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instaloader/docs/troubleshooting.rst

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.. _troubleshooting:
Troubleshooting
===============
.. highlight:: python
429 - Too Many Requests
-----------------------
Instaloader has a logic to keep track of its requests to Instagram and to obey
their rate limits. Since they are nowhere documented, we try them out
experimentally. We have a daily cron job running to confirm that Instaloader
still stays within the rate limits. Nevertheless, the rate control logic assumes
that
- at one time, Instaloader is the only application that consumes requests. I.e.
neither the Instagram browser interface, nor a mobile app, nor another
Instaloader instance is running in parallel,
- no requests had been consumed when Instaloader starts.
The latter one implies that restarting or reinstantiating Instaloader often
within short time is prone to cause a 429. When a request is denied with a 429,
Instaloader retries the request as soon as the temporary ban is assumed to be
expired. In case the retry continuously fails for some reason, which should not
happen in normal conditions, consider adjusting the
:option:`--max-connection-attempts` option.
There have been observations that services, that in their nature offer
promiscious IP addresses, such as cloud, VPN and public proxy services, might be
subject to significantly stricter limits for anonymous access. However,
logged-in accesses (see :option:`--login`) do not seem to be affected.
Too many queries in the last time
---------------------------------
**"Too many queries in the last time"** is not an error. It is a notice that the
rate limit has almost been reached, according to Instaloader's own rate
accounting mechanism. We regularly adjust this mechanism to match Instagram's
current rate limiting.
Private but not followed
------------------------
You have to follow a private account to access most of its associated
information.
Login Error
-----------
Instaloader's login *should* work fine, both with and without
Two-Factor-Authentication. It also supports handling the *checkpoint challenge*,
issued when Instagram suspects authentication activity on your account, by
pointing the user to an URL to be opened in a browser.
Nevertheless, in :issue:`92` and :issue:`615` users reported problems with
logging in. We recommend to always keep the sessionfile which Instaloader
creates when using :option:`--login`. If a sessionfile is present,
:option:`--login` does not make make use of the failure-prone login procedure.
Also, sessionfiles usually do not expire and can be copied between different
computers without any problems.
If you do not have a sessionfile present, you may use the following script
(:example:`615_import_firefox_session.py`) to workaround login problems by
importing the session cookies from Firefox and bypassing Instaloader's login and
so still use Instaloader's logged-in functionality.
.. literalinclude:: codesnippets/615_import_firefox_session.py
To use this script,
#. Download the script: :example:`615_import_firefox_session.py`,
#. Login to Instagram in Firefox,
#. Execute the snippet, e.g. with ``python 615_import_firefox_session.py``,
#. Then, ``instaloader -l USERNAME`` should work fine.
This script also supports specifying a cookiefile path, which may be useful if
you use multiple Firefox profiles or if your operating system has the directory
structure differently set up. Also, you can specify an alternative sessionfile
path.