I’m running a small app on a Linux VPS that uses yt-dlp to:

1. fetch YouTube transcripts
2. download source video
3. cut shorts with ffmpeg

I got most of it working, but I have a recurring problem with YouTube cookies.

Current setup:

• Linux VPS
• yt-dlp
• ffmpeg
• Node 22
• --js-runtimes "node"
• --remote-components "ejs:github"
• cookies exported from my local browser and uploaded to the server as cookies.txt

What I observed:

• Fresh cookies can work
• Transcript fetching often works more easily than full video download
• Full video download sometimes fails with errors like:
• Sign in to confirm you're not a bot
• The provided YouTube account cookies are no longer valid. They have likely been rotated in the browser as a security measure
• Only images are available for download
• Requested format is not available

A manual command like this can work right after I upload fresh cookies:

/usr/local/bin/yt-dlp -v \
  --cookies "/root/youtube-cookies.txt" \
  --js-runtimes "node" \
  --remote-components "ejs:github" \
  --list-formats \
  "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIDEO_ID"

But after some time, the same cookies stop working and I need to export/upload them again.

I also tried:

• updating Node to v22
• enabling --remote-components "ejs:github"
• using a supported JS runtime
• fresh cookie exports
• testing directly in shell on the server

Question:

• Is there any reliable way to avoid constantly refreshing YouTube cookies on a VPS?
• Is cookie rotation just unavoidable in this setup?
• If cookie rotation is unavoidable is there way to automate it ?