Can't connect to pushshift at all?

[Weroxig]

I added this under the _get(self, url, payload={}) function in site-packages/psaw/PushshiftAPI.py to check why it's not working

        print('URL: ' + url)
        print('Payload: ' + json.dumps(payload))

but I'm getting this when i press start download?:

URL: https://api.pushshift.io/meta
Payload: {}

I haven't worked with this API before but it looks like it's just sending nothing? And then i get
warnings.warn("Unable to connect to pushshift.io. Retrying after backoff.") and then eventually
raise Exception("Unable to connect to pushshift.io. Max retries exceeded.")

logs

Started downloader.
URL: https://api.pushshift.io/meta
Payload: {}
/home/user/RedditDownloader/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/psaw/PushshiftAPI.py:194: UserWarning: Got non 200 code 404
  warnings.warn("Got non 200 code %s" % response.status_code)
/home/user/RedditDownloader/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/psaw/PushshiftAPI.py:182: UserWarning: Unable to connect to pushshift.io. Retrying after backoff.
  warnings.warn("Unable to connect to pushshift.io. Retrying after backoff.")
YTDL: ERROR: [youtube] 6_fqg_jkjnk: Private video. Sign in if you've been granted access to this video [https://youtu.be/6_fqg_jkjnk]
Process RedditElementLoader:
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/usr/lib/python3.11/multiprocessing/process.py", line 314, in _bootstrap
    self.run()
  File "/home/user/RedditDownloader/redditdownloader/processing/redditloader.py", line 30, in run
    self.load()
  File "/home/user/RedditDownloader/redditdownloader/processing/redditloader.py", line 51, in load
    self._scan_sources()
  File "/home/user/RedditDownloader/redditdownloader/processing/redditloader.py", line 65, in _scan_sources
    for r in source.get_elements():
  File "/home/user/RedditDownloader/redditdownloader/sources/pushshift_search_source.py", line 12, in get_elements
    ps = PushshiftAPI()
         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/user/RedditDownloader/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/psaw/PushshiftAPI.py", line 320, in __init__
    super().__init__(*args, **kwargs)
  File "/home/user/RedditDownloader/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/psaw/PushshiftAPI.py", line 94, in __init__
    response = self._get(self.base_url.format(endpoint='meta'))
               ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/user/RedditDownloader/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/psaw/PushshiftAPI.py", line 196, in _get
    raise Exception("Unable to connect to pushshift.io. Max retries exceeded.")

[shadowmoose]

Unfortunately, Reddit has cut off PushShift's API access. This was relatively vital to some of RMD's systems, and it will be difficult to compensate for its loss.