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

Raised by BitBucketClient.get_file_metadata when the HEAD/GET for a file returns an HTTP error whose status is not 404 (which is mapped to None). The status is embedded only in the message text. So 401, 403, 429 and 5xx on the raw-file endpoint all surface here.

Source

Thrown at litellm/integrations/bitbucket/bitbucket_client.py:243

        try:
            # Use GET with Range header to get just the headers (HEAD equivalent)
            headers: Final = self.headers.copy()
            headers["Range"] = "bytes=0-0"  # Request only first byte to get headers

            response: Final = self.http_handler.get(url, headers=headers)
            response.raise_for_status()

            return {
                "content_type": response.headers.get("content-type"),
                "content_length": response.headers.get("content-length"),
                "last_modified": response.headers.get("last-modified"),
            }
        except Exception as e:
            # Check if it's an HTTP error
            if hasattr(e, "response") and hasattr(e.response, "status_code"):
                if e.response.status_code == 404:
                    return None
                raise Exception(f"Failed to get file metadata for '{file_path}': {e}")
            else:
                raise Exception(f"Error getting 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 status code in the message first: 403 → extend token scopes, 401 → refresh token, 429 → slow down
2. Rate-limit metadata checks and cache results keyed by path
3. Verify the file path is relative to the repo root with no leading slash
4. Prefer checking get_file_content() if you need the body anyway — it maps 404 to None instead of raising

Example fix

# before
meta = client.get_file_metadata("prompts/summary.prompt")

# after
try:
    meta = client.get_file_metadata("prompts/summary.prompt")
except Exception as e:
    if "403" in str(e):
        logger.error("Token lacks file read scope for this repo")
        raise
    meta = None  # metadata is best-effort

# Skip metadata polling during rate-limit windows
import time
_last_meta_call = 0.0

def metadata_allowed(min_interval_s: float = 1.0) -> bool:
    global _last_meta_call
    now = time.monotonic()
    if now - _last_meta_call < min_interval_s:
        return False
    _last_meta_call = now
    return True

try:
    meta = client.get_file_metadata(path)
except Exception as e:
    if "404" in str(e):
        meta = None  # defensive; current code returns None for 404
    elif "429" in str(e):
        backoff_and_retry_later()
    else:
        raise

When it happens

Trigger: Calling get_file_metadata('prompts/summary.prompt') with a token that can list but not read raw file contents (403), expired credentials (401), or BitBucket rate limiting (429) when polling metadata for many files in a loop.

Common situations: Polling loops that check file freshness via last_modified headers; branch restrictions that grant read on directory listings but not on src endpoints; heavy CI runs hitting rate limits.

Related errors

• Access denied to file '{file_path}'. Check your BitBucket pe
• Access denied to directory '{directory_path}'. Check your Bi
• Error getting file metadata for '{file_path}': {e}
• An error occurred: {str(e)}, blocked_user_list={blocked_user
• An error occurred: {str(e)}, file_path={file_path}

AI-assisted analysis of BerriAI/litellm@6c2dcb801b (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/44d8ed53cd779346. Report an issue: GitHub.