BerriAI/litellm · error · Exception

Failed to initiate upload: {response.text}

Error message

Failed to initiate upload: {response.text}

What it means

The resumable-upload initiation POST to the Gemini Files API returned a non-200/201 status, so no upload session could start. The response body '{response.text}' carries the API's reason (auth, quota, bad metadata); the request is aborted before any bytes are uploaded.

Source

Thrown at litellm/rag/ingestion/gemini_ingestion.py:277

            "x-goog-api-key": api_key,
        }

        verbose_logger.debug("Initiating resumable upload: %s", url)

        client: Final = get_async_httpx_client(
            llm_provider=httpxSpecialProvider.RAG,
            params={"timeout": 60.0},
        )
        response: Final = await client.post(
            url,
            json=request_body,
            headers=headers,
        )

        if response.status_code not in [200, 201]:
            error_msg: Final = f"Failed to initiate upload: {response.text}"
            verbose_logger.error(error_msg)
            raise Exception(error_msg)
        verbose_logger.debug("Initiate resumable upload response: %s", response.headers)
        # Extract upload URL from response headers
        upload_url: Final = response.headers.get("x-goog-upload-url")
        if not upload_url:
            raise Exception("No upload URL returned in response headers")

        verbose_logger.debug("Got upload URL: %s", upload_url)
        return upload_url

    async def _upload_file_content(
        self,
        upload_url: str,
        file_content: bytes,
    ) -> str:
        """
        Upload file content to the resumable upload URL.

        Returns:

View on GitHub (pinned to 77b7c6c40c)

Solutions

1. Check the response text for the API error and verify the file metadata and API key.

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at litellm/rag/ingestion/gemini_ingestion.py:277 when the library encounters an invalid state.

Common situations: See trigger scenarios.

AI-assisted analysis of BerriAI/litellm@77b7c6c40c (2026-08-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/2775d0425214ec40. Report an issue: GitHub.