BerriAI/litellm · critical · Exception

No DB Connected. See - https://docs.litellm.ai/docs/proxy/vi

Error message

No DB Connected. See - https://docs.litellm.ai/docs/proxy/virtual_keys

What it means

Raised by get_team_object when a team row must be resolved but prisma_client is None. Team-scoped keys, team budgets and team model access all read LiteLLM_TeamTable, so any team_id on a key makes the database mandatory.

Source

Thrown at litellm/proxy/auth/auth_checks.py:2543

    team_id: str,
    prisma_client: PrismaClient | None,
    user_api_key_cache: UserApiKeyCache,
    parent_otel_span: Span | None = None,
    proxy_logging_obj: ProxyLogging | None = None,
    check_cache_only: bool | None = None,
    check_db_only: bool | None = None,
    team_id_upsert: bool | None = None,
) -> LiteLLM_TeamTableCachedObj:
    """
    - Check if team id in proxy Team Table
    - if valid, return LiteLLM_TeamTable object with defined limits
    - if not, then raise an error

    Raises:
        - HTTPException: If team doesn't exist in db or cache (status_code=404)
    """
    if prisma_client is None:
        raise Exception("No DB Connected. See - https://docs.litellm.ai/docs/proxy/virtual_keys")

    # check if in cache
    key: Final = f"team_id:{team_id}"

    if not check_db_only:
        cached_team_obj: Final = await _get_team_object_from_cache(
            key=key,
            proxy_logging_obj=proxy_logging_obj,
            user_api_key_cache=user_api_key_cache,
            parent_otel_span=parent_otel_span,
        )

        if cached_team_obj is not None:
            return cached_team_obj

        if check_cache_only:
            raise HTTPException(
                status_code=404,

View on GitHub (pinned to 77b7c6c40c)

Solutions

Set DATABASE_URL and restart so prisma_client is initialized
Run prisma migrations to create the team tables
If running DB-less intentionally, remove team_id from keys

Example fix

# before
litellm --config config.yaml  # teams configured, no DB

# after
DATABASE_URL="postgresql://user:pass@host:5432/litellm" litellm --config config.yaml

Defensive patterns

Strategy: validation

Validate before calling

# operator preflight: team-scoped keys require the DB
import os

if any(k.get("team_id") for k in keys) and not os.getenv("DATABASE_URL"):
    raise SystemExit("team-scoped keys require DATABASE_URL")

Try / catch

try:
    resp = client.chat.completions.create(**payload)
except Exception as e:
    if "No DB Connected" in str(e):
        raise RuntimeError("proxy misconfigured: DATABASE_URL missing") from e
    raise

Prevention

Any key with team_id implies a database is required - configure it at deploy time
Include DATABASE_URL in infrastructure templates and helm values by default
Validate prisma connectivity in a post-deploy health check

When it happens

Trigger: A key with a team_id authenticates while the proxy runs without DATABASE_URL; even cache-first paths raise here because the DB fallback is structurally unavailable.

Common situations: Teams/virtual-key features enabled on a deployment that never configured a database; DATABASE_URL dropped during a migration to a new orchestrator.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of BerriAI/litellm@77b7c6c40c (2026-08-18). Data as JSON: /api/errors/69a7ce30d64bc715. Report an issue: GitHub.