Help required with downloading from Instagram

[tuplins]

I am having an issue wereas when I run the script to download from Instagram it opens the first url, skips a post then just sits there and does nothing, it doesnt move onto the next url, I have to kill the script in Task Manager

Here is a copy of my extractor for Instagram:-

"instagram": {
	"cookies": "C:\\GalleryDL\\Config Files\\cookies-instagram.txt",
    "include": "posts",
    "videos": true,
	"stories": true,
    "order-files": "asc",
	"date-min": 1757376000,

	"max-items": 30,
    "archive": {
      "module": "sqlite3",
      "path": "C:/GalleryDL/Config Files/download-archive-instagram.sqlite3"
    },

I have noticed I dont seem to have the file for download-archive-instagram.sqlite3, it doesnt look like it has created it.

Here is a list of what I have done to try and resolve the issue

1. removed sleep interval entries
2. checked and still can log into instagram account
3. cleared cookies entry for Firefox and created a new one
4. tried without max-items
5. tried with txt file archive option

I am at a loss, if anyone knows what is happening here or can give me any advice please let me know as at this point I am stuck.

If you need to see the whole conf file let me know.

[mikf]

I'd need to see the complete output with --verbose enabled to tell you what's wrong.

---

tried without max-items

There is no max-items option. Or stories. Or date-min.

"archive": { ... }

archive is expected to be a string value.

[mikf]

$ gallery-dl --verbose https://www.instagram.com/p/BqvsDleB3lV/ https://www.instagram.com/p/BoHk1haB5tM/
[gallery-dl][debug] Version 1.30.7-dev - Git HEAD: f5cd1fc8
[gallery-dl][debug] Python 3.13.7 - Linux-6.16.5-arch1-1-x86_64-with-glibc2.42
[gallery-dl][debug] requests 2.32.5 - urllib3 2.5.0
[gallery-dl][debug] Configuration Files ['${HOME}/.gallery-dl.conf']
[1/2] https://www.instagram.com/p/BqvsDleB3lV/
[gallery-dl][debug] Starting DownloadJob for 'https://www.instagram.com/p/BqvsDleB3lV/'
[instagram][debug] Using InstagramPostExtractor for 'https://www.instagram.com/p/BqvsDleB3lV/'
[instagram][debug] cookies: Loading cookies from '$HOME/cookies-instagram-com.txt'
[urllib3.connectionpool][debug] Starting new HTTPS connection (1): www.instagram.com:443
[urllib3.connectionpool][debug] https://www.instagram.com:443 "GET /api/v1/media/1922949326347663701/info/ HTTP/1.1" 200 4540
./instagram/instagram/1922949326347663701.jpg
[instagram][debug] Cursor: None
[2/2] https://www.instagram.com/p/BoHk1haB5tM/
[gallery-dl][debug] Starting DownloadJob for 'https://www.instagram.com/p/BoHk1haB5tM/'
[instagram][debug] Using InstagramPostExtractor for 'https://www.instagram.com/p/BoHk1haB5tM/'
[instagram][debug] cookies: Loading cookies from '$HOME/cookies-instagram-com.txt'
[instagram][debug] Sleeping 9.65 seconds (request)
[urllib3.connectionpool][debug] https://www.instagram.com:443 "GET /api/v1/media/1875629777499953996/info/ HTTP/1.1" 200 7304
./instagram/instagram/1875629777499953996_1875628837415270345.jpg
./instagram/instagram/1875629777499953996_1875628838338068954.jpg
./instagram/instagram/1875629777499953996_1875628841332795314.jpg

[tuplins]

here is the updated instagram extractor

 "instagram": {
  "cookies": "C:\\GalleryDL\\Config Files\\cookies-instagram.txt",
  "include": "posts",
  "videos": true,
  "stories": true,
  "order-files": "asc",
  "date-min": 1757376000,
  "max-items": 30,

  "sleep": [2, 6],
  "sleep-request": 1.5,
  "headers": {
    "User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/120.0.0.0 Safari/537.36",
    "Accept-Language": "en-US,en;q=0.9",
    "Referer": "https://www.instagram.com/"
  },

  "archive": "C:/GalleryDL/Config Files/download-archive-instagram.txt",
  "archive-format": "{shortcode}_{media_id}_{id}_{num}",
  "directory": ["instagram", "{username}", "{subcategory}"],
  "filename": "{date:%Y-%m-%d}_{shortcode}_{num}.{extension}"
}

and I have attached the debug file
debug.log

[tuplins]

well thank you again, this has been a great help, I am learning as I am doing and this has been a great resource

[tuplins]

And as you apparently can't see, there is no "max-items" or "date-min" option. You should really work on your reading comprehension skills.

Anyway, try this:

"instagram": {
  "cookies": "C:/GalleryDL/Config Files/cookies-instagram.txt",
  "image-range": "1-10",
  "image-filter": "date.timestamp() >= 1749648000 or abort()",
  "archive": "C:/GalleryDL/Config Files/download-archive-instagram.txt",
  "directory": ["instagram", "{username}"],
  "filename": "{date:%Y-%m-%d_%H-%M-%S}_{shortcode}_{num}.{extension}"
}

ah, spoke to soon, this seems to have downloaded posts between the 16th of July to the 23rd of July and not after the 9th of September (I adjusted the image range to 1-20) I checked the insta and it has posts from 11 hours a go

gallerydl_2025-09-12_08-14-05.log

[mikf]

The latest post from sionedcray is from July 16th
https://www.instagram.com/sionedcray/p/DMLCSRlydpx/

[tuplins]

thats a pinned post, this is the latest one - https://www.instagram.com/sionedcray/p/DOeBNuHDO4S/

[mikf]

"image-filter": "not pinned and (date.timestamp() >= 1749648000 or abort())",

[tuplins]

awesome, that has done the trick, one last question, what do you consider the best settings to avoid being blocked by instagram.

[mikf]

I don't know what the "best" settings are. Probably the defaults or slightly longer --sleep delays and reduced download speed.