diff --git a/src/download-video.ts b/src/download-video.ts
index 2204f82..021fd78 100644
--- a/src/download-video.ts
+++ b/src/download-video.ts
@@ -57,10 +57,10 @@ export class YtdlpError extends Error {
     // A signal kill keeps its message: the timeout is the real story there,
     // and any ERROR line in a killed process's output is a stale partial.
     const lines = signalled ? [] : errorLines(stderr);
-    const errLine = (lines.findLast((l) => !PHOTO_ITEM.test(l)) ?? lines.at(-1))
+    const real = lines.filter((l) => !isPhotoItemError(l));
+    const errLine = (real.at(-1) ?? lines.at(-1))
       ?.slice('ERROR:'.length)
-      // De-noising is lossless: the raw line still streams to the chat
-      // verbatim, and classification reads raw stderr.
+      // De-noising is lossless: classification reads the raw stderr.
       .replace(/^\s*\[[^\]]+\]\s*/, '')
       // yt-dlp appends this after any "(caused by ...)", so it has to be
       // stripped first
@@ -70,7 +70,11 @@ export class YtdlpError extends Error {
       )
       .replace(/\s*\(caused by .*\)\s*$/, '')
       .trim();
-    super(errLine || message);
+    // Every item failing as a photo is a verdict on the post, and the last id
+    // is no more the reason than its siblings. A lone line has no siblings: it
+    // is the extractor's own verdict on the post.
+    const allPhotos = !real.length && lines.length > 1;
+    super((allPhotos ? 'There is no video in this post' : errLine) || message);
     this.name = 'YtdlpError';
     // hidden from console.error, which prints an Error's own properties whole:
     // a playlist's dump-json runs to megabytes (see STDERR_TAIL for the cap on
@@ -91,6 +95,8 @@ const NOT_A_VIDEO_PATTERNS = [
 // carousel is a playlist, whose photo items each fall through to yt-dlp's
 // generic no-formats error, a verdict on the item rather than the post.
 const PHOTO_ITEM = /\[instagram\] .+: no video formats found/i;
+const isPhotoItemError = (line: string) =>
+  line.startsWith('ERROR:') && PHOTO_ITEM.test(line);
 const PERMANENT_PATTERNS = [
   /unable to extract/i,
   /no video formats found/i,
@@ -113,7 +119,7 @@ export const classifyFailure = (e: unknown): FailureKind => {
   if (!all.length) return 'transient';
   // one line is the whole post reporting no formats, a failure the chat hears
   // about
-  const rest = all.length > 1 ? all.filter((l) => !PHOTO_ITEM.test(l)) : all;
+  const rest = all.length > 1 ? all.filter((l) => !isPhotoItemError(l)) : all;
   if (!rest.length) return 'not-a-video';
   if (rest.some((l) => NOT_A_VIDEO_PATTERNS.some((re) => re.test(l))))
     return 'not-a-video';
@@ -401,15 +407,30 @@ const execYtdlp = limit(
     // streaming decoder, so a multi-byte char split across chunks isn't garbled
     // (which would both mis-render and could defeat the classifier).
     let stderr = '';
+    let held = '';
     let firstLine = true;
     const decoder = new TextDecoder();
+    // A photo item's ERROR answers nothing the chat asked for. /verbose is a
+    // debugging request for yt-dlp's actual output, so it is exempt.
