy.com_cookies.txt -f 'best'  https://www.udemy.com/neo4j-foundations/ -o '%(playlist)s/%(chapter_number)s. %(chapter)s/%(playlist_index)s. %(title)s.%(ext)s' -v
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Custom config: []
[debug] Command-line args: ['--cookies', '/Users/user1/Downloads/udemy.com_cookies.txt', '-f', 'best', 'https://www.udemy.com/neo4j-foundations/', '-o', '%(playlist)s/%(chapter_number)s. %(chapter)s/%(playlist_index)s. %(title)s.%(ext)s', '-v']
[debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs utf-8, out utf-8, pref UTF-8
[debug] youtube-dl version 2021.04.26
[debug] Python version 3.9.4 (CPython) - macOS-10.15.7-x86_64-i386-64bit
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 4.3.1, ffprobe 4.3.1, rtmpdump 2.4
[debug] Proxy map: {}
[udemy:course] neo4j-foundations: Downloading webpage
[udemy:course] 692416: Downloading course curriculum
[download] Downloading playlist: 692416
[udemy:course] playlist 692416: Collected 76 video ids (downloading 76 of them)
[download] Downloading video 1 of 76
[udemy] 18178652: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 18178652: Downloading lecture JSON
[udemy] 22522866: Downloading m3u8 information
[debug] Invoking downloader on 'https://www.udemy.com/assets/22522866/files/2020-02-25_04-32-21-c81c9df6373bae728c6ad4e11306017d/1/hls/AVC_1920x1080_1200k_AAC-HE_64k/aa00837488289822bc8bd10f1e3dc6acf0d2.m3u8?provider=verizon&token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJwYXRoIjoiMjAyMC0wMi0yNV8wNC0zMi0yMS1jODFjOWRmNjM3M2JhZTcyOGM2YWQ0ZTExMzA2MDE3ZC8xLyIsImV4cCI6MTYxOTQ0Njk0Nn0.UH34mMtW_dNuh8HKBnbVxTbMtn5sppAPPKuPkuYaC3Y&v=1'
[download] 692416/1. Welcome to the course/01. Welcome.mp4 has already been downloaded
[download] 100% of 8.51MiB
[debug] ffmpeg command line: ffprobe -show_streams 'file:692416/1. Welcome to the course/01. Welcome.mp4'
[ffmpeg] Fixing malformed AAC bitstream in "692416/1. Welcome to the course/01. Welcome.mp4"
[debug] ffmpeg command line: ffmpeg -y -loglevel repeat+info -i 'file:692416/1. Welcome to the course/01. Welcome.mp4' -c copy -f mp4 -bsf:a aac_adtstoasc 'file:692416/1. Welcome to the course/01. Welcome.temp.mp4'
[download] Downloading video 2 of 76
[udemy] 4156842: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 4156842: Downloading lecture JSON
[udemy] 22655032: Downloading m3u8 information
[debug] Invoking downloader on 'https://www.udemy.com/assets/22655032/files/2020-03-04_02-05-12-212aaaffa14f70b3af7a7f4a0a94da61/1/hls/AVC_1920x1080_1200k_AAC-HE_64k/aa00b174d6874f6fb5231f5d7250de8d6670.m3u8?provider=verizon&token=eyJ0eXAiOiJKV1QiLCJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiJ9.eyJleHAiOjE2MTk0NDY5NDksInBhdGgiOiIyMDIwLTAzLTA0XzAyLTA1LTEyLTIxMmFhYWZmYTE0ZjcwYjNhZjdhN2Y0YTBhOTRkYTYxLzEvIn0.Mna27tzeyEYSbQOO1qAHyCTaA9glYXf2tNjq4KRrQMo&v=1'
[download] 692416/1. Welcome to the course/02. Course Overview.mp4 has already been downloaded
[download] 100% of 13.86MiB
[debug] ffmpeg command line: ffprobe -show_streams 'file:692416/1. Welcome to the course/02. Course Overview.mp4'
[ffmpeg] Fixing malformed AAC bitstream in "692416/1. Welcome to the course/02. Course Overview.mp4"
[debug] ffmpeg command line: ffmpeg -y -loglevel repeat+info -i 'file:692416/1. Welcome to the course/02. Course Overview.mp4' -c copy -f mp4 -bsf:a aac_adtstoasc 'file:692416/1. Welcome to the course/02. Course Overview.temp.mp4'
[download] Downloading video 3 of 76
[udemy] 4156846: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 4156846: Downloading lecture JSON
[udemy] 22519730: Downloading m3u8 information
[debug] Invoking downloader on 'https://www.udemy.com/assets/22519730/files/2020-02-24_23-53-23-a806ae0cd151554115ac5ffe7dec1a41/1/hls/AVC_1920x1080_800k_AAC-HE_64k/aa000afee21e6278b65683de1eac381e8d83.m3u8?provider=verizon&token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJwYXRoIjoiMjAyMC0wMi0yNF8yMy01My0yMy1hODA2YWUwY2QxNTE1NTQxMTVhYzVmZmU3ZGVjMWE0MS8xLyIsImV4cCI6MTYxOTQ0Njk1Mn0.pi7JvnpYLfxgK4KtsMYyT3tzLRhw9bFuTkZHpgw8u78&v=1'
[download] 692416/1. Welcome to the course/03. What is a Graph.mp4 has already been downloaded
[download] 100% of 9.75MiB
[debug] ffmpeg command line: ffprobe -show_streams 'file:692416/1. Welcome to the course/03. What is a Graph.mp4'
[ffmpeg] Fixing malformed AAC bitstream in "692416/1. Welcome to the course/03. What is a Graph.mp4"
[debug] ffmpeg command line: ffmpeg -y -loglevel repeat+info -i 'file:692416/1. Welcome to the course/03. What is a Graph.mp4' -c copy -f mp4 -bsf:a aac_adtstoasc 'file:692416/1. Welcome to the course/03. What is a Graph.temp.mp4'
[download] Downloading video 4 of 76
[udemy] 5160978: Downloading webpage
[udemy] 5160978: Downloading lecture JSON
[debug] Invoking downloader on 'https://knowband-asset-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/2020-02-24_23-14-43-4b84b17b8a746b328e2861e663d5a32c/WebHD_720p.mp4'
ERROR: unable to download video data: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/youtube-dl/2021.4.26/libexec/lib/python3.9/site-packages/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 1967, in process_info
    success = dl(filename, info_dict)
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/youtube-dl/2021.4.26/libexec/lib/python3.9/site-packages/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 1906, in dl
    return fd.download(name, info)
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/youtube-dl/2021.4.26/libexec/lib/python3.9/site-packages/youtube_dl/downloader/common.py", line 366, in download
    return self.real_download(filename, info_dict)
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/youtube-dl/2021.4.26/libexec/lib/python3.9/site-packages/youtube_dl/downloader/http.py", line 351, in real_download
    establish_connection()
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/youtube-dl/2021.4.26/libexec/lib/python3.9/site-packages/youtube_dl/downloader/http.py", line 116, in establish_connection
    raise err
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/youtube-dl/2021.4.26/libexec/lib/python3.9/site-packages/youtube_dl/downloader/http.py", line 110, in establish_connection
    ctx.data = self.ydl.urlopen(request)
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/youtube-dl/2021.4.26/libexec/lib/python3.9/site-packages/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py", line 2279, in urlopen
    return self._opener.open(req, timeout=self._socket_timeout)
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python@3.9/3.9.4/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.9/lib/python3.9/urllib/request.py", line 523, in open
    response = meth(req, response)
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python@3.9/3.9.4/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.9/lib/python3.9/urllib/request.py", line 632, in http_response
    response = self.parent.error(
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python@3.9/3.9.4/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.9/lib/python3.9/urllib/request.py", line 561, in error
    return self._call_chain(*args)
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python@3.9/3.9.4/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.9/lib/python3.9/urllib/request.py", line 494, in _call_chain
    result = func(*args)
  File "/usr/local/Cellar/python@3.9/3.9.4/Frameworks/Python.framework/Versions/3.9/lib/python3.9/urllib/request.py", line 641, in http_error_default
    raise HTTPError(req.full_url, code, msg, hdrs, fp)
urllib.error.HTTPError: HTTP Error 403: Forbidden

