BerriAI/litellm · error · Exception

Failed to get file metadata for '{file_path}': {e}

Error message

Failed to get file metadata for '{file_path}': {e}

What it means

Catch-all raised by GitLabClient.get_file_metadata when a HEAD/raw request for file headers fails with anything other than 404 (which returns None). It extracts status from the exception's .response.status_code, so pure network errors (no response attached) also fall through to this message.

Source

Thrown at litellm/integrations/gitlab/gitlab_client.py:286

        """
        url: Final = self._file_raw_url(file_path, ref=ref)
        try:
            headers: Final = dict(self.headers)
            headers["Range"] = "bytes=0-0"
            resp: Final = self.http_handler.get(url, headers=headers)
            if resp.status_code == 404:
                return None
            resp.raise_for_status()
            return {
                "content_type": resp.headers.get("content-type"),
                "content_length": resp.headers.get("content-length"),
                "last_modified": resp.headers.get("last-modified"),
            }
        except Exception as e:
            status: Final = getattr(getattr(e, "response", None), "status_code", None)
            if status == 404:
                return None
            raise Exception(f"Failed to get file metadata for '{file_path}': {e}")

    def close(self):
        """Close the HTTP handler to free resources."""
        if hasattr(self, "http_handler"):
            self.http_handler.close()

View on GitHub (pinned to 6c2dcb801b)

Solutions

1. Check the embedded error for the status code
2. Verify the ref exists: git ls-remote or GET /repository/branches
3. Confirm the file path is relative to repo root without a leading slash
4. For permissions issues, raise the token role/scopes as for other 403s

def valid_ref(client, ref: str) -> bool:
    return any(b["name"] == ref for b in client.get_branches())

try:
    meta = client.get_file_metadata(path, ref=ref)
except Exception as e:
    if "404" in str(e):
        meta = None
    else:
        raise

When it happens

Trigger: Calling get_file_metadata(path, ref=...) with an invalid ref name (400/404 depending on GitLab), insufficient permissions (403), auth failure (401), or a network timeout while performing the RAW-endpoint header request.

Common situations: Passing a branch/tag that doesn't exist (e.g. stale 'main' vs 'master'); LFS-pointer files returning unexpected headers; token scope missing read_api; proxied environments stripping HEAD requests.

Related errors

• Failed to fetch file '{file_path}' via JSON endpoint: {e}
• Failed to list files in '{directory_path}': {e}
• Failed to get repository info: {e}
• Failed to get branches: {e}
• Error getting prompt from Humanloop: {e.response.text}

AI-assisted analysis of BerriAI/litellm@6c2dcb801b (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/1ddf0a6af8bbe6b5. Report an issue: GitHub.