Panniantong/Agent-Reach · error · TranscribeError

ffprobe failed while reading audio duration: {detail}

Error message

ffprobe failed while reading audio duration: {detail}

What it means

Raised by _probe_audio_duration() in agent_reach/transcribe.py when ffprobe exits non-zero while reading format duration. The first 300 characters of ffprobe's stderr become the message detail (or 'unknown ffprobe error' if stderr is empty), so the exact container/codec problem is surfaced — e.g. 'Invalid data found when processing input'.

Source

Thrown at agent_reach/transcribe.py:126

            cmd,
            capture_output=True,
            encoding="utf-8",
            errors="replace",
            timeout=FFPROBE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS,
        )
    except subprocess.TimeoutExpired:
        raise TranscribeError(
            "ffprobe timed out while reading audio duration "
            f"after {FFPROBE_TIMEOUT_SECONDS}s"
        ) from None
    except OSError as exc:
        raise TranscribeError(
            f"ffprobe could not read audio duration: {exc}"
        ) from exc

    if proc.returncode != 0:
        detail = proc.stderr.strip()[:300] or "unknown ffprobe error"
        raise TranscribeError(
            f"ffprobe failed while reading audio duration: {detail}"
        )

    raw_duration = proc.stdout.strip()
    try:
        duration = float(raw_duration)
    except (TypeError, ValueError):
        raise TranscribeError(
            "ffprobe could not parse a valid audio duration"
        ) from None
    if not math.isfinite(duration) or duration <= 0:
        raise TranscribeError(
            "ffprobe could not parse a valid positive audio duration"
        )
    return duration


def _require_duration_within_budget(path: Path) -> float:

View on GitHub (pinned to 93ae1d18c3)

Solutions

1. Read the stderr detail in the message — it names the real problem
2. Verify the file plays locally or re-obtain it from the source
3. Repair the container: ffmpeg -errdetect ignore_err -i in.file -c copy fixed.file

Example fix

# before
transcribe_audio(Path('video.mp4'))  # really an HTML error page

# after: validate the download first
assert data[:4] != b'<!DO', 'download failed'
transcribe_audio(Path('video.mp4'))

import subprocess
r = subprocess.run(['ffprobe', '-v', 'error', '-show_entries', 'format=duration', '-i', str(path)], capture_output=True, text=True)
if r.returncode != 0:
    raise ValueError(f'media unreadable by ffprobe: {r.stderr[:300]}')

def probeable_media(path) -> bool:
    r = subprocess.run(['ffprobe', '-v', 'error', '-show_entries', 'format=duration', '-i', str(path)], capture_output=True)
    return r.returncode == 0

from agent_reach.transcribe import TranscribeError
try:
    transcribe_audio(path)
except TranscribeError as e:
    if 'ffprobe failed' in str(e):
        repaired = remux(path)  # ffmpeg -c copy fallback
        transcribe_audio(repaired)
    else:
        raise

When it happens

Trigger: Passing a corrupt, truncated, or non-media file (renamed .mp3 with random bytes); unsupported containers; zero-byte files.

Common situations: Interrupted downloads; files that are actually HTML error pages saved with a media extension; DRM-protected media ffprobe cannot parse.

Related errors

• ffprobe could not parse a valid positive audio duration
• ffprobe timed out while reading audio duration after {FFPROB
• ffprobe could not parse a valid audio duration
• limit must be non-negative
• Missing value for {args.key}

AI-assisted analysis of Panniantong/Agent-Reach@93ae1d18c3 (2026-08-14). Data as JSON: /api/errors/551d49c14dce851b. Report an issue: GitHub.