Fosowl/agenticSeek · error · Exception

Provider {self.provider_name} failed: {str(e)}

Error message

Provider {self.provider_name} failed: {str(e)}

What it means

In Provider.respond (sources/llm_provider.py:99), any exception from a provider function that isn't a KeyboardInterrupt, ConnectionError, AttributeError, ModuleNotFoundError, and whose message contains neither 'try again later' nor 'refused', is re-raised as a generic Exception 'Provider <name> failed: <original message>'. It is a catch-all wrapper that preserves the underlying error text via 'from e'.

Source

Thrown at sources/llm_provider.py:99

        self.logger.info(f"Using provider: {self.provider_name} at {self.server_ip}")
        try:
            thought = llm(history, verbose)
        except KeyboardInterrupt:
            self.logger.warning("User interrupted the operation with Ctrl+C")
            return "Operation interrupted by user. REQUEST_EXIT"
        except ConnectionError as e:
            raise ConnectionError(f"{str(e)}\nConnection to {self.server_ip} failed.")
        except AttributeError as e:
            raise NotImplementedError(f"{str(e)}\nIs {self.provider_name} implemented ?")
        except ModuleNotFoundError as e:
            raise ModuleNotFoundError(
                f"{str(e)}\nA import related to provider {self.provider_name} was not found. Is it installed ?")
        except Exception as e:
            if "try again later" in str(e).lower():
                return f"{self.provider_name} server is overloaded. Please try again later."
            if "refused" in str(e):
                return f"Server {self.server_ip} seem offline. Unable to answer."
            raise Exception(f"Provider {self.provider_name} failed: {str(e)}") from e
        return thought

    def is_ip_online(self, address: str, timeout: int = 10) -> bool:
        """
        Check if an address is online by sending a ping request.
        """
        if not address:
            return False
        parsed = urlparse(address if address.startswith(('http://', 'https://')) else f'http://{address}')

        hostname = parsed.hostname or address
        if "127.0.0.1" in address or "localhost" in address:
            return True
        try:
            ip_address = socket.gethostbyname(hostname)
        except socket.gaierror:
            self.logger.error(f"Cannot resolve: {hostname}")
            return False

View on GitHub (pinned to ae57a23577)

Solutions

  1. Read the original message appended after 'Provider <name> failed:' — it contains the underlying provider error (status code, message).
  2. If it's a 401/403, fix the API key in the .env file (e.g. OPENAI_API_KEY) and restart.
  3. If it's a 404/400, verify the model name in config.ini is valid for that provider.
  4. If it's a 429/5xx, retry after a delay or switch provider; consider adding explicit handling in respond() for that error class.
  5. Enable verbose logging (provider.log) to capture the full traceback chain via the 'from e' cause.

Example fix

// before: opaque generic failure
// after: inspect the chained cause to branch precisely
try:
    res = provider.respond(history)
except Exception as e:
    cause = e.__cause__
    if cause and getattr(cause, 'status_code', None) == 401:
        fix_api_key()
    else:
        raise
Defensive patterns

Strategy: try-catch

Validate before calling

import os
from dotenv import load_dotenv

def preflight_provider(provider_name: str) -> list[str]:
    load_dotenv()
    problems = []
    key_var = f"{provider_name.upper()}_API_KEY"
    if not os.getenv(key_var):
        problems.append(f"{key_var} missing from .env")
    return problems

Type guard

def is_provider_error_with_status(e: BaseException, code: int) -> bool:
    status = getattr(e, 'status_code', None) or getattr(getattr(e, '__cause__', None), 'status_code', None)
    return status == code

Try / catch

try:
    res = provider.respond(history)
except Exception as e:
    cause = e.__cause__
    status = getattr(cause, 'status_code', None)
    if status == 401:
        print("Bad API key — fix .env")
    elif status == 429:
        time.sleep(30)  # retry later
    else:
        print(f"Provider failed: {e}")
        raise

Prevention

When it happens

Trigger: Any unclassified provider failure during respond(): HTTP 4xx/5xx errors from OpenAI/Anthropic/Google/Together/OpenRouter/MiniMax APIs, invalid API keys, malformed request payloads, timeouts wrapped as non-ConnectionError types, JSON decode errors, or custom exceptions from dsk_deepseek (CloudflareError, APIError).

Common situations: Expired or wrong API key causing a 401 from the provider; invalid model name for that provider; rate-limit payloads not matching the 'try again later' string; network middleware errors not classified as ConnectionError; provider returning an error object that the SDK raises as a generic exception.

Related errors

AI-assisted analysis of Fosowl/agenticSeek@ae57a23577 (2026-08-30). Data as JSON: /api/errors/6ce300abd9e21e6e. Report an issue: GitHub.