Description

When trying to downloading some courses from Udemy, the downloads do not proceed passed the publically available previews.

I have tried these two and it did not work: https://www.udemy.com/course/neo4j-foundations/ https://www.udemy.com/course/the-ultimate-mysql-bootcamp-go-from-sql-beginner-to-expert/

Note the URL that the content is being pulled from differs between the working and non working URLS

[debug] Invoking downloader on 'https://www.udemy.com/assets/22519730/files/2020-02-24_23-53-23-a806ae0cd151554115ac5ffe7dec1a41/1/hls/AVC_1920x1080_800k_AAC-HE_64k/aa000afee21e6278b65683de1eac381e8d83.m3u8?provider=verizon&token=eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJwYXRoIjoiMjAyMC0wMi0yNF8yMy01My0yMy1hODA2YWUwY2QxNTE1NTQxMTVhYzVmZmU3ZGVjMWE0MS8xLyIsImV4cCI6MTYxOTQ0Njk1Mn0.pi7JvnpYLfxgK4KtsMYyT3tzLRhw9bFuTkZHpgw8u78&v=1'

vs

[debug] Invoking downloader on 'https://knowband-asset-bucket.s3.amazonaws.com/2020-02-24_23-14-43-4b84b17b8a746b328e2861e663d5a32c/WebHD_720p.mp4'

I can provide credentials as needed via email or lastpass whatever works best.

[smaga38]

Thanks to @jadence who said the following:
I was having the same 403 error despite purchasing the course. To fix it I did two things:

1. Clear my udemy cookies, log back into udemy.com, and then export a new cookies.txt
2. Changed the course URL from https://www.udemy.com/course/<course_name>/ to https://www.udemy.com/<course_name>/

After the above two steps running youtube-dl --cookies cookies.txt https://www.udemy.com/<course_name>/ --verbose finally worked!

[dirkf]

See: #29410 #29705 #22306

Also see why a dedicated tool for Udemy was abandoned.