Is the best user agent already applied on first time login if not provided?

[tajbowness]

The reason I ask this as I provided my own user agent that I got from the web and when I tried to do certain functions like "user_followers" it returned nothing. Trying again with _v1 raised a login_required exception while both _a1 and _gql returned an empty list instead of a dict. The function "user_following" is the same also, I haven't tried any others yet.

I've been using the same useragent for a week now and I didn't have any issues until today, I believe also that the function "user_following" was working previously. I thought this may have been an issue with my session settings so I generated one with a new session id and with the same user agent as before. But got the same result.

I removed "set_user_agent" on first time login and also my previous session_settings.json so it'll generate another session id and also a new user agent, which that seemed to work, I changed nothing else.

TLDR: The useragent that I applied myself seemed to cause errors with some functions, this didn't happen previously, only till today. I removed it and the session_settings.json so It'll generate a new one on login and that seemed to solve my issues.

User Agent: Instagram 277.0.0.17.107 Android (30/11; 320dpi; 720x1344; Apple; Mac OS X; Macbook Pro 2019; Intel; en_US; 462178131)

New User Agent: Instagram 269.0.0.18.75 Android (26/8.0.0; 480dpi; 1080x1920; OnePlus; 6T Dev; devitron; qcom; en_US; 314665256)

[birdhouses]

Not sure, but could it be that instagram just forced you to relogin? The reason that the _a1 and _gql returned an empty list could just be because you weren't authenticed.
I could be wrong, but everything worked fine when you relogged. It might not have to do with your user_agent.

[tajbowness]

Hey, I tried relogging prior to changing the user agent but it still didn't work. After that I regenerated "session settings" including a new session id and a new user agent that instagrapi generated instead of the one I provided previously and it worked properly.

I've been using the same useragent for a week now and I didn't have any issues until today, I believe also that the function "user_following" was working previously. I thought this may have been an issue with my session settings so I generated one with a new session id and with the same user agent as before. But got the same result.

[birdhouses]

@tajbowness I think instagram flagged your user-agent for suspicious activity and blocked requests from that user-agent. Resetting the session settings generated a new user-agent, thus removing the flag by instagram allowing you to continue to make requests.
At least, that is what I think has happend. Not sure:)