BerriAI/litellm · error · Exception

Failed to list files in '{directory_path}': {e}

Error message

Failed to list files in '{directory_path}': {e}

What it means

Catch-all raised by GitLabClient.list_files when listing a directory via the repository tree API fails with any error other than 404 (returns []), 403, or 401. The underlying exception (httpx.HTTPStatusError, network failure, JSON decode error) is embedded in the message.

Source

Thrown at litellm/integrations/gitlab/gitlab_client.py:230

            files: Final[list[str]] = []
            for item in data:
                if item.get("type") == "blob":
                    file_path = item.get("path", "")
                    if not file_extension or file_path.endswith(file_extension):
                        files.append(file_path)
            return files

        except Exception as e:
            status: Final = getattr(getattr(e, "response", None), "status_code", None)
            if status == 404:
                return []
            if status == 403:
                raise Exception(
                    f"Access denied to directory '{directory_path}'. Check your GitLab permissions for project '{self.project}'."
                )
            if status == 401:
                raise Exception("Authentication failed. Check your GitLab token and auth_method.")
            raise Exception(f"Failed to list files in '{directory_path}': {e}")

    def get_repository_info(self) -> dict[str, Any]:
        """Get information about the project/repository."""
        url: Final = f"{self.base_url}/projects/{self._project_enc}"
        try:
            resp: Final = self.http_handler.get(url, headers=self.headers)
            resp.raise_for_status()
            return resp.json()
        except Exception as e:
            raise Exception(f"Failed to get repository info: {e}")

    def test_connection(self) -> bool:
        """Test the connection to the GitLab project."""
        try:
            self.get_repository_info()
            return True
        except Exception:
            return False

View on GitHub (pinned to 6c2dcb801b)

Solutions

1. Read the embedded {e} to get the exact status/error
2. For 5xx/timeout: check GitLab instance status and retry with backoff
3. Validate base_url format (e.g. https://gitlab.com/api/v4, no trailing slash issues)
4. For very large repos, list a narrower directory_path instead of recursive scans

try:
    files = client.list_files(directory)
except Exception as e:
    if "429" in str(e) or "5" in str(e):
        backoff_and_retry()
    else:
        raise

When it happens

Trigger: Calling list_files()/list_templates()/load_all_prompts() when GitLab returns 5xx or 429, the connection times out, pagination parameters are invalid, or the response body is not valid JSON (HTML error page from a misrouted base_url).

Common situations: Very large directories exceeding pagination limits handled incorrectly; self-hosted GitLab behind a load balancer returning 502; base_url including a trailing path that yields HTML; slow networks causing read timeouts during bulk prompt loading.

Related errors

• Failed to fetch file '{file_path}' via JSON endpoint: {e}
• Failed to get repository info: {e}
• Failed to get branches: {e}
• Failed to get file metadata for '{file_path}': {e}
• Error from qdrant checking if /collections exist {collection

AI-assisted analysis of BerriAI/litellm@6c2dcb801b (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/cfaebbc4d6dc32d9. Report an issue: GitHub.