BerriAI/litellm · error · ValueError

Multipart OCR request must include a 'file' field with the d

Error message

Multipart OCR request must include a 'file' field with the document to process

What it means

ValueError raised while parsing an OCR proxy request as multipart/form-data: the form parsed successfully but contains no 'file' field, so there is no document to OCR. Fires when the client uploads without naming the file part 'file'.

Source

Thrown at litellm/proxy/ocr_endpoints/endpoints.py:68

    Returns:
        A dict with 'document', 'model', and any other OCR params.
    """
    try:
        form: Final = await request.form()
    except Exception as e:
        raise ValueError(
            f"Failed to parse multipart form data: {e}. "
            "When using curl with --form/-F, do NOT set the Content-Type header "
            "manually — curl will set it automatically with the required boundary."
        )

    uploaded_file = form.get("file")
    # request.form() may return either a FastAPI or Starlette UploadFile
    # depending on middleware; check both via isinstance (FastAPI's UploadFile
    # is a subclass of Starlette's) and fall back to duck-type check.
    if uploaded_file is None or (not isinstance(uploaded_file, UploadFile) and not hasattr(uploaded_file, "read")):
        raise ValueError("Multipart OCR request must include a 'file' field with the document to process")

    uploaded_file = cast(UploadFile, uploaded_file)

    # Seek to start in case the file was already partially read by middleware
    await uploaded_file.seek(0)
    file_content: Final = await uploaded_file.read()
    if not file_content:
        raise ValueError("Uploaded file is empty")

    document: Final = _build_document_from_upload(
        file_content=file_content,
        filename=uploaded_file.filename,
        content_type=uploaded_file.content_type,
    )

    data: Final[dict[str, Any]] = {"document": document}

    for field_name, field_value in form.items():

View on GitHub (pinned to 77b7c6c40c)

Solutions

1. Include a 'file' field with the document in the multipart/form-data request.

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at litellm/proxy/ocr_endpoints/endpoints.py:68 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/1bc9fb37bf6fded6. Report an issue: GitHub.