[ie/youtube] Add extractor arg to skip "initial_data" request (#12865)

Closes https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/12826

Authored by: leeblackc

2 files changed, 2 insertions, 2 deletions

diff --git a/README.md b/README.md
index c0329f539..0cc2cd7b2 100644
--- a/README.md
+++ b/README.md
@@ -1770,7 +1770,7 @@ The following extractors use this feature:
 * `lang`: Prefer translated metadata (`title`, `description` etc) of this language code (case-sensitive). By default, the video primary language metadata is preferred, with a fallback to `en` translated. See [youtube.py](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/blob/c26f9b991a0681fd3ea548d535919cec1fbbd430/yt_dlp/extractor/youtube.py#L381-L390) for list of supported content language codes
 * `skip`: One or more of `hls`, `dash` or `translated_subs` to skip extraction of the m3u8 manifests, dash manifests and [auto-translated subtitles](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/4090#issuecomment-1158102032) respectively
 * `player_client`: Clients to extract video data from. The currently available clients are `web`, `web_safari`, `web_embedded`, `web_music`, `web_creator`, `mweb`, `ios`, `android`, `android_vr`, `tv` and `tv_embedded`. By default, `tv,ios,web` is used, or `tv,web` is used when authenticating with cookies. The `web_music` client is added for `music.youtube.com` URLs when logged-in cookies are used. The `tv_embedded` and `web_creator` clients are added for age-restricted videos if account age-verification is required. Some clients, such as `web` and `web_music`, require a `po_token` for their formats to be downloadable. Some clients, such as `web_creator`, will only work with authentication. Not all clients support authentication via cookies. You can use `default` for the default clients, or you can use `all` for all clients (not recommended). You can prefix a client with `-` to exclude it, e.g. `youtube:player_client=default,-ios`
-* `player_skip`: Skip some network requests that are generally needed for robust extraction. One or more of `configs` (skip client configs), `webpage` (skip initial webpage), `js` (skip js player). While these options can help reduce the number of requests needed or avoid some rate-limiting, they could cause some issues. See [#860](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/860) for more details
+* `player_skip`: Skip some network requests that are generally needed for robust extraction. One or more of `configs` (skip client configs), `webpage` (skip initial webpage), `js` (skip js player), `initial_data` (skip initial data/next ep request). While these options can help reduce the number of requests needed or avoid some rate-limiting, they could cause issues such as missing formats or metadata.  See [#860](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/pull/860) and [#12826](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues/12826) for more details
 * `player_params`: YouTube player parameters to use for player requests. Will overwrite any default ones set by yt-dlp.
 * `comment_sort`: `top` or `new` (default) - choose comment sorting mode (on YouTube's side)
 * `max_comments`: Limit the amount of comments to gather. Comma-separated list of integers representing `max-comments,max-parents,max-replies,max-replies-per-thread`. Default is `all,all,all,all`
diff --git a/yt_dlp/extractor/youtube/_video.py b/yt_dlp/extractor/youtube/_video.py
index c6b69e440..bcfe8b152 100644
--- a/yt_dlp/extractor/youtube/_video.py
+++ b/yt_dlp/extractor/youtube/_video.py
@@ -3876,7 +3876,7 @@ class YoutubeIE(YoutubeBaseInfoExtractor):
             if not traverse_obj(initial_data, 'contents'):
                 self.report_warning('Incomplete data received in embedded initial data; re-fetching using API.')
                 initial_data = None
-        if not initial_data:
+        if not initial_data and 'initial_data' not in self._configuration_arg('player_skip'):
             query = {'videoId': video_id}
             query.update(self._get_checkok_params())
             initial_data = self._extract_response(