diff --git a/cmdlet/download_file.py b/cmdlet/download_file.py
index 3411eb2..09dd77a 100644
--- a/cmdlet/download_file.py
+++ b/cmdlet/download_file.py
@@ -1954,7 +1954,7 @@ class Download_File(Cmdlet):
                     height_selector = None
             if query_wants_audio:
                 # Explicit audio request should map to best-audio-only selector
-                ytdl_format = "ba"
+                ytdl_format = "bestaudio"
             elif height_selector:
                 ytdl_format = height_selector
             elif query_format:
diff --git a/tool/ytdlp.py b/tool/ytdlp.py
index c8233da..554e294 100644
--- a/tool/ytdlp.py
+++ b/tool/ytdlp.py
@@ -907,8 +907,18 @@ class YtDlpTool:
                                "fragment_retries": 10,
                                "http_chunk_size": 10_485_760,
                                "restrictfilenames": True,
+                               "user_agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/90.0.4430.212 Safari/537.36",
+                               "referer": "https://www.youtube.com/",
                            }
 
+        base_options.setdefault(
+            "http_headers",
+            {
+                "User-Agent": base_options.get("user_agent"),
+                "Referer": base_options.get("referer"),
+            },
+        )
+
         try:
             repo_root = Path(__file__).resolve().parents[1]
             bundled_ffmpeg_dir = repo_root / "MPV" / "ffmpeg" / "bin"
@@ -1095,7 +1105,7 @@ class YtDlpTool:
             base_options["playlist_items"] = opts.playlist_items
 
         if not opts.quiet:
-            debug(f"yt-dlp: mode={opts.mode}, format={base_options.get('format')}")
+            debug(f"yt-dlp: mode={opts.mode}, format={base_options.get('format')}, cookiefile={base_options.get('cookiefile')}")
 
         return base_options
 
@@ -1729,6 +1739,31 @@ except ImportError:
     extract_ytdlp_tags = None  # type: ignore
 
 
+def _is_http_403(exc: Exception) -> bool:
+    msg_parts: list[str] = []
+    try:
+        msg_parts.append(str(exc))
+    except Exception:
+        pass
+    try:
+        cause = getattr(exc, "__cause__", None)
+        if cause is not None:
+            msg_parts.append(str(cause))
+    except Exception:
+        pass
+    try:
+        context = getattr(exc, "__context__", None)
+        if context is not None:
+            msg_parts.append(str(context))
+    except Exception:
+        pass
+
+    for msg in msg_parts:
+        if "HTTP Error 403" in msg or "403: Forbidden" in msg or "403 Forbidden" in msg:
+            return True
+    return False
+
+
 def download_media(opts: DownloadOptions, *, config: Optional[Dict[str, Any]] = None, debug_logger: Optional[DebugLogger] = None) -> Any:
     """Download streaming media exclusively via yt-dlp.
 
@@ -1798,14 +1833,15 @@ def download_media(opts: DownloadOptions, *, config: Optional[Dict[str, Any]] =
         debug_logger.write_record("ytdlp-start", {"url": opts.url})
 
     assert yt_dlp is not None
+    info: Optional[Dict[str, Any]] = None
+    session_id = None
+    first_section_info: Dict[str, Any] = {}
     try:
         if not opts.quiet:
             if ytdl_options.get("download_sections"):
                 debug(f"[yt-dlp] download_sections: {ytdl_options['download_sections']}")
             debug(f"[yt-dlp] force_keyframes_at_cuts: {ytdl_options.get('force_keyframes_at_cuts', False)}")
 
-        session_id = None
-        first_section_info: Dict[str, Any] = {}
         if ytdl_options.get("download_sections"):
             live_ui, _ = PipelineProgress(pipeline_context).ui_and_pipe_index()
             quiet_sections = bool(opts.quiet) or (live_ui is not None)
@@ -1820,13 +1856,47 @@ def download_media(opts: DownloadOptions, *, config: Optional[Dict[str, Any]] =
             with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(ytdl_options) as ydl:  # type: ignore[arg-type]
                 info = ydl.extract_info(opts.url, download=True)
     except Exception as exc:
-        log(f"yt-dlp failed: {exc}", file=sys.stderr)
-        if debug_logger is not None:
-            debug_logger.write_record(
-                "exception",
-                {"phase": "yt-dlp", "error": str(exc), "traceback": traceback.format_exc()},
-            )
-        raise DownloadError("yt-dlp download failed") from exc
+        retry_attempted = False
+        if _is_http_403(exc) and not ytdl_options.get("download_sections"):
+            retry_attempted = True
+            try:
+                if not opts.quiet:
+                    debug("yt-dlp hit HTTP 403; retrying with browser cookies + android/web player client")
+
+                fallback_options = dict(ytdl_options)
+                fallback_options.pop("cookiefile", None)
+                _add_browser_cookies_if_available(fallback_options)
+
+                extractor_args = fallback_options.get("extractor_args")
+                if not isinstance(extractor_args, dict):
+                    extractor_args = {}
+                youtube_args = extractor_args.get("youtube")
+                if not isinstance(youtube_args, dict):
+                    youtube_args = {}
+                if "player_client" not in youtube_args:
+                    youtube_args["player_client"] = ["android", "web"]
+                extractor_args["youtube"] = youtube_args
+                fallback_options["extractor_args"] = extractor_args
+
+                with yt_dlp.YoutubeDL(fallback_options) as ydl:  # type: ignore[arg-type]
+                    info = ydl.extract_info(opts.url, download=True)
+            except Exception as exc2:
+                log(f"yt-dlp failed: {exc2}", file=sys.stderr)
+                if debug_logger is not None:
+                    debug_logger.write_record(
+                        "exception",
+                        {"phase": "yt-dlp", "error": str(exc2), "traceback": traceback.format_exc()},
+                    )
+                raise DownloadError("yt-dlp download failed") from exc2
+
+        if not retry_attempted:
+            log(f"yt-dlp failed: {exc}", file=sys.stderr)
+            if debug_logger is not None:
+                debug_logger.write_record(
+                    "exception",
+                    {"phase": "yt-dlp", "error": str(exc), "traceback": traceback.format_exc()},
+                )
+            raise DownloadError("yt-dlp download failed") from exc
 
     if info is None:
         try: