If you run Power Downloader or read its email ops reports, you will see YTDLP_LOGIN_REQUIRED and user-facing messages like "This link is private or restricted." The natural reaction is panic: cookies died. Often that is wrong. The error name is generic — it means Meta returned a login wall, not that your session jar is empty.
Three different failure modes
1. Restricted content (most common) — The URL points to media that requires a logged-in viewer with the right relationship to the poster. Anonymous servers get a login page. Cookies can be perfect; the link still fails.
2. Dead or missing cookies — The cookie file is absent, expired, or checkpointed. Even clearly public reels fail consistently across many different URLs until you refresh cookies/context.txt.
3. IP or rate limits — Meta temporarily challenges datacenter IPs. You may see timeouts or login walls on otherwise public links until traffic cools or a proxy tier kicks in.
How to tell them apart
- Pattern: One reel fails, ten public reels succeed → probably restricted content, not dead cookies.
- Pattern: Everything fails, including known-public test reels → check cookie file presence and run a live probe.
- Pattern: Stories fail, reels succeed → expected; see our stories article.
- Ops report: "CRITICAL — no cookie file" is literal. "Login required: 8" with healthy IG/FB probe is usually user link mix, not outage.
FastSaver-first changes the picture
Power Downloader can resolve many links through FastSaver before local Meta cookies are touched. That means daily traffic stays green while cookie files are missing — until a fallback tier needs them. Do not assume silence means cookies are unnecessary; monitor file presence anyway.
What operators should do
- Confirm
cookies/context.txtexists and probes IG + FB OK. - Sample failing URLs — run the incognito test from our public link article.
- Check if failures cluster on
/stories/paths. - Rotate cookies only after broad public-link failure, not after one private story.
For end users
If one link fails, try a reel you know is public (a major brand page, your own post). If that works, your tool is fine — pick a different URL. If everything fails, wait and retry, or contact support via our contact page.