What causes "raw_response.text (upstream DashScope error body)" in BerriAI/litellm?

Inspect the raw text in the exception message — it usually reveals the proxy/gateway source of the non-JSON body

BerriAI/litellm · error · DashScopeError

raw_response.text (upstream DashScope error body)

Error message

raw_response.text (upstream DashScope error body)

What it means

Raised when the DashScope rerank response body cannot be parsed as JSON. LiteLLM falls back to raising DashScopeError with the raw response text as the message and the HTTP status from the response, so the body (often an HTML error page or proxy message) appears in the exception text.

Source

Thrown at litellm/llms/dashscope/rerank/transformation.py:173

    def transform_rerank_response(
        self,
        model: str,
        raw_response: httpx.Response,
        model_response: RerankResponse,
        logging_obj: LiteLLMLoggingObj,
        api_key: str | None = None,
        request_data: dict | None = None,
        optional_params: dict | None = None,
        litellm_params: dict | None = None,
    ) -> RerankResponse:
        request_data = request_data or {}
        optional_params = optional_params or {}
        litellm_params = litellm_params or {}
        try:
            response_json: Final = raw_response.json()
        except Exception:
            raise DashScopeError(
                status_code=raw_response.status_code,
                message=raw_response.text,
            )

        logging_obj.post_call(
            input=request_data.get("query"),
            api_key=api_key,
            additional_args={"complete_input_dict": request_data},
            original_response=response_json,
        )

        # DashScope error envelope: {"code": "...", "message": "...", "request_id": "..."}
        if "code" in response_json and "results" not in response_json:
            raise DashScopeError(
                status_code=raw_response.status_code,
                message=response_json.get("message", str(response_json)),
            )

View on GitHub (pinned to 6c2dcb801b)

Solutions

Inspect the raw text in the exception message — it usually reveals the proxy/gateway source of the non-JSON body
Retry with backoff; transient gateway errors commonly resolve on retry
If a corporate proxy is in play, add an exception/bypass for the DashScope domain
Check Alibaba Cloud status page for ongoing DashScope incidents
Confirm you are using the correct endpoint (international vs China mainland base URL)

Defensive patterns

Strategy: retry

Try / catch

try:
    resp = litellm.rerank(model=m, query=q, documents=docs)
except Exception as e:
    if "<html" in str(e).lower() or "502" in str(e) or "504" in str(e):
        resp = backoff_retry(lambda: litellm.rerank(model=m, query=q, documents=docs))
    else:
        raise

Prevention

Wrap rerank calls with bounded exponential-backoff retry for gateway-class failures
Monitor for non-JSON bodies as a signal of proxy misconfiguration on the DashScope route

When it happens

Trigger: DashScope or an intermediate proxy/gateway returns a non-JSON body: HTML 502/504 from a gateway, a WAF block page, a plain-text overload message, or truncated response due to connection reset.

Common situations: Corporate proxies or self-managed gateways in front of dashscope.aliyuncs.com; transient CDN/gateway errors during Alibaba Cloud incidents; regional endpoint (dashscope-intl) routed through a filtering proxy.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of BerriAI/litellm@6c2dcb801b (2026-08-15). Data as JSON: /api/errors/9f9bdc5fbc08bcda. Report an issue: GitHub.