+    const show = (block: string) => {
+      const text = (
+        verbose
+          ? block
+          : block
+              .split('\n')
+              .filter((l) => !isPhotoItemError(l))
+              .join('\n')
+      ).trim();
+      if (!text) return;
+      if (firstLine) {
+        // visually separate the streamed stderr from the progress above it
+        logMsg.append('');
+        firstLine = false;
+      }
+      logMsg.append(`<code>${Bun.escapeHTML(text)}</code>`);
+    };
     try {
       for await (const chunk of proc.stderr) {
-        if (firstLine) {
-          // visually separate the streamed stderr from the progress above it
-          logMsg.append('');
-          firstLine = false;
-        }
         const text = decoder.decode(chunk, { stream: true });
         stderr += text;
         if (stderr.length > 2 * STDERR_TAIL) {
@@ -418,9 +439,23 @@ const execYtdlp = limit(
           const nl = stderr.indexOf('\n', stderr.length - STDERR_TAIL);
           stderr = nl === -1 ? stderr.slice(-STDERR_TAIL) : stderr.slice(nl + 1);
         }
-        logMsg.append(`<code>${Bun.escapeHTML(text.trim())}</code>`);
+        // the filter judges whole lines, so a line the chunk boundary cut waits
+        // for its other half
+        held += text;
+        const nl = held.lastIndexOf('\n');
+        if (nl !== -1) {
+          show(held.slice(0, nl));
+          held = held.slice(nl + 1);
+        } else if (held.length > STDERR_TAIL) {
+          // nothing this long is a photo item, and a stream that never sends a
+          // newline would otherwise hold all of it (stderr above is capped)
+          show(held);
+          held = '';
+        }
       }
-      stderr += decoder.decode(); // flush any buffered trailing bytes
+      const tail = decoder.decode(); // flush any buffered trailing bytes
+      stderr += tail;
+      show(held + tail);
 
       await proc.exited;
     } finally {
@@ -482,7 +517,7 @@ const onlyPhotoItemsFailed = (e: YtdlpError) => {
   const lines = errorLines(e.stderr);
   // no ERROR line at all means the run failed for a reason this stderr no
   // longer holds: the tail trim drops the oldest lines
-  return !!lines.length && lines.every((line) => PHOTO_ITEM.test(line));
+  return !!lines.length && lines.every(isPhotoItemError);
 };
 
 const parseEntries = (out: string): VideoInfo[] =>
diff --git a/test/bin/yt-dlp b/test/bin/yt-dlp
index c688c89..e8d0c97 100755
--- a/test/bin/yt-dlp
+++ b/test/bin/yt-dlp
@@ -7,7 +7,21 @@ d=/tmp/stub
 [ "$STUB_BIN" = "1" ] && [ -d "$d" ] || exec /opt/yt-dlp/yt-dlp "$@"
 echo "$0 $*" >> "$d/args"
 while [ -f "$d/block" ]; do sleep 0.05; done
-[ -f "$d/stderr" ] && cat "$d/stderr" >&2
+# stderr_split holds comma-separated byte offsets: deliver stderr as one write
+# per segment, far enough apart that the reader gets each as its own chunk
+if [ -f "$d/stderr" ]; then
+  if [ -f "$d/stderr_split" ]; then
+    prev=0
+    for n in $(tr ',' ' ' < "$d/stderr_split"); do
+      tail -c "+$((prev + 1))" "$d/stderr" | head -c "$((n - prev))" >&2
+      sleep 0.2
+      prev=$n
+    done
+    tail -c "+$((prev + 1))" "$d/stderr" >&2
+  else
+    cat "$d/stderr" >&2
+  fi
+fi
 # the real binary streams entries as it resolves them, so a kill lands on a
 # run that has already emitted some
 [ -f "$d/stdout" ] && cat "$d/stdout"
diff --git a/test/download-video.test.ts b/test/download-video.test.ts
index 71ae67f..6e09af3 100644
--- a/test/download-video.test.ts
+++ b/test/download-video.test.ts
@@ -542,6 +542,92 @@ describe('getInfo', () => {
     expect(infoCount()).toBe(0);
   });
 
+  it("keeps a carousel's photo errors out of the chat entirely", async () => {
+    await stub({
+      exit: '1',
+      stdout: JSON.stringify({ ...VideoInfo, id: 'v1', webpage_url: url }),
+      stderr:
+        'ERROR: [Instagram] photo1: No video formats found!; please report this issue on  https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues?q=\n' +
+        'ERROR: [Instagram] photo2: No video formats found!\n',
+    });
+
+    await getInfos(log as any, url);
+
+    // not even the blank line that sets streamed stderr off from the progress
+    expect(mockAppend.mock.calls.map(([s]) => s)).toEqual([
+      `🧐 <b>Scraping</b> ${url}...`,
+    ]);
+  });
+
+  it('streams a real error the photo errors are mixed in with', async () => {
