Letterboxd 403 Forbidden (Cloudflare) breaks sync — public profile, browser works, scraper blocked

[sachatt]

Description

I’m consistently getting a 403 Forbidden error from Letterboxd when using this tool, even though:

• The Letterboxd profile is public
• The profile loads correctly in a logged-out browser
• Trakt authentication completes successfully
• DNS/networking issues have been ruled out

This appears to be Cloudflare bot protection blocking letterboxdpy, not a configuration or privacy issue.

Error output

PrivateRouteError: {
  "code": 403,
  "reason": "Forbidden",
  "url": "https://letterboxd.com/torquenofriction",
  "message": "Unknown error occurred"
}

Full traceback shows failure originating from:

letterboxdpy/core/scraper.py::_check_for_errors

The request is blocked at the initial profile page fetch.

Environment

• Platform: Docker container ghcr.io/f0e/letterboxd-trakt-sync:latest
• Network: DNS confirmed working, Trakt API reachable
• Profile tested: https://letterboxd.com/torquenofriction (public)

What I’ve verified

• ✅ Letterboxd profile is public
• ✅ URL loads in incognito / logged-out browser
• ✅ Username is correct (case-insensitive)
• ✅ Trakt auth succeeds
• ✅ DNS and HTTPS connectivity are working
• ❌ Letterboxd returns 403 only to scripted requests

[Iskvaoning]

heya,

letterboxd recently started using cloudflare which is why you aren't able to use this tool.

I managed to update letterboxdpy using this command in my docker container : docker exec letterboxd-trakt-sync pip install --force-reinstall letterboxdpy --break-system-packages.
This allows letterboxdpy to upgrade to the latest version which use curl_cffi which mimics real Chrome browser fingerprints at the TLS/HTTP2 level, bypassing Cloudflare natively.

After that the tool was able to access letterboxd I did have a slight issue with the date format : (Below is fully vibecoded I am not a developper I have no skills in programming).

docker exec letterboxd-trakt-sync python3 -c "
content = open('/app/letterboxd_trakt/sync.py').read()
old = '''            entry[\"date\"] = datetime.date(
                entry[\"date\"][\"year\"],
                entry[\"date\"][\"month\"],
                entry[\"date\"][\"day\"],
            )'''
new = '''            date_val = entry[\"date\"]
            if isinstance(date_val, dict):
                entry[\"date\"] = datetime.date(date_val[\"year\"], date_val[\"month\"], date_val[\"day\"])
            elif isinstance(date_val, str):
                entry[\"date\"] = datetime.date.fromisoformat(date_val[:10])
            else:
                entry[\"date\"] = date_val'''
content = content.replace(old, new)
open('/app/letterboxd_trakt/sync.py', 'w').write(content)
print('patched:', 'fromisoformat' in content)
"

After a restart of my container it was working great and the sync start automatically :)

Note : this isn't a permanent fix, as a container update could break it all.