How to download protected PDF (ViewDocument) using Selenium or requests?

[Daremitsu1]

I'm trying to download a protected PDF from the New York State Courts NYSCEF website using Python. The URL looks like this:

https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=cdHe_PLUS_DaUdFKcTLzBtSo6zw==
When I try to use requests.get() or even navigate to the page with Selenium, I either get:

• A 403 Forbidden response (via requests)
• Or a blank page with no <embed> tag (via Selenium)

Here’s what I’ve tried:

Using requests:

import requests url = "https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=..." headers = { "User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0", "Referer": "https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/" } response = requests.get(url, headers=headers) print(response.status_code) # Always 403 

And using SeleniumBase:

from seleniumbase import SB with SB(headless=False) as sb: sb.open(url) sb.wait(5) try: embed = sb.find_element("embed") print(embed.get_attribute("src")) except Exception as e: print("❌ No embed tag found", e) 

Nothing works.

Full code for reference:

from seleniumbase import SB import requests import os import time def download_pdf_with_selenium_and_requests(): # Target document URL doc_url = "https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=cdHe_PLUS_DaUdFKcTLzBtSo6zw==" # Setup download directory download_dir = os.path.join(os.getcwd(), "downloads") os.makedirs(download_dir, exist_ok=True) filename = os.path.join(download_dir, "NYSCEF_Document.pdf") with SB(headless=True) as sb: # Step 1: Navigate to the document page (using browser session) sb.open(doc_url) time.sleep(5) # Wait for any redirects/cookies to be set # Step 2: Grab the actual PDF <embed src> try: embed = sb.find_element("embed") pdf_url = embed.get_attribute("src") print(f"Found PDF URL: {pdf_url}") except Exception as e: print(f"No <embed> tag found: {e}") return # Step 3: Extract cookies from Selenium session selenium_cookies = sb.driver.get_cookies() session = requests.Session() for cookie in selenium_cookies: session.cookies.set(cookie['name'], cookie['value']) # Step 4: Download PDF using requests with cookies headers = { "User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0", "Referer": doc_url } response = session.get(pdf_url, headers=headers) if response.status_code == 200 and "application/pdf" in response.headers.get("Content-Type", ""): with open(filename, "wb") as f: f.write(response.content) print(f"PDF saved as: {filename}") else: print(f"PDF download failed. Status: {response.status_code}") print(f"Content-Type: {response.headers.get('Content-Type')}") print(f"Final URL: {response.url}") if __name__ == "__main__": download_pdf_with_selenium_and_requests() 

Response:

No <embed> tag found: Message: Element {embed} was not present after 10 seconds! 

[mdmintz]

This downloads that file into the ./downloaded_files/ folder:

from seleniumbase import SB with SB(uc=True, test=True, external_pdf=True) as sb: url = "https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/nyscef/ViewDocument?docIndex=cdHe_PLUS_DaUdFKcTLzBtSo6zw==" sb.activate_cdp_mode(url) sb.sleep(10)

[Daremitsu1]

Yes, it works!!