+    await stub({
+      exit: '1',
+      stderr:
+        'ERROR: [Instagram] photo1: No video formats found!\n' +
+        'ERROR: [Instagram] v2: Requested content is not available, rate-limit reached\n' +
+        'ERROR: [Instagram] photo3: No video formats found!\n',
+    });
+
+    await expect(getInfos(log as any, url)).rejects.toBeInstanceOf(YtdlpError);
+
+    expect(appendedText()).toContain('rate-limit reached');
+    expect(appendedText()).not.toContain('photo1');
+    expect(appendedText()).not.toContain('photo3');
+  });
+
+  it('streams the photo errors under verbose, which asks for them', async () => {
+    await stub({
+      exit: '1',
+      stderr: 'ERROR: [Instagram] photo1: No video formats found!\n',
+    });
+
+    await getInfos(log as any, url, true);
+
+    expect(appendedText()).toContain('photo1: No video formats found!');
+  });
+
+  it('filters a photo error the chunk boundary cut in half', async () => {
+    await stub({
+      exit: '1',
+      stdout: JSON.stringify({ ...VideoInfo, id: 'v1', webpage_url: url }),
+      stderr: 'ERROR: [Instagram] photo1: No video formats found!\n',
+      // mid-line: the leading half alone reads as a plain unrecognized error
+      stderr_split: '25',
+    });
+
+    await getInfos(log as any, url);
+
+    expect(mockAppend.mock.calls.map(([s]) => s)).toEqual([
+      `🧐 <b>Scraping</b> ${url}...`,
+    ]);
+  });
+
+  it('streams a final line yt-dlp left unterminated', async () => {
+    await stub({ exit: '1', stderr: 'ERROR: Unsupported URL: https://x' });
+
+    await expect(getInfos(log as any, url)).rejects.toBeInstanceOf(YtdlpError);
+
+    expect(appendedText()).toContain('Unsupported URL: https://x');
+  });
+
+  it('stops holding a line that never ends', async () => {
+    // three writes with no newline anywhere, each on its own past the hold
+    // bound: unbounded holding would keep all of it until the process exits,
+    // however long it runs, and emit it as a single block at the end
+    await stub({
+      exit: '1',
+      stderr: 'x'.repeat(210 * 1024),
+      stderr_split: `${70 * 1024},${140 * 1024}`,
+    });
+
+    await expect(getInfos(log as any, url)).rejects.toBeInstanceOf(YtdlpError);
+
+    const blocks = mockAppend.mock.calls.filter(([s]) =>
+      s.startsWith('<code>'),
+    );
+    expect(blocks.length).toBeGreaterThan(1);
+  });
+
   it('keeps the salvage payload out of the logged error', async () => {
     const e = new YtdlpError('failed', 'stderr', false, 'x'.repeat(1000));
     expect(Object.keys(e)).not.toContain('stdout');
@@ -883,6 +969,17 @@ describe('downloadVideo', () => {
         'ERROR: [Instagram] Dbnd91uAyMW: No video formats found!; please report this issue on  https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues?q= , filling out the appropriate issue template. Confirm you are on the latest version using  yt-dlp -U\n',
       message: 'Dbnd91uAyMW: No video formats found!',
     },
+    // more than one item: no single id is the reason the post held no video
+    {
+      exit: '1',
+      stderr: ['Dbi3QbCCZYU', 'Dbi3Qa4Cdzq', 'Dbi3QbCCcTd']
+        .map(
+          (id) =>
+            `ERROR: [Instagram] ${id}: No video formats found!; please report this issue on  https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues?q= , filling out the appropriate issue template. Confirm you are on the latest version using  yt-dlp -U\n`,
+        )
+        .join(''),
+      message: 'There is no video in this post',
+    },
     {
       exit: '1',
       stderr:
@@ -1088,12 +1185,19 @@ describe('isPermanentError', () => {
     );
   });
 
-  it('falls back to the photo line when photos are all a post has', () => {
+  it('blames the post, not a photo, when photos are all a post has', () => {
     const stderr =
       'ERROR: [Instagram] photo1: No video formats found!\n' +
       'ERROR: [Instagram] photo2: No video formats found!';
     expect(new YtdlpError('failed', stderr).message).toBe(
-      'photo2: No video formats found!',
+      'There is no video in this post',
+    );
+  });
+
+  it("keeps a lone no-formats line, the extractor's verdict on the post", () => {
+    const stderr = 'ERROR: [Instagram] DaaWmzzAH9s: No video formats found!';
+    expect(new YtdlpError('failed', stderr).message).toBe(
+      'DaaWmzzAH9s: No video formats found!',
     );
   });