BerriAI/litellm · error · ValueError

OCR file input does not accept bare str values. Pass bytes,

Error message

OCR file input does not accept bare str values. Pass bytes, a pathlib.Path, or a file-like object. To OCR a local file from a path, call open(path, 'rb') yourself.

What it means

Security guard in the OCR file helper: file was supplied as a bare string. Because proxy request handlers pass user-controlled values, opening a str path would be an arbitrary-file-read/exfiltration primitive, so strings are refused and callers must pass bytes/Path/file objects themselves.

Source

Thrown at litellm/ocr/main.py:512

    file_input: Final = document.get("file")
    if file_input is None:
        raise ValueError(
            "document with type='file' must include a 'file' field containing "
            "a pathlib.Path, file-like object, or bytes"
        )

    file_bytes: bytes
    mime_type: str = "application/octet-stream"
    file_name: str | None = None

    if isinstance(file_input, str):
        # Bare strings are rejected here. The OCR ``document`` accepts a
        # ``{"type": "file", "file": <value>}`` shape, and when this helper
        # runs in a proxy request handler ``<value>`` is attacker-controlled.
        # Opening it as a path is an arbitrary local file read on the proxy
        # host, which is then base64-encoded and forwarded to the OCR
        # provider — an exfiltration primitive.
        raise ValueError(
            "OCR file input does not accept bare str values. Pass bytes, "
            "a pathlib.Path, or a file-like object. To OCR a local file "
            "from a path, call open(path, 'rb') yourself."
        )
    if isinstance(file_input, os.PathLike):
        # os.PathLike (pathlib.Path and custom __fspath__ classes) is a
        # Python-level type that HTTP form values can't fabricate.
        file_path: Final = str(file_input)
        if not os.path.isfile(file_path):
            raise FileNotFoundError(f"File not found: {file_path}")
        mime_type = get_mime_type(file_path)
        file_name = os.path.basename(file_path)
        with open(file_path, "rb") as f:
            file_bytes = f.read()
    elif isinstance(file_input, bytes):
        file_bytes = file_input
    elif isinstance(file_input, IOBase) or hasattr(file_input, "read"):
        if hasattr(file_input, "name"):

View on GitHub (pinned to 77b7c6c40c)

Solutions

1. Do not pass a raw path string; open the file yourself and pass bytes, a Path, or a file-like object.

Example fix

file=open('/path/to/file.pdf','rb')  # then pass this instead of '/path/to/file.pdf'

When it happens

Trigger: Thrown at litellm/ocr/main.py:512 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/4ed1f95c9fd47fae. Report an issue: GitHub.